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Page 38
On the other hand, Jan was no longer a puppy. The hardening and
furnishing process would continue to improve his physique till after the
end of his second year; but he had definitely laid aside puppyhood in
his eighteenth month and had a truly commanding presence. He was three
inches lower at the shoulder than his sire--the tallest hound in
England--yet looked as big a dog because built on slightly heavier
lines. He had the wolfhound's fleetness, but with it much of the massy
solidity of the bloodhound. His chest was immensely deep, his fore legs,
haunches, and thighs enormously powerful. And the wrinkled massiveness
of his head, like the breadth of his black saddle, gave him the
appearance of great size, strength, and weight.
As a fact he scaled one hundred and sixty-four pounds on his second
birthday, and that was eight pounds heavier than his sire; a notable
thing in view of the fact that he was in no way gross and carried no
soft fat, thanks to the many miles of downland he covered every day of
his life in hunting with Finn and walking with Betty Murdoch.
Taking him for all in all, Jan was probably as finely conditioned and
developed a hound as any in England when he reached his second birthday,
and it is hardly likely that a stronger hound could have been found in
all the world. It may be that for hardness and toughness and endurance
he might have found his master without much difficulty; for hardship
begets hardihood, and Jan had known no hardship as yet. But at the end
of his second year he was a very splendid specimen of complete canine
development, and, by reason of his breeding, easily to be distinguished
from all other hounds.
And then, two months after that second birthday, Dick Vaughan came home
on short furlough, a privilege which, as Captain Will Arnutt wrote to
Dr. Vaughan, he had very thoroughly earned.
XIX
DISCIPLINE
Dick Vaughan's home-coming was something of an event for the district,
as well as for Dr. Vaughan and the Upcroft household, and for Betty
Murdoch and the Nuthill folk. He was a totally different person from the
careless, casual, rather reckless Dick Vaughan who had left for Canada
eighteen months before. Every one had liked the old Dick Vaughan who had
disappeared; yet nobody now regretted the apparently final loss of him,
and all were agreed in admiring the new Dick with more or less
enthusiasm.
Already he had won promotion in the fine corps to which he belonged, and
his scarlet uniform coat had a stripe on one sleeve. But this was a
small matter--though Dr. Vaughan was prouder of it than of any of his
own long list of learned degrees and other honors--by comparison with
the other and unofficial promotion Dick had won in the scale of manhood.
No uniform was needed to indicate this. One became aware of it the
moment one set eyes upon him. It showed itself in the firm lines of his
thin, tanned face, in the carriage of his shoulders, the swing of his
walk, the direct, steady gaze of his eyes, and the firm, assured tone of
his voice.
Always a sportsman and a good fellow, Dick Vaughan was now a full man, a
man handled and made; a strong, disciplined man, decently modest, but
perfectly conscious of his strength, and easily able to control other
men. This was what Canada and membership of the Royal North-west Mounted
Police had done for Dick Vaughan in a short eighteen months.
For young and healthy men there is perhaps no other country which has
more to give than Canada in the shape of discipline; of that kind of
mental, moral, and physical tonic which makes for swift, sure
character-development, and the stiffening and bracing of the human
fibers. In English life there has been of late years a rather serious
scarcity of this tonic influence. Canada is very rich in her supply of
it; but the tonic is too potent for the use of weaklings.
Then, too, there were the R.N.W.M.P. influences, representing a
concentrated distillation of the same tonic. The traditions of this fine
force form a great power for the shaping and making of men. First, they
have a strongly testing and selective influence. They winnow out the
weeds among those who come under their influence with quite
extraordinary celerity and thoroughness. Those who come through the
selective process satisfactorily may be relied upon as surely as the
grain-buyer may rely on the grade of wheat which comes through its tests
as "No. 1, hard." The trooper who comes honorably out of his first year
in the R.N.W.M.P. is quite certainly "No. 1, hard," as much to be relied
upon as any other single product of the prairies.
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