Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 “What pup?” he demanded. “Pup by the name of Grip, a white, short-haired“dawg that aims to be a fighter.”’ ‘* Where’d he get it?” Aleck grinned. “ Why don’t you ask him?” he suggested. Old Man Parmelee turned to the door- way and saw David standing there. As Aleck spoke, the boy placed the puppy on the ground and it scampered clumsily for- ward. CHAPTER V., UNAFRAID, * HERE’D you get it?” Parmelee snapped out his order without pretense of geniality, and the boy replied with an even serenity which ir- ritated the man by its suggestion of tolera- tion. ‘““A girl in a wagon,” David replied. “She came up to the go-devil by the creek. Wanted water for the pups.” “Girl?” Parmelee instantly became the alert man of affairs. ‘“ Who is she?” “T don’t know.” “What was the brand on her horses?” * Monkey-wrench.”’ “Humph.” It was an inarticulate dis- missal of a problem solved. “ What you goin’ to name him?” <riD,” “Why Grip?” “Cause he can hold on. He’s an English bull terrier. ‘They never let go.” Parmelee turned his attention to the dog, examining it critically. The little animal came and stumbled about at his feet. He leaned down and tumbled it over roughly. “Shore enough,” he addressed Aleck rather than the boy. “ It’s a fightin’ terrier pup. Had one myself once.” He turned suddenly to his son. “David,” he said, “ you got to cut its tail and trim its ears.” The boy looked at him incredulously. “Trim his ears?” he cried. Parmelee had made the statement quite casually, but at the sight of his son’s face the question seemed to become one of great significance. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, “Shore,” he cried impatienly. “ Trim his ears. There ain’t nobody has a long- tailed, flop-eared bull terrier. You cut ’em off.” A quick frown ruffled the boy’s smooth brown as a sudden wind disturbs the sur- face of a lake. “Not this dog,” he said quietly. The effect of his words upon the old man created a sudden black calm. There came into Parmelee’s face something of the menace that precedes a storm on the high seas. The irritation with which he had replied to the boy’s questioning left his voice to give place to a metallic harshness which, out of a perfect restraint, bespoke an unfathom- able anger. “Take that pup out to the barn and cut off its tail an’ trim its ears!” he said. “It’s my pup!” the boy announced quickly. His brow was unruffied now, and his face in the-shadow appeared calm as the face of a thinking child. Only his dark eyes seemed to catch something of the sun outside and give that something back in a fire that blazed steadily. “You do it with a knife, like you mark a calf,” continued Parmelee’s harsh voice. ** For his tail you can use the shears.” “No,” said the boy. That was all, but he spoke with a peculiar distinctness. A silence followed for a space. Parmelee pressed himself back into his chair, his hands rigid on the arms of it. David stood a few steps from the doorway, having the appearance of slim youth against the pic- ture of his father’s broken age. Aleck Sheffield, watching them, could not rid his mind of the obsession that this trivial incident was somehow vastly significant, and he knew then that it had been ap- proaching through years of misunderstand- ing; that David, standing there in the door- way, was a creature who did not belong in his father’s world. Furthermore, Aleck knew that the peculiar love, bound up in the loyalty of a: blind devotion which he bore this boy, was derived from that singu- lar effect of difference which the boy bore to his environment. A boy of the range would have stood just as David stood before a command which he would not obey, but he would never have (©) COPNICLOOKS