It was all a dream--a wonder dream from which presently he must awaken. Link was certain of that. But while the golden dream lasted, he knew the nameless joys of paradise.
Chum close at his side, he made his way through the congratulating crowd toward the outer gate of the country club grounds. He had almost reached the wicket when someone touched him, with unnecessary firmness, on the shoulder.
Not relishing the familiarity, Link turned a scowling visage on the interrupter of his triumphal homeward progress. At his elbow stood a stockily-built man, dressed with severe plainness.
"You're Lincoln Ferris?" queried the stranger, more as if stating aggressively a fact than making an inquiry.
"Yep," said Link, cross at this annoying break-in upon his trance of happiness. "What d'j' want?" he added.
"Please step back to the clubhouse a minute with me," returned the stranger, civilly enough, but with the same bossy firmness in his tone that had jarred Ferris in his touch. "One or two people want to speak to you. Bring along your dog."Link glowered. He fancied he knew what was in store. Some of the ultra select had gathered in the holy interior of the clubhouse and wanted a private view of Chum, unsullied by the noisy presence of the crowd outside. They would talk patronizingly to Link, and perhaps even try to coax him into selling Chum. The thought decided Ferris.
"I'm goin' home!" he said roughly.
"You're coming with me," contradicted the man in that same quiet voice, but slipping his muscular arm into Link's.
With his other hand he shifted the lapel of his coat, displaying a police badge on its reverse. Still avoiding any outward appearance of force, he turned about, with his arm locked in Ferris's and started toward the clubhouse.
"Here!" expostulated poor Link, with all a true mountaineer's horror of the police. "What's all this? I ain't broke no law!
I--"
An ugly growl from Chum punctuated his scared plea. Noting the terror in his master's tone and the grip of the stranger on Link's arm, Chum had spun round to face the two.
The collie's eyes were fixed grimly upon the plainclothes man's temptingly thick throat. One corner of Chum's upper lip was curled back, displaying a businesslike if snowy fang. His head was lowered. Deep in his furry throat a succession of legato growls were born.
The plain-clothes man knew much about dogs. He knew, for example, that when a dog holds his head high and barks there is no special danger to be feared from him. But he also knew that when a dog lowers his head and growls, showing his eyetooth, he means business.
And the man shrank from the menace. One hand crept back instinctively toward his hip pocket.
Link saw the purely involuntary gesture, and he shook in his boots. It was thus a Hampton constable had once reached back when a stray cur snapped at him. And that constable had completed the movement by drawing a pistol and shooting the cur. Perhaps this non-uniformed stranger meant to do the same thing.
"Hold on!" begged Link, intervening between the man and the dog.
"I'll go along with you peaceful. Quit, Chum! It's all right!"The dog still looked undecided. He did not like this new note in his god's voice. But he obeyed the injunction, and fell into step at Link's side as usual. Ferris suffered himself to be piloted, unresisting, through the tattered remnant of the crowd and up the clubhouse steps.
There his conductor led him through the sacred portals and down a wide hallway to the door of a committee room. Throwing open the door, he ushered in his captive and the dog, entering behind them and reclosing the heavy door.
In the room, round a table, sat several persons--all men except one. The exception was the girl whose collie had had the bench next to Chum's. At the table head, looking very magisterial indeed, sat Colonel Marden. Beside him lounged a larger and older man in a plaid sport suit.
Link's escort ranged his prisoners at the foot of the table; Chum standing tight against Ferris's knee, as if to guard him from possible harm. Link stood glowering in sullen perplexity at the Colonel. Marden cleared his voice pompously, then spoke.
"Ferris," he began with much impressiveness, "I am a magistrate of this county --as you perhaps know. You may consider yourself before the Bar of Justice, and reply to my questions accordingly."Awed by this thundered preamble, Ferris made shift to mutter:
"I ain't broke no laws. What d'j' want of me, anyhow?""First of all," proceeded Marden, "where did you get that dog?""Chum here?" said Ferris. "Why, I come acrost him, early last spring, on the patch of state road, jes' outside of Hampton. He was a-layin' in a ditch, with his leg bust. Throwed off'n a auto, I figgered it. I took him home an'--"He paused, as the sport-suited man next to Marden nodded excitedly to the girl and then whispered to the Colonel.
"You took him home?" pursued Marden. "Couldn't you see he was a valuable dog?""I c'd see he was a sufferin' an' dyin' dawg," retorted Link. "Ic'd see he was a goner, 'less I took him home an' 'tended him. If you're aimin' at findin' out why I went on keepin' him after that, I done so because no one claimed him. I put up notices 'bout him. I put one up at the post-office here, too. I--""He did!" interrupted the girl. "That's true! I saw it. Only--the notice said it was a bird dog. That's why we didn't follow it up.
He--"
