The Argosy, January 1906 — page 141: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A DOG AND A GASOLINE ENGINE. ~ Blinks had a frantic spasm when he discovered it lying off Burchard’s pier. It seemed to arouse recollections in his canine mind, which as a rule=was too full of present emotions for memory to find a foothold. His first exuberance over, he seated himself on the end of the pier, and, lifting his snub nose in air, relieved his overburdened soul in the melancholy howling of a hound. Burchard, who was near-sichted, feared at first that some one beyond his own ken of vision might be drowning, but no cry for help reached his ears, and he finally discovered that the dog was howling at the launch. For the fun of the thing, to see what Blinks would do, he rowed out to the launch, intending to bring her in to the pier. But Blinks insisted upon going with him, and when they reached the Puffing Billy, the dog scrambled at once to the after-deck of the boat and seated himself with an air of tremendous im- portance. Burchard climbed in then, cast the Puffing Billy loose from her moorings, and started the engine, half-expecting Blinks to jump overboard with the first exhaust. On the contrary, Blinks yapped with pure -delight as the boat gathered way, and down-river they went, with Burch- ard manipulating the wheel and Blinks walking the quarter-deck like an admiral of the fleet. Thereafter they cruised over the river at least once a day, and that is how Burchard lost him. They had gone down-river below the bridge one morning, and Blinks was as usual playing captain, when Burchard discerned, largely and indefinitely in his near-sighted way, another launch com- ing up- -stream toward him. He sheered off to the right, and as they ran abreast noticed. casually that the passing boat contained a girl and a man. That was all so, far as Burchard was - concerned, but Blinks apparently saw more. With a erazy little yap of delight he sprang headlong into the water and struck out for the other boat. ~ Burchard heard him go and instantly turned off his bow switch, thereby stop- ping his engine. The Puffing Billy 323 ceased to puff, and, losing her forward momentum, began to drift up-river with the tide. “Why, it’s Blinks!” came a girl’s voice. “Come on, Blinks. Good old doggy. Stop the boat, Eddie. How do you suppose—— Oh, it’s “s At the first word Burchard had stiff- ened, at the second he went limp, at the fifth he moved aft to start the engine once more, moved moreover with a dig- nified indifference, never glancing to- ward the other craft. He gave the fly-wheel four fierce revo- lutions before he discovered that the bow switch was still off. So he heard the girl’s startled exclamation when presum- ably her eye lighted upon himself; then the exhaust of the engine cut off all other sounds, and he went churning down- river reviling his despicable fortune, which was, to say the best of it, a per- fectly asinine thing to do. “< Eddie,’ ” he soliloquized. “ Always Eddie Rolson. Fat little toad! Oh, well; who cares? ” .He went as far as the lower bridge, and, turning then, came back up-river and took the shallow north channel past the island in order to avoid if possible an- other encounter. In this he was success- ful, though he snarled his propeller in tke salad grass and had to stop the engine, get out on the after-deck, and clear it with his hands. This did not improve his frame of mind, and he reached his own pier in prime condition for a further study of the pessimists, a business which he en- tered upon no later than that same after- noon. Really it’s hard to make a hero out of Burchard, he was such an ass, but for Molle Pearson’s sake I’ve got to try. He was alone with his pines and his pessi- mists for four days, soaking himself with bitterness like a green pickte in its brine. Then came the call to action, and Burchard almost rose to the occasion. The call came in the painful voice of Blinks, howling in unmistakable dis- tress somewhere off Burchard’s point on the river. Burchard couldn’t see him, being blind beyond thirty yards even with his glasses, but after listening for some time he made up his mind that comicboo (e(0)