Chapter XIV: A Fireside Story

That evening, after supper, while Jan dozed in front of the fireplace with its cheerful, glowing logs, and Hippity-Hop curled in a tight ball between his paws, he did not know that the captain was telling how Jan had been brought to the pound, sick from neglect and vicious from abuse, to be killed.

The eyes of the young mother filled with tears, and she glanced from the sleeping dog to a door leading into another room, where her baby was lying, safe and warm. But when she stooped, suddenly and stroked the dog's head gently, his eyes opened, his tail thumped the floor, and then Jan went to sleep again, for he was very tired.

And while he took his second nap, the father of the baby explained to the captain that he was the doctor in the little town, and had it not been for Prince Jan, the pretty little mother and her child would never have come back to the home on the bluff, after their visit to friends in California.

"Prince Jan was born in the Hospice," the old man told them. "He was only a puppy when Mr. Pixley brought him to California. To me, it never seemed just right, taking him away from the place where he belonged and where he could have been so useful, and then to treat him so cruelly. Of course, the Pixleys didn't know the truth, but that didn't help poor Jan."

The doctor turned and knelt down, studying the sleeping dog, then he rose and went back to his chair.

"I took a walking tour of Switzerland after I finished my studies in Europe," he said, at last. "So that was how I happened to be at the Hospice the day that dog was taken away. I had heard one of the monks tell about this dog's father, who died saving travellers on an ice-bridge. I went on my way toward Italy, and I saw this dog start down the trail to Martigny, the opposite direction. I have never forgotten the pitiful look in his eyes nor the call he gave as he was led away. I felt then that it was a tragedy, but never had an idea of what the poor little fellow would have to suffer. Nor had I any idea that the lives of my dear ones would be saved through him!"

"The only thing I ever knew about the St. Bernard dogs was that they lived at the Hospice and went out to hunt lost people in the snow," the captain spoke. "You are the first one I ever knew who had been there. I wish I could have seen it and those splendid dogs!"

"You know, the Pass of Great St. Bernard is the main road of travel between Italy and Switzerland," the doctor went on, and his wife leaned forward as eagerly as Jan's master to hear about Jan's birthplace. "It was through this Pass that Napoleon Bonaparte led his army of soldiers, single file and afoot, in the month of May, 1800!"

"I have read about that march," interrupted the old man, "and I know what it meant, with food and ammunition and those big guns to haul. You see, I served all through the four years of the Civil War."

"May is the most dangerous time in the Alps, for the snow melts and slides in great avalanches, often catching people with no chance for escape. When I stood on the stone steps of the Hospice, where many feet have worn little hollows, and I remembered how many people would never have reached those steps without the dogs' help, I felt that though Napoleon was a great general and a brave man, the dogs of the Hospice were just as great and just as brave. And the monument to Barry, near the old Hospice, was as fine in my eyes as the beautiful white marble one that Napoleon built in memory of General de Sais, who died on that trip, and which is in the chapel of the Hospice. Both the general and Barry did their duty, as they saw it."

The little mother interrupted him, her eyes shining and her hands held out. "Napoleon made that march for his own glory and ambition, and to kill those who opposed his way," she said, "but Barry and the other dogs risked death each day to save lives, with no thought of gain for themselves."

"That's what I was thinking," the old captain nodded and spoke.

"What surprised me most," continued the doctor, "was that the monks who live in the Hospice do not ask pay for anything they do. The people who stop there do not even have to pay for the food that is eaten. When I asked how much I owed for shelter and food those two days I was there, they smiled and told me there was no charge. Of course, I could not leave in that way, and when I insisted, I learned there was a little box in the Monastery Chapel for purely volunteer offerings. No one ever watches that box, and no one is ever asked to put anything into it. And yet," he finished after a little pause, "often as many as five or six hundred people have stopped at the Hospice in one day. I was told that between twenty and twenty-five thousand people pass over the trail each year. Then when one remembers that for a thousand years the ancestors of Prince Jan have been travelling those trails and saving lives, one can understand the splendid work of those monks and the dogs."

"And to-day," the little mother's voice trembled, "dear old Prince Jan proved himself worthy of his ancestors and his heritage."

