Moses

VOLUME 162

NUMBER 2

AUGUST 1938

BY WALTER D. EDMONDS

IT was a long climb. The scent was cold, too; so faint that when he found it behind the barn he could hardly trust himself. He had just come back from Filmer’s with a piece of meat, and he had sat down behind the barn and cracked it down; and a minute later he found that scent reaching off, faint as it was, right from the end of his nose as he lay.

He had had the devil of a time working it out at first, but up here it was simple enough except for the faintness of it. There did n’t appear to be any way to stray off this path; there was n’t any brush, there was n’t any water. Only he had to make sure of it, when even for him it nearly faded out, with so many other stronger tracks overlaying it. His tail drooped, and he stumbled a couple of times, driving his nose into the dust. He looked gaunt when he reached the spot where the man had Lain down to sleep.

The scent lay heavier there. He shuffled round over it, sifting the dust with an audible clapping of his nostrils to work out the pattern the man had made. It was hard to do, for the dust did n’t take scent decently. It was n’t like any dust he had ever come across, either, being glittery, like mica, and slivery in his nose. But he could tell after a minute how the man had lain, on his back, with his hands under his head, and probably his hat over his eyes to shield them from the glare which was pretty dazzling bright up this high, with no trees handy.

His tail began to cut air. He felt better, and all of a sudden he lifted up his freckled nose and let out a couple of short yowps and then a good chestswelled belling. Then he struck out up the steep going once more. His front legs may have elbowed a little, but his hind legs were full of spring, and his tail kept swinging.

That was how the old man by the town entrance saw him, way down below.

The old man had his chair in the shadow of the wall with a black and yellow parasol tied to the back of it as an extra insurance against the sun. He was reading the Arrivals in the newspaper, the only column that ever interested him; but he looked up sharply when he heard the two yowps and the deep chest notes that, from where he sat, had a mysterious floating quality. It was a little disturbing; but when he saw a dog was the cause he reached out with his foot and shoved the gate hard, so that it swung shut and latched with a sound like a gong. Only one dog had ever come here, and that sound had been enough to discourage him; he had hung round for a while, though, just on the edge, and made the old man nervous. He said to himself that he was n’t going to watch this one, anyway, and folded the paper in halves the way the subway commuter had showed him and went on with the Arrivals.

Copyright 193S, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass. All rights reserved.

After a while, though, he heard the dog’s panting coming close and the muffled padding of his feet on the marble gate stone. He shook the paper a little, licked his thumb, and turned over half a sheet and read on through the Arrivals into the report of the Committee on Admissions. But then, because he was a curious old man, and kind-hearted, noticing that the panting had stopped, — and because he had never been quite up to keeping his resolves, except once, — he looked out of the gate again.

The dog was sitting on the edge of the gate stone, upright, with his front feet close under him. He was a rusty-muzzled, blue-tick foxhound, with brown ears, and eyes outlined in black like an Egyptian’s. He had his nose inside the bars and was working it at the old man.

‘Go away,’ said the old man. ‘Go home.’

At the sound of his voice the hound wrinkled his nose soberly and his tail whipped a couple of times on the gate stone, raising a little star dust.

‘Go home,’ repeated the old man, remembering the dog that had hung around before.

He rattled the paper at him, but it did n’t do any good. The dog just looked solemnly pleased at the attention, and a little hopeful, and allowed himself to pant a bit.

‘This one’s going to be worse than the other,’ the old man thought, groaning to himself as he got up. He did n’t know much about dogs anyway. Back in Galilee there had n’t been dogs that looked like this one — just pariahs and shepherds and the occasional Persian greyhound of a rich man’s son.

He slapped his paper along the bars; it made the dog suck in his tongue and move back obligingly. Peter unhooked his shepherd’s staff from the middle crossbar, to use in case the dog tried to slip in past him, and let himself out. He could tell by the feeling of his bare ankles that there was a wind making up in the outer heavens and he wanted to get rid of the poor creature before it began really blowing round the walls. The dog backed off from him and sat down almost on the edge, still friendly, but wary of the shepherd’s staff.

‘Why can’t the poor dumb animal read?’ thought Peter, turning to look at the sign he had hung on the gatepost.

The sign read: —

TAKE NOTICE

NO

DOGS

SORCERERS

WHOREMONGERS

MURDERERS

IDOLATERS

LIARS

WILL BE

ADMITTED

When he put it up, he had thought it might save him a lot of trouble; but it certainly was n’t going to help in the case of this dog. He expected he would have to ask the Committee on Admissions to take the matter up; and he started to feel annoyed with them for not having got this animal on the list themselves. It was going to mean a lot of correspondence and probably the Committee would send a memorandum to the Central Office suggesting his retirement again, and Peter liked his place at the gate. It was quiet there, and it was pleasant for an old man to look through the bars and down the path, to reassure the frightened people, and, when there was nothing else to do, to hear the winds of outer heaven blowing by.

‘Go away. Go home. Depart,’he said, waving his staff; but the dog only backed down on to the path and lay on his wishbone with his nose between his paws.

II

Peter went inside and sat down and tried to figure the business out. There were two things he could do. He could notify the Committee of the dog’s arrival, or he could give the information to the editor. The Committee would sit up and take notice for once if they found the editor had got ahead of them. It would please the editor, for there were few scoops in Heaven. And then, as luck would have it, the editor himself came down to the gate.

The editor was n’t Horace Greeley or anybody like that, with a reputation in the newspaper world. He had been editor of a little country weekly that nobody in New York, or London, or Paris had ever heard of. But he was good and bursting with ideas all the time. He was now.

‘Say, Saint Peter,’ he said, ‘I’ve just had a swell idea about the Arrivals column. Instead of printing all the “arrivals” on one side and then the “expected guests” on the other, why not just have one column and put the names of the successful candidates in upper-case type? See?’ He shoved a wet impression under Peter’s nose and rubbed the back of his head nervously with his inkstained hand. ‘Simple, neat, dignified.’

Peter looked at the galley and saw how simple it would be for him, too. He would n’t have to read the names in lower case at all. It would make him feel a lot better not to know. Just check the upper-case names as they came to the gate.

He looked up at the flushed face of the editor and his white beard parted over his smile. He liked young, enthusiastic men, remembering how hard, once, they had been to find.

‘It looks fine to me, Don,’ he said. ‘But the Committee won’t like losing all that space in the paper, will they?’

‘Probably not,’ the editor said ruefully. ‘But I thought you could pull a few wires with the Central Office for me.’

Peter sighed.

‘I’ll try,’ he said. ‘But people don’t pay attention to an old man, much, Don. Especially one who’s been in service.’

The editor flushed and muttered something about bums.

Peter said gently, ‘It does n’t bother me, Don. I’m not ashamed of the service I was in.’ He looked down to his sandals. He wondered whether there was any of the dust of that Roman road left on them after so long a time. Every man has his one great moment. He’d had two. He was glad he had n’t let the second one go. ‘I’ll see what I can do, Don.’

It was a still corner, by the gate; and, with both of them silently staring off up the avenue under the green trees to where the butterflies were fluttering in the shrubbery of the public gardens, the dog decided to take a chance and sneak up again.

He moved one foot at a time, the way he had learned to do behind the counter in the Hawkinsville store, when he went prospecting towards the candy counter. These men did n’t hear him any more than the checker players in the store did, and he had time to sniff over the gatepost thoroughly. It puzzled him; and as the men did n’t take any notice, he gumshoed over to the other post and went over that, too.

It was queer. He could n’t smell dog on either of them and they were the best-looking posts he had ever come across. It worried him some. His tail drooped and he came back to the gate stone and the very faint scent on it, leading beyond the gate, that he had been following so long. He sat down again and put his nose through the bars, and after a minute he whined.

It was a small sound, but Peter heard it.

‘That dog,’ he said.

The editor whirled round, saying, ‘What dog?' and saw him.

‘I was going to let you know about him, only I forgot,’said Peter. ‘He came up a while ago, and I can’t get rid of him. I don’t know how he got here. The Committee did n’t give me any warning and there’s nothing about him in the paper.’

‘ He was n’t on the bulletin,’ said the editor. ‘Must have been a slip-up somewhere.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Peter. ‘Dogs don’t often come here. Only one other since I’ve been here, as a matter of fact. What kind of a dog is he anyway? I never saw anything like him.’ He sounded troubled and put out, and the editor grinned, knowing he did n’t mean it.

‘I never was much of a dog man,’ he said. ‘But that’s a likely-looking foxhound. He must have followed somebody’s scent up here. Hi, boy!’ he said. ‘What’s your name? Bob? Spot? Duke?’

The hound lowered his head a little, wrinkled his nose, and wagged his tail across the stone.

‘Say,’said the editor. ‘Why don’t I put an ad in the Lost and Found? I’ve never had anything to put there before. But you better bring him in and keep him here till the owner claims him.’

‘I can’t do that,’ said Peter. ‘It’s against the Law.’

‘No dogs. Say, I always thought it was funny there were no dogs here. What happens to them ? ’

‘They get removed,’ said Peter. ‘They just go.’

‘That don’t seem right,’ the young editor said. He ruffled his back hair with his hand. ‘Say, Saint,’he asked, ‘who made this law anyway?’

‘It’s in Revelations. John was n’t a dog man, as you call it. Back in Galilee we did n’t think much of dogs, you see. They were mostly pariahs.’

’I see,’ said the editor. His blue eyes sparkled. ‘But say! Why can’t I put it in the news? And write an editorial? By golly, I have n’t had anything to raise a cause on since I got here.’

Peter shook his head dubiously.

‘It’s risky,’ he said.

‘It’s a free country,’ exclaimed the editor. ‘At least nobody’s told me different. Now probably there’s nothing would mean so much to the owner of that dog as finding him up here. You get a genuine dog man and this business of passing the love of women is just hooey to him.’

‘Hooey?’ Peter asked quietly.

‘It just means he likes dogs better than anything. And this is a good dog, I tell you. He’s cold-tracked this fellow, whoever he is, Lord knows how. Besides, he’s only one dog, and look at the way the rabbits have been getting into the manna in the public garden. I’m not a dog man, as I said before, but believe me, Saint, it’s a pretty thing on a frosty morning to hear a good hound high-tailing a fox across the hills.’

‘We don’t have frost here, Don.’

‘Well,’ said the editor, ‘frost or no frost, I’m going to do it. I’ll have to work quick to get it in before the forms close. See you later.’

‘Wait,’ said Peter. ‘What’s the weather report say?’

The editor gave a short laugh.

‘What do you think? Fair, moderate winds, little change in temperature. Those twerps up in the bureau don’t even bother to read the barometer any more. They just play pinochle all day, and the boy runs that report off on the mimeograph machine.’

‘I think there’s a wind making up in the outer heavens,’ Peter said. ‘When we get a real one, it just about blows the gate stone away. That poor animal would n’t last a minute.'

The editor whistled. ‘We’ll have to work fast.’ Then, suddenly his eyes blazed. ‘All my life I wanted to get out an extra. I never had a chance, running a weekly. Now, by holy, I will.’

He went off up the avenue on the dead run. Even Peter, watching him go, felt excited.

‘Nice dog,’ he said to the hound; and the hound, at the deep gentle voice, gulped in his tongue and twitched his haunches. The whipping of his tail on the gate stone made a companionable sound for the old man. His beard folded on his chest and he nodded a little. III

He was dozing quietly when the hound barked.

It was a deep, vibrant note that anyone who knew dogs would have expected the minute he saw the spring of those ribs; it was mellow, like honey in the throat. Peter woke up tingling with the sound of it and turned to see the hound swaying the whole hind half of himself with his tail.

Then a high loud voice shouted, ‘Mose, by Jeepers! What the hell you doing here, you poor dumb fool?’

Peter turned to see a stocky, shortlegged man who stuck out more than was ordinary, both in front and behind. He had on a gray flannel shirt, and blue denim pants, and a pair of lumberman’s rubber packs on his feet, with the tops laced only to the ankle. There was a hole in the front of his felt hat where the block had worn through. He was n’t, on the whole, what you might expect to see walking on that Avenue. But Peter had seen queer people come to Heaven and he said mildly, ‘Do you know this dog?’

‘Sure,’ said the stout man. ‘I hunted with him round Hawkinsville for the last seven years. It’s old Mose. Real smart dog. He’d hunt for anybody.’

‘Mose?’ said Peter. ‘For Moses, I suppose.’

‘Maybe. He could track anything through hell and high water.’

‘Moses went through some pretty high water,’ said Peter. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Freem Brock. What’s yours?’

Peter did not trouble to answer, for he was looking at the hound; and he was thinking he had seen some people come to Heaven’s gate and look pleased, and some come and look shy, and some frightened, and some a little shamefaced, and some satisfied, and some sad (maybe with memories they could n’t leave on earth), and some jubilant, and a whole quartette still singing ‘Adeline’ just the way they were when the hotel fell on their necks in the earthquake. But in all his career at the gate he had never seen anyone express such pure, unstifled joy as this rawboned hound.

‘Was he your dog?’ he asked Freeman Brock.

‘Naw,’ said Freem. ‘He belonged to Pat Haskell.’ He leaned his shoulder against the gatepost and crossed one foot over the other. ‘Stop that yawping,’ he said to Mose, and Mose lay down, wagging. ‘Maybe you ain’t never been in Hawkinsville,’ he said to Peter. ‘It’s a real pretty village right over the Black River. Pat kept store there and he let anybody take Mose that wanted to. Pretty often I did. He liked coming with me because I let him run foxes. I’m kind of a fox hunter,’ he said, blowing out his breath. ‘Oh, I like rabbit hunting all right, but there’s no money in it. . . . Say,’ he broke off, ‘you did n’t tell me what your name was.’

‘Peter,’ said the old man.

‘Well, Pete, two years ago was Mose’s best season. Seventy-seven fox was shot ahead of him. I shot thirty-seven of them myself. Five crosses and two blacks in the lot. Yes sir. I heard those black foxes had got away from the fur farm and I took Mose right over there. I made three hundred and fifty dollars out of them hides.’

‘He was a good dog, then?’ asked Peter.

‘Best foxhound in seven counties,’ said Freem Brock. He kicked the gate with his heel in front of Mose’s nose and Mose let his ears droop. ‘He was a fool to hunt. I don’t sec no fox signs up here. Plenty rabbits in the Park. But there ain’t nobody with a gun. I wish I’d brought my old Ithaca along.’

‘You can’t kill things here,’ said Peter.

‘That’s funny. Why not?’

‘They’re already dead.’

‘Well, I know that. But it beats me how I got here. I never did nothing to get sent to this sort of place. Hell, I killed them farm foxes and I poached up the railroad in the pre-serve. But I never done anything bad.’

‘No,’ said St. Peter. ‘We know that.’

‘I got drunk, maybe. But there’s other people done the same before me.’

‘Yes, Freem.’

‘Well, what the devil did I get sent here for, Pete?’

‘Do you remember when the little girl was sick and the town doctor would n’t come out at night on a town case, and you went over to town and made him come ? ’

‘Said I’d knock his teeth out,’ said Freem, brightening.

‘Yes. He came. And the girl was taken care of,’ said Peter.

‘Aw,’ Freem said, ‘I did n’t know what I was doing. I was just mad. Well, maybe I’d had a drink, but it was a cold night, see? I did n’t knock his teeth out. He left them in the glass.’ He looked at the old man. ‘Jeepers,’ he said. ‘And they sent me here for that?’

Peter looked puzzled.

‘Was n’t it a good reason?’ he asked. ‘It’s not such a bad place.’

‘Not so bad as I thought it was going to be. But people don’t want to talk to me. I tried to talk to an old timberbeast named Boone down the road. But he asked me if I ever shot an Indian, and when I said no he went along. You ’re the only feller I’ve seen that was willing to talk to me,’ he said, turning to the old man. ‘I don’t seem to miss likker up here, but there’s nowhere I can get to buy some tobacco.’

Peter said, ‘You don’t have to buy things in Heaven.’

‘ Heaven ? ’ said Freeman Brock. ' Say, is that what this is?’ He looked frightened all at once. ‘That’s what the matter is. I don’t belong here. I ain’t the kind to come here. There must have been a mistake somewhere.’ He took hold of Peter’s arm. ‘Listen,’ he said urgently. ‘Do you know how to work that gate?’

