Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: August 1, 2024
And Comet and Peerless II were speeding away across that field, and behind them came handlers, and judges and spectators, all mounted. It was a race people still talk about, and for a reason, for strange things happened that day. At first there was nothing unusual. It was like any other field trial. Comet found birds, and Swygert, his handler, flushed them and shot. Comet remained steady.
He would have thought it some other dog than the one who had disappointed him so by turning out gun-shy, in spite of all his efforts to prevent, had it not been for the fact that the entry was booked as Comet; owner, Miss Marian Devant; handler, Wade Swygert.
It was a load big enough to kill a bear, to bring down a buffalo. It was a load that would echo and reëcho in the hills. On the morning that Larsen walked out in front of the judges and the field, Peerless II at the leash, old Swygert with Comet at his side, he glanced around at the "field," or spectators. Among them was a handsome young woman and with her, to his amazement, George Devant.
He tried to rush out of the room, but the doors were closed. Finally, he crawled under the bed. Every night after that Swygert got out the gun, until he crawled under the bed no more. Finally, one day the man fastened the dog to a tree in the yard, then came out with a gun. A sparrow lit in a tree, and he shot it. Comet tried to break the rope.
If any one had looked at Larsen's face he would have seen the exultation there, for now his chance had come the very chance he had been looking for. It's a courtesy one handler sometimes extends another who is absent from the spot, to go in and flush his dog's birds. "I'll handle this covey for Mr. Swygert," said Larsen to the judges, his voice smooth and plausible, on his face a smile.
His face was lined, his hair white, his eyes piercing, blue, and kind. Wade Swygert was his name. "I'll take him if you're goin' to give him away," he said to Thompson. Give him away who had been championship hope! Marian Devant hurried out. She looked into the visitor's face shrewdly, appraisingly. "Can you cure him?" she demanded. "I doubt it," was the sturdy answer. "You will try?" "I'll try."
His efforts to clamber up the opposite bank were feeble, frantic. Yet, each time as he drew near the shore Swygert fired. He was not using light loads now. He was using the regular load of the bird hunter. Time had passed for temporizing. The sweat was standing out all over his face. The sternness in his eyes was terrible to see, for it was the sternness of a man who is suffering.
It would not hurt him, that he knew at last. He might have many enemies, but the gun, in the hands of this man, was not one of them. Suddenly old Swygert sank down and took the dripping dog in his arms. "Old boy," he said, "old boy." That night Comet lay before the fire, and looked straight into the eyes of a man, as he used to look in the old days.
Swygert, at her husband's direction, placed before him, within reach of his chain, some raw beefsteak. As he started for it, Swygert shot. He drew back, panting, then, hunger getting the better of him, started again. Again Swygert shot. After that for days Comet "ate to music," as Swygert expressed it. "Now," he said, "he's got to come toward the gun when he's not even tied up."
The man he feared was running across the field yonder, in the direction taken by the judge. He was blowing his whistle as he ran. Through the crowd, his face terrible to see, his own master was coming. Both the old man and the girl had dismounted now and were running toward him. "I heard," old Swygert was saying to her. "I heard it! I might 'a' known! I might 'a' known!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking