Jim
Date: 2025-01-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Dogs -- Fiction; Northwest; Canadian -- Fiction

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Title: Jim

Author: A. A. Strachan

Release date: January 1, 2025 [eBook #75013]

Language: English

Original publication: Chicago, IL: The Consolidated Magazines Corporation, 1927

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIM ***

JIM
by A. A. Strachan

A former officer of the Canadian Mounted Police here vividly recounts the extraordinary adventure that befell him and his dog in the “bush.”

I must confess that Jim did it under protest.

Jim was a regimental dog, and had no use for anyone who did not wear a red tunic. He had been brought up in the barracks and knew every bugle-call as well as any trooper of the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police. When the bugler went to the parade-ground, Jim punctiliously followed him, and while he sounded, the puppy squatted on his hind legs and imitated the calls to his own entire satisfaction. When the dinner bugle pealed across the square, Jim was always first at the mess-room door, and his day ended with Retreat as regularly as the sun went down.

So you can see that when I took my discharge from the service one April in the nineties and filed on a bush homestead some distance north of the North Saskatchewan River, it nearly broke Jim’s heart. Fond as he was of me, I don’t believe I could have persuaded him to follow me to the homestead if I had not brought my old regimental tunic along and worn it at intervals to satisfy his doggish mind. For weeks after we settled down he moped, only reviving at any slight indication that I might be going to take the trail out. Then such a tail-wagging, such agonized whines and yaps, such yanks at my trouser-legs, such coaxing running ahead on the trail and barked invitations to quit this foolishness and go back to where he considered we both belonged. But I was obdurate; and at last, finding that I had no intention of quitting, Jim became reconciled to exile. For a long time, though, he seemed to miss the sound of the bugle more than anything else; and each day, about the hours of Reveille and Retreat, poor Jim would squat on his stumpy tail and howl his heart out.

Except for Jim I was practically alone, my nearest neighbor being six miles away. I had chosen the bush country because I preferred to have wood and water about, and felt there were more ways in which I could make a living in such a district than there were on the prairie, where your homestead is a piece of dirt with a piece of sky on top that is too far away to keep you warm in winter.

I had been in the country for ten years and knew it as a member of the Northwest Mounted must—was acclimatized, had friends in Prince Albert, the nearest town, and liked the semi-hermit life that I elected to lead. I was resolved to go it alone, and so Jim and I got right down to brass tacks.

The first thing I did was to get out a set of house logs and a load of dressed lumber, doors, windows, and so forth. The logs I cut near my own land; the lumber I had to haul thirty miles from town. Before the first snow flew, my house and stable were finished. I had dug a good well, broken ten acres and had a liberal supply of firewood on hand. A team of horses, and a couple of heifers, comprised my livestock. Jim was my society. After snow fell I devoted my attention to trapping and fishing.

Winter fishing on Little Trout Lake, about ten miles from my homestead, is not a very sportsmanlike occupation. You simply stick up a tent on the ice, cut a hole and shove in a net. The fish come readily to this ventilator, are caught in the net, dragged out of the water by hand and thrown onto the ice, where they soon freeze solid. This is far from a pleasant operation, as anyone who has tried it will acknowledge.

Between fur and fish I realized a nice little sum for my winter’s work, and was able, when I went to town in the spring, to lay in supplies sufficient to last me all summer and greatly to increase my stock of cattle and implements. I not only cropped the ten acres I had previously broken, but broke and disked ten acres more that summer, besides putting up a new log stable large enough to accommodate two teams of horses and ten head of cattle. It was while engaged on this building that I met with the accident that, but for the intelligence of Jim, must have cost me my life.

A log building, as everybody who has attempted it knows, is not an easy undertaking for one man alone. The cutting, hauling and hewing of the logs is no very difficult matter, of course, but when you come to hoist them one upon another, you will wish you had someone to handle the other end.

