The Dogs of Boytown

"They're quail, aren't they?" asked Ernest, stroking one of them.

"Yep," said he, "Bob-Whites. They're runnin' pretty good this year, too."

Something in the man's friendly manner inspired a sort of boldness in young Jack.

"Don't you hate to shoot them?" he asked.

The man looked into Jack's frank brown eyes for a moment and then moved a little closer.

"Say," he said, "I'll tell you a secret. I s'pose I've shot more birds and rabbits than any man in this county, if I do say it, and I never bring down a partridge or kill a chicken that I don't feel sorry for it. I ain't never got over it and I guess I never shall. But it's the only thing old Sam Bumpus is good for, I reckon, and it has to be done. Folks has to eat and I have to make a livin'. I don't do it for fun, though I don't know any finer thing in this world than trampin' off 'cross country with a gun and a good dog on a fine mornin'. It's my business, you see."

"Gee!" exclaimed Ernest. "I'd like that business better than insurance, I guess. That's what my father is."

"Who is your father?" inquired Sam Bumpus. "You see I'm very partic'lar who I know."

"He's Mr. Whipple. We're Ernest and Jack Whipple."

"Oh, you live down on Washburn Street?"

Ernest nodded.

"Well, that's all right," said Sam. "I guess you'll pass."

He seemed in no great hurry to be getting on. Taking an old black pipe from his pocket he filled it from a greasy pouch and lighted it. He took a few reflective puffs before he spoke again.

"What do you know about dogs?" he asked, abruptly.

"Why – not very much, I guess," confessed Ernest.

"We like them, though," added Jack.

"Well, that's half the game," said Sam. "There's two kinds of people in this world, them that likes dogs and them that don't, and you can't never make one kind understand how the other kind feels about it. It just ain't possible. And if you don't like dogs you can't never know dogs, and if you don't know dogs you're missin' – well, I can't tell you how much."

"I've known Nan here," he continued, stroking the setter's head, while she looked up at him with adoration in her eyes, "I've known Nan for goin' on seven years, and I learn somethin' new about her every day. I raised her from a puppy, broke her to birds, and lived with her summer and winter, and I tell you I never seen a man or a woman that knows any more than what she does or one that I could trust so far. That's the thing about a dog; you can trust 'em. There's bad dogs and good dogs, and no two is just alike, but if you once get a good one, hang onto him, for you'll never find another friend that'll stick to you like him."

The man seemed so much in earnest that the boys remained silent for a time. Then Jack asked, "Can she do tricks?"

"If you mean sit up and roll over and play dead, no," said Sam. "I don't believe in spoilin' a good bird dog by teachin' 'em things that don't do 'em no good. But what she don't know about huntin' ain't worth knowin'. It positively ain't."

For half an hour more Sam Bumpus told the boys of various incidents that proved the sagacity of Nan and the other dogs he had owned. He told how once, when a burning log rolled from his fireplace in the night and set his little house on fire, a pointer named Roger had seen the flames through the window, had broken his collar, plunged through the mosquito netting across the window, and had wakened his master by pulling off the bedclothes and barking.

"If that dog hadn't known how to think and plan, I wouldn't be here to-day talkin' to you boys."

Suddenly he jumped to his feet.

"That reminds me," said he. "I've been sittin' talkin' here too long. I've got to be about my business and your folks'll wonder why you don't come home to dinner. Come, Nan, old girl."

The setter sprang up, yawned, and then stood ready for the next command. Both boys patted her and then held out their hands to Sam.

"I hope we'll see you again sometime," said Ernest. "We like to hear you tell about your dogs."

The man's tanned face seemed to soften a little as he shook hands with the boys.

"Well," said he, "I guess you can see me if you want to. My social engagements ain't very pressin' just now. I ain't got one of my business cards with me, but you can just call anywhere in these woods and ask for Sam Bumpus. The dogs'll know me if the men don't. So long, boys," and he strode off down the bank with Nan dashing joyously ahead.

"Good-by, Mr. Bumpus," called Ernest and Jack.

He paused in the act of leaping the brook and looked around, with the twinkle in his eyes.

"Say," he called back, "if I ever hear you call me that again I'll set the dog on you. My name's Sam, d'ye hear?" Then he slipped in among the underbrush and was gone.

Talking animatedly about their new acquaintance and about dogs, the two boys hastened to lock up their treasure chest and depart.

"Say, Ernest," said Jack, as they started off through the woods with their bags of chestnuts over their shoulders, "the Cave is a great place for adventures, isn't it?"

That evening, as the family were gathered in the living-room on Washburn Street, and Mrs. Whipple was trying to repair the damage that chestnutting had wrought in a pair of Ernest's stockings, the boys asked their father if he knew Sam Bumpus.

"Bumpus?" he asked. "Oh, yes, he's that queer fellow that lives all alone in a shack in the woods off on the Oakdale Road. An odd character, I guess, from all I hear, but they say he's a wonderful shot and people take their bird dogs to him to be broken. How did you hear about him?"

The boys told their story, and then Ernest asked wistfully, "Papa, when can we have a dog?"

"When your mother says you can," replied Mr. Whipple, with a smile.

Sorrowfully the boys went off to bed, well knowing what that meant. For Mrs. Whipple was one of the people that Sam Bumpus had spoken of – the kind that don't like dogs.

CHAPTER II,

SAM'S SHACK

The next Saturday was gray and chilly, but the weather did not deter Ernest and Jack Whipple from starting off early for the woods. They carried their chestnut bags as a matter of course, but this time the chestnut trees offered them very little enticement. The ones they knew best had already been robbed of their nuts, and they soon wearied of a somewhat profitless search. It was Jack who voiced what was in the minds of both boys.

"I wish we could run across Sam Bumpus again," he said.

Sam had said they could find him in the woods, but the woods had never seemed so extensive and it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. They arrived at Beaver Pond and the Trapper's Cave without encountering any sign of the man and his dog.

Chiefly as a matter of habit they built a small fire in front of the Cave and sat down beside it on their log seat to consider the problem of finding an elusive hunter in the wide woods. They did not even open the treasure chest.

"He said anybody could tell us where to find him," said Jack, "but there's no one to ask. People don't live in the woods, do they?"

Ernest sat pondering. "Well," said he at length, "there's that old woman that gave us the doughnuts one day. Do you remember? She had a lot of white hens that went right into her house, and a little dog named Snider that was so old he could hardly breathe."

"Oh, yes," responded Jack, brightening up. "Where does she live?"

"I don't know exactly," said Ernest, mournfully, "but I think it was over that way. We might find her if we hunted."

The boys arose, put out their fire carefully, as all good woodsmen should, and started off through the woods again. They must have tramped for nearly an hour, but the very uncertainty of the outcome of their quest gave it a touch of adventure and kept them going. At last, after following various false clues, they came out unexpectedly and abruptly into the clearing behind the old woman's house. The cackling of fowls and the wheezy barking of little old Snider greeted them. As they approached, the old lady herself appeared in the doorway of her kitchen, clad in a faded blue dress and leaning on her stick. As soon as she saw that it was boys her face broke into a smile.

"Come right in," she said, "and I'll get you some cookies."