‘I do,’ said Peter. ‘But I can’t let you out.’

‘I got to get out.’

Peter’s voice grew gentler.

‘You’ll like it here after a while, Freem.’

‘You let me out.’

‘You could n’t go anywhere outside,’ Peter said.

Freem looked through the bars at the outer heavens and watched a couple of stars like water lilies floating by below. He said slowly, ‘We’d go some place.’

Peter said, ‘You mean you’d go out there with that dog?’

Freem flushed.

‘I and Mose have had some good times,’ he said.

At the sound of his name, Mose’s nose lifted.

Peter looked down at the ground. With the end of his shepherd’s staff he thoughtfully made a cross and then another overlapping it and put an X in the upper left-hand corner. Freem looked down to see what he was doing.

‘You could n’t let Mose in, could you, Pete?’

Peter sighed and rubbed out the pattern with his sandal.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The Committee don’t allow dogs.’

‘What’ll happen to the poor brute, Pete?’

Peter shook his head.

‘If you ask me,’ Freem said loudly, ‘I think this is a hell of a place.’

‘What’s that you said?’

Peter glanced up.

‘Hello, Don,’ he said. ‘Meet Freem Brock. This is the editor of the paper,’ he said to Freem. ‘His name’s Don.’

‘Hello,’ said Freem.

‘ What was that you said about Heaven being a hell of a place?’ asked the editor.

Freem drew a long breath. He took a look at old Mose lying outside the gate with his big nose resting squashed up and sideways against the bottom crossbar; he looked at the outer heavens, and he looked at the editor.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘That hound followed me up here. Pete says he can’t let him in. He says I can’t go out to where Mose is. I only been in jail twice,’ he said, ‘but I liked it better than this.’

The editor said, ‘You’d go out there?’

‘Give me the chance.’

‘What a story!’ said the editor. ‘I’ve got my extra on the Avenue now. The cherubs will be coming this way soon. It’s all about the hound, but this stuff is the genuine goods. Guest prefers to leave Heaven. Affection for old hunting dog prime factor in his decision. It’s human interest. I tell you it ’ll shake the Committee. By holy, I’ll have an editorial in my next edition calling for a celestial referendum.’

‘Wait,’ said Peter. ‘What’s the weather report?’

‘What do you think? Fair, moderate winds, little change in temperature. But the Central Office is making up a hurricane for the South Pacific and it’s due to go by pretty soon. We got to hurry, Saint.’

He pounded away up the Avenue, leaving a little trail of star dust in his wake.

Freem Brock turned on Saint Peter.

‘ He called you something,’ he said.

Peter nodded.

‘ Saint.’

‘I remember about you now. Say, you’re a big shot here. Why can’t you let Mose in?’

Peter shook his head.

‘I’m no big shot, Freem. If I was, maybe — ’

His voice was drowned out by a shrieking up the Avenue.

‘Extry! Extry! Special Edition. Read all about it. Dog outside Heaven’s Gate. Dog outside . . .’

A couple of cherubs were coming down the thoroughfare, using their wings to make time. When he saw them, Freem Brock started. His shoulders began to itch self-consciously and he put a hand inside his shirt.

‘My gracious,’ he said.

Peter, watching him, nodded.

‘Everybody gets them. You’ll get used to them after a while. They’re handy, too, on a hot day.’

‘For the love of Pete,’ said Freem.

‘Read all about it! Dog outside Heaven’s Gate. Lost Dog waiting outside . . .’

‘He ain’t lost!’ cried Freem. ‘He never got lost in his life.’

‘“Committee at fault,”’ read Peter. ‘Thomas Aquinas is n’t going to like that,’ he said.

‘It don’t prove nothing,’ said Freem.

‘Mister, please,’ said a feminine voice. ‘The editor sent me down. Would you answer some questions?’

‘Naw,’ said Freem, turning to look at a young woman with red hair and a gold pencil in her hand. ‘Well, what do you want to know, lady?’

The young woman had melting brown eyes. She looked at the hound. ‘Is n’t he cute?’ she asked. ‘ What’s his name? ’

‘Mose,’ said Freem. ‘He’s a cute hound all right.’