I tried to get help but was disappointed, and not to be beaten, determined to try it alone. One afternoon I had gotten pretty near to the last log and was congratulating myself that the worst of the job was over, when, without any warning, the rope I was using as a pulley suddenly snapped and the log I was working on fell, crushing my left leg beneath it, and pinning me helplessly to the ground. For some minutes I was so stunned by the shock that I did not realize what had happened. A thousand fantastic thoughts flashed through my mind and I opened my eyes to find my faithful dog licking my face and uttering gasping, whining noises by way of expressing sympathy. I felt no pain but was powerless to move; the heavy log held my leg as if in a vise, though my right leg was free, as were also both arms. Yet, I was held in such a position that all the strength I could muster failed to move the log half an inch. Whether or not my leg was broken I could not tell until the log was removed. How that was to be done I did not know.

My first impulse was to “holler.”

Then came to me with a new meaning the Scriptural injunction that “It is not good for man to be alone.” I realized that I was very much alone and the chances of anyone coming to my assistance was as one in a thousand. I had not seen a human being for many days, my homestead being miles off the trail that led to the lumber-camps, and as I said before, I had no near neighbors. I shuddered as the thought gripped me that I might lie there until I starved to death, a prey to the prowling wolves against whom I was powerless to put up any kind of a fight for my life.

As this dreadful thought struck me, I glanced helplessly around. My ax lay some little distance away. If I could only reach it! But I might as well have tried to reach the moon. Suddenly I thought of the dog. Poor Jim was sitting on his stumpy tail looking into my face and whining miserably as if in sympathy with my suffering. I had taught him to fetch and carry, to bring the ducks I had shot out of the water, and at this he was as expert as any retriever. If I could only get him to bring the ax within reach! I patted his head, and he leaped upon me eagerly, uttering little barks of joy. I pointed toward the ax and told him to fetch it. He ran off at once in the direction indicated.

“Good boy,” I called. “The ax—fetch it, Jim!”

He ran around in a circle a few times; then, seeing my whip, which I had thrown beside the wagon when I unhitched the team at noon, he pounced upon that and carried it proudly in his mouth to my side and dropped it.

“No, no,” I cried, “go back. The ax, Jim—fetch it, good dog!”

Away he trotted again and returned with one of my gauntlets, which lay right on the ax-handle. I sent him back again with a cuff on the ear; he took the ax-handle between his teeth and dragged it a little way dropped it and came bounding back with the other gauntlet.

I was so disappointed that I hit the poor animal over the head with the butt of the whip. He gave a little howl of pain, and retreating some distance, sat down with a reproachful look toward me that cut me to the heart. Then I called him to me again, petted and stroked him for a while, and went through the motions of chopping with an ax, but for a long time he did not seem to understand. I kept pointing and shouting: “The ax—fetch it,” when all of a sudden he bounded away with a loud bark, seized the ax-handle with his teeth, and dragging it inch by inch, dropped it at my feet.

Getting to a sitting posture I soon made the chips fly, while Jim danced around me barking with delight. It was not long before I had cut the log in two, as near my imprisoned leg as I dared, and it was then an easy matter, using the ax-handle as a lever, to pry it free. But my plight was still a desperate one, for when I tried to move, I found, as I expected, that my leg was broken a little above the ankle.

I had a smattering of surgery, having been instructed in “first aid to the wounded,” which is part of the education of a Mounted Policeman; this stood me in good stead in this emergency. Having the ax, I was able to fashion a few rude splints with which, by the aid of strips torn from my shirt, I contrived to set and bandage the fracture.

This having been accomplished, I essayed to crawl toward the shack, which stood at no great distance; but the pain I endured in the passage forced many a groan from between my set teeth—Jim licking my hands and face every time I was forced to stop from pain and exhaustion. At last, however, I managed to reach the door and crawled within. My cot was a low wire spring affair, and I just managed to drag myself to it when, for the first time in my life, I fainted....

How long I remained unconscious I do not know. When I awoke, the moon was shining in at my open door, and Jim lay asleep by my side. It must have been cold with the door wide open, but as I did not feel it, I must have been very feverish. I know I longed for a drink of water but was quite unable to move. My leg felt as if paralyzed and I lay there on my back until daylight trying to figure a way out. I must have help or I should undoubtedly cash in, as they say in the West. For that purpose it was necessary to get word to town, or to someone who could come to my assistance; but how was I to send word? That was the puzzle, and again I felt that it was not good for man to be alone.

