Treve

Albert Payson Terhune

Description

Terhune penned many books about the dogs he kept and trained on the Sunnybank estate throughout the 1920s and 30s.
When Terhune found Treve at a dog show he was looking for a new stud to put his collies in the hunt for championships.
Terhune bought him and brought him home and found him to be slightly peculiar. Treve would try to be mean and fierce but his lovable, kind gentle nature always won out.
This early work by Albert Payson Terhune was originally published in 1924, we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography.

Sujets

• Animals
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473393363
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
Treve
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune was born on 21 st December 1872, in New Jersey, United States. Terhune s father was the Reverend Edward Payson Terhune and his mother, Mary Virginia Hawes, was a writer of household management books and pre-Civil War novels under the name Marion Harland. He was one of six children, having four sisters and one brother, but only two of his sisters survived until adulthood. Further tragedy beset the family when his own wife, Lorraine Bryson Terhune, died four days after giving birth to their only child. He later remarried Anice Terhune, but had no more children.
Terhune received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1893. The following year, he took a job as a reporter at the New York newspaper The Evening World , a position he held for the next twenty years. During this period, he began to publish works of fiction, such as Dr. Dale: A Story Without A Moral (1900), The New Mayor (1907), Caleb Conover, Railroader (1907), and The Fighter (1909). However, it was his short stories about his collie Lad, published in Red Book, Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, Hartford Courant , and the Atlantic Monthly , that brought him mainstream success. A dozen of these tales were collected in to novel form and released as Lad: A Dog in 1919. This was a best-seller and in 1962 was adapted into a feature film. He went on to produce over thirty novels focussing on the lives of dogs and enjoyed much success in the genre.
Terhune s interest in canines was by no means restricted to fiction. He became a celebrated dog-breeder, specialising in rough collies, lines of which still exist in the breed today. Sunnybank kennels were the most famous collie kennels in the United States and the estate is now open to the public and known as Terhune Memorial Park. Terhune died on 18 th February 1942 and was buried at the Pompton Reformed Church in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey.
My book is dedicated to E LLEN C OMLY Treve s friend and mine
CONTENTS