‘Best in seven counties,’ said Peter.

‘May I quote you on that, Saint?’

‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘You can say I think the dog ought to be let in.’ His face was pink over his white beard. ‘ You can say a hurricane is going to pass, and that before I see that animal blown off by it I ’ll go out there myself — I and my friend Freem. Some say I’m a has-been, but I’ve got some standing with the public yet.'

The girl with red hair was writing furiously with a little gold glitter of her pencil. ‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Say I’m going out too,’ said Freem. ‘I and Pete.'

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Freeman Brock, Route 5, Boonville, New York, U. S. A.'

‘Thanks,’she said breathlessly.

‘How much longer before we got that hurricane coming?’ asked Freem.

‘I don’t know,’said the old man, anxiously. ‘I hope Don can work fast.’

‘Extry! Owner found. Saint Peter goes outside with hound, Moses. Committee bluff called. Read all about it.’

‘How does Don manage it so fast?’ said Peter. ‘It’s like a miracle.’

‘It’s science,’said Freem. ‘Hey!’ he yelled at a cherub.

They took the wet sheet, unheeding of the gold ink that stuck to their fingers.

‘They’ve got your picture here, Pete.’

‘ Have they ? ’ Peter asked. He sounded pleased. ‘Let’s see.’

It showed Peter standing at the gate.

‘It ain’t bad,’said Freem. He was impressed. ‘You really mean it?’ he asked. Peter nodded.

‘ By cripus,’ Freem said slowly, ‘you ’re a pal.’

Saint Peter was silent for a moment. In all the time he had minded Heaven’s Gate, no man had ever called him a pal before.

IV

Outside the gate, old Mose got up on his haunches. He was a weather-wise dog, and now he turned his nose outwards. The first puff of wind came like a slap in the face, pulling his ears back, and then it passed. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Freem and the old man staring at each other. Neither of them had noticed him at all. He pressed himself against the bars and lifted his nose and howled.

At his howl both men turned.

There was a clear gray point way off along the reach of the wall, and the whine in the sky took up where Mose’s howl had ended.

Peter drew in his breath.

‘Come on, Freem,’he said, and opened the gate.

Freeman Brock hesitated. He was scared now. He could see that a real wind was coming, and the landing outside looked almighty small to him. But he was still mad, and he could n’t let an old man like Peter call his bluff.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Here goes.’

He stepped out, and Mose jumped up on him, and licked his face.

‘Get down, darn you,’ he said. ‘I never could break him of that trick,’ he explained shamefacedly to Peter. Peter smiled, closing the gate behind him with a firm hand. Its gong-like note echoed through Heaven just as the third edition burst upon the Avenue.

Freeman Brock was frightened. He glanced back through the bars, and Heaven looked good to him. Up the Avenue a crowd was gathering. A couple of lanky, brown-faced men were in front. They started towards the gate.

Then the wind took hold of him and he grasped the bars and looked outward. He could see the hurricane coming like an express train running through infinity. It had a noise like an express train. He understood suddenly just how the victim of a crossing accident must feel.

He glanced at Peter.

The old Saint was standing composedly, leaning on his staff with one hand, while with the other he drew Mose close between his legs. His white robe fluttered tight against his shanks and his beard bent sidewise like the hound’s ears. He had faced lack of faith, in others; what was worse, he had faced it in himself; and a hurricane, after all, was not so much. He turned to smile at Freem. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said.

‘O.K.,’ said Freem, but he could n’t let go the gate.

Old Mose, shivering almost hard enough to rattle, reached up and licked Peter’s hand.

One of the brown-faced men said, ‘That’s a likely-looking hound. He the one I read about in the paper?’

‘Yep,’ said Freem. He had to holler now.

Daniel Boone said, ‘Let us timberbeasts come out with you, Saint, will you?’

Peter smiled. He opened the gate with a wave of his hand, and ten or a dozen timber-beasts — Carson, Bridger, Nat Foster — all crowded through, and started shaking hands with him and Freeman Brock. With them was a thin, mild-eyed man.

‘My name’s Francis,’ he said to Freem when his turn came. ‘From Assisi.’

‘He’s all right,’ Daniel Boone explained. ‘He was n’t much of a shot, but he knows critters. We better get holt of each other, boys.’