Then I thought of the dog. Jim had already saved my life once; could he do so again? I resolved to try him—it was my one and only chance; and so, when it was light enough to see, I found the back of an old letter and the stump of a carpenter’s pencil in my waistcoat pocket, for I had not been able to remove my clothes. I managed to write and sign an appeal for help, describing my condition and the location of my homestead. This I wrapped in a piece of my torn shirt and tied the packet around Jim’s neck, fastening it to his collar in such a way as would readily attract attention, yet at the same time not be likely to come loose. In such an event, though, I believed the intelligent brute would have taken the packet in his mouth and laid it at the feet of the first person he met.

I did not doubt that help would come; if my appeal was received, even by an Indian, he would be sure to take it to the nearest agency or Police post, even if he did not understand a word of the writing. I had very little hope, of course, that my four-footed messenger could be made to understand what I wanted him to do—but I had no other resource.

Before driving him away I repeated often the two words, “George” and “Home,” at the same time pointing through the open door in the direction of the trail to town. George was my old troop chum, and was just about as fond of the dog as I was.

For a long time I could not get Jim to leave me, until I sat up in bed, pretending to be very angry, and threw my boots at him. Then he trotted away a few hundred yards, stopped and looked back expectantly; but when, instead of calling him back, I again yelled “Go home” in the fiercest voice I could assume, he reluctantly started on again, and finally disappeared.

For a long time I expected every minute to see my faithful companion poke his head into the door again, but as hour after hour went by and there was no sign of his return, I was forced to the joyful conclusion that he had indeed understood what was wanted of him, and was on his way to bring help.

How I got through that terrible day I do not know. I had had nothing to eat or drink for about thirty hours; my head was aching excruciatingly; my throat was parched and burning, and I knew I was in a high state of fever. Looking back afterward, I believe I must have been suffering from delirium.

At length darkness settled down, and I knew the dog must have gone on, or he would have been back long ago. Then I racked my brain trying to figure out how long it would be before help could come. Toward morning I thought I heard a dog barking in the distance, but put it down to a disordered brain, for my head continued to ache most dreadfully and my tongue seemed to be too large for my mouth. Then I fell asleep, and dreamed that poor old Jim was sitting on my chest crushing the life out of me.

In my struggle to throw him off I awoke. It was broad daylight, and the first object I saw was Jim standing on his hindlegs with his forepaws on the edge of my cot, licking my face as he used to do when he thought it was near Reveille and time for me to get up.

But my joy at seeing him was turned to fury when my eyes lighted upon his collar. There was my desperate appeal for help tied around his neck just as it was when I had sent him forth! I wrenched the packet away, almost choking him in my rage, and with a piece of wood I picked off the floor I dealt him a blow on the head that stretched the poor dog senseless.

I was mad with fever or I never would have done it. I sat staring at the packet in my hand, and was just about to tear the paper up and cast it away when I noticed the writing was in ink and in a neat clerkly hand, whereas I had written with a broad carpenter’s pencil. For a moment, in my semi-delirious condition, I was lost in wonder at this transformation; then suddenly the truth flashed upon me. Tremblingly, I smoothed the paper out, and this is what I read: “Cheer up, old chap. We are starting to bring you help as soon as we can round up the doc. On the off chance that he may reach you before we do, I am sending this back by old Jim.—George.”

“My God!” I cried in sorrow, as I reached over, gathered the faithful dog up in my arms and kissed his cold muzzle. “Poor old Jim, you saved my life twice in forty-eight hours, and I rewarded you with a blow like that!”

When the doctor and two Mounted Policemen drove up an hour later, they found me delirious, with the dog in my arms licking away my tears, while I kissed and cried over him, they said, as if he had been a child.

I may add that I got well and secured the title to my homestead in due time, that old Jim helped me to put in my residence duties; and when he died a few years ago, of old age, I put up a slab at his grave inscribed as follows:

JIM

A faithful dog, the friend and companion of many years.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 1927 issue of The Blue Book Magazine.]

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JIM ***

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