Chapter I: Foreword

A swirl of gold-and-white and gray and black,--
Rackety, vibrant, glad with life’s hot zest,--
Sunnybank collies, gaily surging pack,--
These are my chums; the chums that love me best.

Not chums alone, but courtiers, zealots, too,--
Clean-white of soul, too wise for fraud or sham;
Yet senseless in their worship ever new.
These are the friendly folk whose god I am.

A blatant, foolish, stumbling, purblind god,--
A pinchbeck idol, clogged with feet of clay!
Yet, eager at my lightest word or nod,
They crave but leave to follow and obey.

We humans are so slow to understand!
Swift in our wrath, deaf to the justice-plea,
Meting out punishment with lavish hand!
What, but a dog, would serve such gods as we?

Heaven gave them souls, I’m sure; but dulled the brain,
Lest they should sadden at so brief a span
Of heedless, honest life as they sustain;
Or doubt the godhead of their master, Man.

Today a pup; to-morrow at life’s prime;
Then old and fragile;--dead at fourteen years.
At best a meagre little inch of time.
Oblivion then, sans mourners, memories, tears!

Service that asks no price; forgiveness free
For injury or for injustice hard.
Stanch friendship, wanting neither thanks nor fee
Save privilege to worship and to guard:--

That is their creed. They know no shrewder way
To travel through their hour of lifetime here.
Would Man but deign to serve his God as they,
Millennium must dawn within the year.

CONTENTS

PAGE
FOREWORD v

I
BUFF: A COLLIE
CHAPTER ONE: THE FIGHTING STRAIN 11
CHAPTER TWO: “THE HUNT IS UP!” 48
CHAPTER THREE: MASTERLESS! 80
CHAPTER FOUR: THE END OF THE TRAIL 107

II
“SOMETHING” 133

III
CHUMS 155

IV
HUMAN-INTEREST STUFF 183

V
“ONE MINUTE LONGER” 215

VI
THE FOUL FANCIER 235

VII
THE GRUDGE 283

VIII
THE SUNNYBANK COLLIES 321

BUFF: A COLLIE