"Barry saved forty-two lives. His skin has been mounted and stands, wonderfully life-like, in the Museum of Berne," the doctor said, thoughtfully. "He did the work in the familiar places, the work he had been trained to do; but to-day, there were ninety-two lives saved by Prince Jan, with only his wonderful intelligence to guide him through the sea and make him hold fast to that rope."

For several moments none of them spoke, but their eyes were on the dog that slept quietly at their feet, while the little three-legged kitten snuggled closely against his breast and purred loudly.

"One of the most pitiful sights at the Hospice is the House of the Dead, a short distance from the Hospice. Those who have never been identified sleep there. Sometimes, you see, the dogs and monks are too late, or the avalanches of melting snow uncover people who have been buried months, or even years. The Hospice is built on solid rock, so there is no place to dig graves. Not a tree grows within seven miles of the buildings, because it is so cold, and there is no earth for the roots. It is a bare, desolate place at all times."

"Jan must have been bewildered, going from such a place to a home in California," the little mother spoke. "And yet, see how he worked out his life and made himself worthy!"

The doctor lighted a cigar and leaned back in his big chair. "The snow at the Hospice is not like snow in other places," he finally said. "You know how, usually, it clings in masses, and when trodden upon it packs firmly; but in the Alps during a storm, the snow freezes as it falls and forms into little hard pellets. These tiny lumps of ice pile up around a traveller, and when he tries to push onward he sinks as though in a bed of quicksand. Unless help is at hand he soon is buried out of sight. The winds sweep fiercely through the passes between the mountain peaks, and send terrible, whirling clouds of snow that cut the face and blind the eyes, and many times a wanderer plunges over a precipice that he cannot see, or worn by struggles, he sinks exhausted to die. Then, there are the ice-bridges. What I am telling will give only a faint idea of the importance of the work of those magnificent dogs of the Hospice. And there is something that is not generally known, but is just as heroic. The monks who go to the Hospice volunteer for that work, knowing fully that five years up there in the altitude and intense cold mean practically the end of their lives. It ruins their lungs, and so, after a time, they go quietly down into the milder air of the Valley of the Rhone, in France, and there they wait cheerfully during the short span of life ahead of them. Only the young and strong monks are sent to the Hospice."

After the doctor ceased speaking they all sat silently and watched the blazing logs, for each of the listeners, as well as the doctor, was thinking of the sacrifice and unselfishness of those monks, and the brave loyalty of their dog-friends on the trail.

"I wish I had enough money to send Prince Jan back to his own work and home," the captain said wistfully. "Maybe, though, I can manage it some day," he added more hopefully. "I feel as if he ought to be there with the others."

"You are right," agreed the doctor, and his wife nodded her head quickly. "Jan's work, his kin, his home, lie back there at the Hospice. I owe the lives of my wife and my baby to him, and if you are willing to let him go back there, I will take him back to the Hospice myself. But, won't you miss him?"

"It would make me as happy as it would make him, to know he was back there again," answered the old man eagerly, as he stooped over and caressed the dog's head.

Jan, in his sleep, recognized the touch and swished his tail lightly, but he did not open his eyes, and he never knew what the doctor and the captain had been talking about that evening.

But when it was known in the little town that the doctor was planning to take Prince Jan back to the Hospice, and those who had been saved from the ship heard the story of the dog, every one wanted to help. The newspaper printed the story of Prince Jan and his ancestors, and then people kept coming to see him, and most of them brought money for the trip back to the Hospice.

A beautiful collar of silver was made for him, and on it were engraved the words,

A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE FROM THE NINETY-TWO PEOPLE WHOSE LIVES WERE
SAVED BY PRINCE JAN, WHEN ALL HOPE WAS LOST.

With this collar was a purse of money sufficient to pay Jan's passage home, and a nice sum left over to give to the monks who cared for the dogs at the Hospice.

But the biggest surprise of all came when Captain Smith found that he, too, was to make the trip to the Hospice with the doctor and Prince Jan.

The old man wrote a letter to his daughter, explaining everything and saying he would come to her as soon as he and the doctor could get back.

Jan did not know what all the excitement in the little home meant, but every one patted him or spoke kindly, and the old captain's eyes were shining all the time, as he trotted about the rooms, whistling.