That was the last that judge or jury ever saw of dog or cow. The prize was awarded to the only other entry.
III
Bingo’s loyalty to the horses was quite remarkable; by day he trotted beside them, and by night he slept at the stable door. Where the team went Bingo went, and nothing kept him away from them. This interesting assumption of ownership lent the greater significance to the following circumstance.
I was not superstitious, and up to this time had had no faith in omens, but was now deeply impressed by a strange occurrence in which Bingo took a leading part. There were but two of us now living on the De Winton Farm. One morning my brother set out for Boggy Creek for a load of hay. It was a long day’s journey there and back, and he made an early start. Strange to tell, Bingo for once in his life did not follow the team. My brother called to him, but still he stood at a safe distance, and eyeing the team askance, refused to stir. Suddenly he raised his nose in the air and gave vent to a long, melancholy howl. He watched the wagon out of sight, and even followed for a hundred yards or so, raising his voice from time to time in the most doleful howlings.
All that day he stayed about the barn, the only time that he was willingly separated from the horses, and at intervals howled a very death dirge. I was alone, and the dog’s behavior inspired me with an awful foreboding of calamity, that weighed upon us more and more as the hours passed away.
About six o’clock Bingo’s howlings became unbearable, so that for lack of a better thought I threw something at him, and ordered him away. But oh, the feeling of horror that filled me! Why did I let my brother go away alone? Should I ever again see him alive? I might have known from the dog’s actions that something dreadful was about to happen.
At length the hour for his return arrived, and there was John on his load. I took charge of the horses, vastly relieved, and with an air of assumed unconcern, asked, “All right?”
“Right,” was the laconic answer.
Who now can say that there is nothing in omens?
And yet when, long afterward, I told this to one skilled in the occult, he looked grave, and said, “Bingo always turned to you in a crisis?”
“Yes.”
“Then do not smile. It was you that were in danger that day; he stayed and saved your life, though you never knew from what.”
IV
Early in the spring I had begun Bingo’s education. Very shortly afterward he began mine.
Midway on the two-mile stretch of prairie that lay between our shanty and the village of Carberry, was the corner-stake of the farm; it was a stout post in a low mound of earth, and was visible from afar.
I soon noticed that Bingo never passed without minutely examining this mysterious post. Next I learned that it was also visited by the prairie wolves as well as by all the dogs in the neighborhood, and at length, with the aid of a telescope, I made a number of observations that helped me to an understanding of the matter and enabled me to enter more fully into Bingo’s private life.
The post was by common agreement a registry of the canine tribes. Their exquisite sense of smell enabled each individual to tell at once by the track and trace what other had recently been at the post. When the snow came much more was revealed. I then discovered that this post was but one of a system that covered the country; that, in short, the entire region was laid out in signal stations at convenient intervals. These were marked by any conspicuous post, stone, buffalo skull, or other object that chanced to be in the desired locality, and extensive observation showed that it was a very complete system for getting and giving the news.
Each dog or wolf makes a point of calling at those stations that are near his line of travel to learn who has recently been there, just as a man calls at his club on returning to town and looks up the register.
I have seen Bingo approach the post, sniff, examine the ground about, then growl, and with bristling mane and glowing eyes, scratch fiercely and contemptuously with his hind feet, finally walking off very stiffly, glancing back from time to time. All of which, being interpreted, said:
“Grrrh! woof! there’s that dirty cur of McCarthy’s. Woof! I’ll ’tend to him tonight. Woof! woof!” On another occasion, after the preliminaries, he became keenly interested and studied a coyote’s track that came and went, saying to himself, as I afterward learned:
“A coyote track coming from the north, smelling of dead cow. Indeed? Pollworth’s old Brindle must be dead at last. This is worth looking into.”
At other times he would wag his tail, trot about the vicinity and come again and again to make his own visit more evident, perhaps for the benefit of his brother Bill just back from Brandon! So that it was not by chance that one night Bill turned up at Bingo’s home and was taken to the hills, where a delicious dead horse afforded a chance to suitably celebrate the reunion.
At other times he would be suddenly aroused by the news, take up the trail, and race to the next station for later information.
Sometimes his inspection produced only an air of grave attention, as though