I.
The Coming of Treve
II.
Thirst!
III.
Marooned
IV.
The Killer
V.
A Secret Adventure
VI.
Deserted
VII.
Theft and Untheft
VIII.
In the Hands of the Enemy
IX.
His Mate
X.
The Rustlers
XI.
The Parting of the Ways
XII.
Afterword
Treve
CHAPTER I: THE COMING OF TREVE
THE rickety and rackety train was droning along over the desert miles-miles split and sprinkled by cheerless semi-arid foothills. At dusk it had shrieked and groaned its way over a divide and slid clatteringly down the far side amid a screech of brakes.
Out into the desert-like plain with the scatter of less dead foothills it had emerged in early evening. Now, as midnight drew on, the desert ground-with its strewing of exquisite wild flowers here and there among the sick sage brush and crippled Joshua trees-took a less desolate aspect; though it was too dark a night for the few waking passengers to note this.
The Dos Hermanos River lay a few miles ahead-many more miles on the hither side of the Dos Hermanos mountain range. The half-fertile land of the river valley was merging with the enroach of the desert.
Fraser Colt got to his feet in the rank-atmosphered smoking section of the way-train s one Pullman; hooked a fat finger at the porter to find if his berth had been made up; then loafed through to the baggage car for a last inspection of his collie pup, before turning in.
Now it is a creditable thing for a man to assure himself of his dog s comfort for the night. Often it bespeaks more or less heart. But, in the case of Fraser Colt it did nothing of the sort; nor was it creditable to anything but his interest in his dog s money value.
As to heart, Fraser Colt had one;-a serviceable and well-appointed heart. It pumped blood through his plump body. Apart from that function, it did no work at all. Or if it beat tenderly toward any living thing, that living thing was Fraser Colt alone.
Into the ill-lit baggage car he made his way. There were not less than ten occupants of the car. Two of them were normal humans. The third was Fraser Colt. The remaining seven were dogs.
This was by no means the only westbound train, of long or short run, to carry dogs, that night. For at eleven o clock on the morrow the annual show of the Dos Hermanos Kennel Club was to open. Exhibitors, for two hundred miles, were bringing the best in their kennels to it.
Seven crates were lined up, along the walls of the baggage car, when Colt slouched in. The baggageman was drowsing in his tiptilted greasy chair. In a far corner sat an oldish kennelman who had just taken from a crate a police dog, which he was grooming. Because the night was stiflingly hot, the car s side door was rolled halfway open to let in a sluice of dust-filled cooler air.
Fraser Colt went over to a crate, unlocked and opened its slatted door and snapped his fingers. At the summons-indeed, as soon as the door was opened wide enough for him to wriggle through-a dog danced out onto the dirty floor.
Then, for an instant, the newly released prisoner halted and glanced up at the man who had let him out. The wavery light revealed him as a well-grown collie pup, about eight months old. Golden-tawny was his heavy coat and snowy were his ruff and frill and paws. He had about him the indefinable air that distinguishes a great dog from a merely good dog-even as a beautiful woman is distinguished from a merely pretty woman.
His deepset dark eyes had the true look of eagles, young as he was. His head and fore-face were chiseled in strong classic lines. His small ears had the perfect tulip dip to them, without which no show-collie can hope to excel. But, though three show-collies out of five need to have their ears weighted or otherwise treated, to attain this correct bend of the tips, here was a pup whose ear-carriage was as natural as it was perfect.
You will visit many a fairly good dogshow, before you find an eight-month pup-or grown collie, for that matter-with the points and classic beauty and indefinable air of greatness possessed by the youngster that was now returning Fraser Colt s appraising gaze.
There was no love in the pup s upturned glance, as he viewed his owner;-although, normally, a pup of that age regards the whole world as his friend, and lavishes enthusiastic affection on the man who owns him.
This pup was eyeing Colt with no fear, but with no favor. His look was doubting, uncertain, almost hostile. But Colt did not heed this. His expert eye was interested in scanning only the young collie s perfection, from a show-point. And he was well satisfied.
He had paid a low price for this collie; buying him at his breeder s ill-attended forced sale, three weeks earlier. Colt was a dog-man; but that does not mean he was a dog fancier. To him, a dog was a mere source of revenue. He had foreseen grand possibilities in the pup.
He had entered him in three classes, for the Dos Hermanos show; whither now he was taking him. This he had not done through any shred of sportsmanship; but because he knew the type of folk who visit such western shows.
He was certain of carrying the pup triumphantly through his various classes and of annexing several goodly cash specials. For there were, and are, few high class show-collies in the Dos Hermanos region; though there are scores of wide-headed and splay-footed sheep-tending collies scattered among the ranches there.
Fraser Colt knew that rich ranchmen and others of their sort would be glad to pay a fancy price for such a pup; especially after he should have won a few blue ribbons under their very eyes. There were certain to be fat offers for the puppy, at the show; and the fattest of these Colt was planning to take.
Thus it was that he had come for a last look at the youngster before going to bed. He wanted to make sure the pup was comfortable enough, to-night, not to look jaded or dull in the ring, to-morrow.
He stooped and ran a rough hand over the golden-tawny coat; not in affection, but in appraisal. The puppy drew back from his touch; in distaste rather than in fear. Then the deep-set dark eyes caught sight of the police dog in the far corner.
Perhaps in play, perhaps in lonely craving for friendliness, the collie scampered gayly across to the larger dog.
The latter was submitting in dumb surliness to his handler s grooming. The big police dog had not relished being yanked from his crate, late at night, for brushing and rubbing. Indeed, he had not relished any part of the joltingly noisy ride. He was not in the sunniest of tempers.
Over to him scampered the friendly collie pup. As he came within a foot or so of his destination, the car gave a drunken lurch, in rounding a bend of the track. The capering puppy was thrown off his unaccustomed car-balance. He collided sharply with the police dog.
The impact set the larger dog s ruffled temper ablaze. With a roar, he hurled himself bodily upon the unsuspecting collie stripling.
Now a collie comes of a breed that is never taken wholly by surprise. Even as the big dog lunged, the pup recoiled from the onslaught, at the same time bracing himself on the swaying floor of the car. He recoiled; but not far enough.
The larger dog s ravening teeth missed their mark at the base of the spine; but they seized the puppy s left ear; biting it through. At the same time the police dog shook the dumbfounded pup savagely from side to side.
Before the puppy could make any effort to defend himself, the handler and Fraser Colt had rushed into the fray. The police dog was hauled back, snapping and snarling. Colt s rough hand restrained the collie from doing anything in the way of reprisal. The very b