It seemed queer to Freem. Here he was going to get blown to eternity and he did n’t even know where it was, but all of a sudden he felt better than he ever had in his life. Then he felt a squirming round his legs and there was Mose, sitting on his feet, the way he would on his snowshoes in cold weather when they stopped for a sandwich on earth. He reached down and took hold of Mose’s ears.

‘Let her blow to blazes,’ he thought.

She blew.

The hurricane was on them. The nose of it went by, sweeping the wall silver. There was no more time for talk. No voices could live outside Heaven’s gate. If a man had said a word, the next man to hear it would have been some poor heathen aborigine on an island in the Pacific Ocean, and he would n’t have known what it meant.

The men on the gate stone were crammed against the bars. The wind dragged them bodily to the left, and for a minute it looked as if Jim Bridger were going, but they caught him back. There were a lot of the stoutest hands that ever swung an axe in that bunch holding on to Heaven’s gate, and they were n’t letting go for any hurricane — not yet.

But Freem Brock could see it could n’t last that way. He did n’t care, though. He was in good company, and that was what counted the most. He was n’t a praying man, but he felt his heart swell with gratitude, and he took hold hard of the collar of Mose and felt the license riveted on. A queer thing to think of, a New York State dog license up there. He managed to look down at it, and he saw that it had turned to gold, with the collar gold under it. The wind tore at him as he saw it. The heart of the hurricane was on him now like a million devils’ fingers.

‘Well, Mose,’ he thought.

And then in the blur of his thoughts a dazzling bright light came down and he felt the gate at his back opening and he and Peter and Francis and Daniel and the boys were all drawn back into the peace of Heaven, and a quiet voice belonging to a quiet man said, ‘Let the dog come in.’

‘Jesus,’ said Freem Brock, fighting for breath, and the quiet man smiled, shook hands with him, and then went over and placed his arm around Peter’s shoulders.

V

They were sitting together, Freem and Peter, by the gate, reading the paper in the morning warmth, and Peter was having an easy time with the editor’s new type arrangement. ‘Gridley,’ he was reading the upper-case names, ‘Griscome, Godolphin, Habblestick, Hafey, Hanlon, Hartwell, Haskell . . .’

‘Haskell,’ said Freem. ‘Not Pat?’

‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘Late of Hawkinsville.’

‘Not in big type?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ll be . . . Well, that twerp. Think of that. Old Pat.’

Peter smiled.

‘By holy,’ said Freem. ‘Ain’t he going to be amazed when he finds Mose up here?’

‘How’s Mose doing?’

‘ He’s all right now,’ said Freem. ‘ He’s been chasing the rabbits. I guess he’s up there now. The dew’s good.'

‘He didn’t look so well, I thought,’ Peter said.

‘Well, that was at first,’ said Freem. ‘You see, the rabbits just kept going up in the trees and he could n’t get a real run on any of them. There, he’s got one started now.’

Peter glanced up from the paper.

Old Mose was doing a slow bark, kind of low, working out the scent from the start. He picked up pace for a while, and then he seemed to strike a regular knot. His barks were deep and patient.

And then, all of a sudden, his voice broke out — that deep, ringing, honeythroated baying that Freem used to listen to in the late afternoon on the sand hills over the Black River. It went away through the public gardens and out beyond the city, the notes running together and fading and swelling and fading out.

‘He’s pushing him pretty fast,’ said Freem. ‘He’s going to get pretty good on these rabbits.’

The baying swelled again; it came back, ringing like bells. People in the gardens stopped to look up and smile. The sound of it gave Peter a warm tingling feeling.

Freem yawned.

‘Might as well wait here till Pat Haskell comes in,’ he said.

It was pleasant by the gate, under the black and yellow parasol. It made a shade like a flower on the hot star dust. They did n’t have to talk, beyond just, now and then, dropping a word between them as they sat.

After a while they heard a dog panting and saw old Mose tracking down the street. He came over to their corner and lay down at their feet, lolling a long tongue. He looked good, a little fat, but lazy and contented. After a minute, though, he got up to shift himself around, and paused as he sat down, and raised a hind leg, and scratched himself behind his wings.