TRADING JEFF AND HIS DOG

BY JIM KJELGAARD

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, NEW YORK, 1956
© 1956 by Jim Kjelgaard

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56-5246
Printed in the United States of America

For
Margaret Mary, John, Jim, Frank, and Barbara Dresen

CONTENTS

The characters, incidents and situations in this book are imaginary and have no relation to any person or actual happening.

1. THE MEETING

When the dog came to the weed-grown border of the clearing, he stopped. Then, knowing that his back could be seen over the weeds, he slunk down so that his belly scraped the earth. He was tense and quivering, and his eyes bore a haunted look. But there was nothing craven in them and little fear. In all his life the dog had never feared anything except the terrible torment that beset him now.

He was of no recognizable breed, though all of his ancestors had been large dogs. There was a hint of staghound in his massive head and in his carriage, and somewhere along the way he had acquired a trace of Great Dane. His fur was silky, like a collie's, and there was a suggestion of bloodhound in his somewhat flabby jowls. Without purpose or plan, the blood of all these breeds had mingled to produce this big mongrel.

He was so emaciated that slatted ribs showed even through his burr-matted fur. Had he eaten as much as he wanted, he would have weighed about a hundred and ten pounds, but he had had so little food recently that he was fifteen pounds lighter. Intelligence glowed in his eyes. But there was also something in them that verged on desperation.

He moved only his head and moved that slowly. This dog knew too much, and had suffered too much, to let himself be seen until he had some idea of what he was about. He was looking toward a big white farmhouse that was surrounded by a grove of apple trees. A thin plume of blue smoke rose from the chimney, and a pile of freshly-split wood lay in the yard. Busy white hens wandered about. White and black cows and two brown horses cropped grass in a pasture. Pigs grunted in their pen and a black cat sunned itself on the door step.

The dog's attention returned to the man who was splitting more wood. He was thin, dressed in faded blue jeans and a tan shirt, and the blows of his axe echoed dully from the hills surrounding the farm house. He worked slowly and methodically. The dog drank eagerly of his scent, although he did not leave his cover, for behind him there was only a trail of torment, abuse and real danger. He had been wandering for two months and his path was a long one, but because it was also a twisted one it had not taken him too far from the place he had left. He had been in villages and towns, through farm lands and forest, and wherever he met men he had been stoned or clubbed. Three times—twice by farmers and once by a policeman—he had been shot at.

The dog could not know that this was partly because of his appearance and size. He was big and he looked wild. Had he cared to do so, he could have killed a man. But what none of his tormentors could know was that, though the dog feared little, he was almost incapable of attacking a human being. What nobody could know either was that, most of all, the dog was in desperate need of someone to love.

Until two months ago, everything had been different. When the dog came to live with Johnny Blazer, in the hills behind Smithville, he was so young that it always seemed he must have begun life with Johnny. It was a good life and he had never wanted any other.

Johnny's cabin was big, with a kitchen and combined living-dining room on the first floor and the entire second floor given over to many bunks. It was necessary to have a big cabin because, in season, Johnny both guided and boarded hunters and fishermen. During the winter, he trapped furs, and when there was nothing else to do he worked at odd jobs or searched out and sold medicinal roots which he found in the hills. A lean, tight-jawed woodsman in his late thirties, Johnny had been the dog's revered master.

Because he was a dog, and thus incapable of grasping the more complex facts, the great animal did not understand that life was not the wholly carefree and happy one it seemed. He could sense that Johnny avoided the Whitneys, who—at various places in the hills—lived much as Johnny did. Because they were Johnny's enemies, it followed that the Whitneys must be the dog's enemies too. But he had never understood what took place.

Johnny and the dog were strolling toward Smithville when a rifle cracked and Johnny took three staggering steps to fall forward. While the dog hovered anxiously near, his master tried and failed to get up. The dog knew that the scent of Pete Whitney filled the air, but there was no connection between Pete and the fact that Johnny Blazer lay wounded