The house stood in a hollow some distance from the road, looking like some immense packing case someone had jettisoned long since and forgotten. Only a light in an upper window betrayed its occupation; behind the lighted window, the fugitives could discern the shadow of a woman silhouetted against the old-fashioned yellow linen blind. She seemed to be wearing a bodice that left her arms bare, and she was rubbing them vigorously with a cloth. Her hair was tied up in a handkerchief, with tweaked ends like the shadow-toy you make for a child.
The two men had come a long way with fear at their heels. The older and leader might have been eight or nine and thirty, a tall dark figure with two days’ stubble growth on his chin; the boy was young enough to be his son, slender and fair, with eyes as blue as the sea and the mind of a child.
When he espied the house, its light gleaming through the loneliness of the trees, Maggs said, “This is it. Curly, this is the house we been looking for. No neighbors, no ’phone, and no kids.”
“I like kids,” said Curly in peaceable tones.
“Not when you’re wearing our shoes,” was his companion’s grim retort. “Kids yell. We don’t want no one to hear…”
“Hear what?”
“Anything. Folks ain’t always reasonable.”
The boy caught the man’s arm. “No violence, Maggs,” he urged. “You promised. No violence. Not like last time.”
“Have some sense,” Maggs told him in an impatient voice. “This ain’t a mail van driver without the brain to know what was good for him. This is a lady.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t intrude. Maggs, you got a gun?”
“D’you think guns grow on trees?”
“I didn’t know Harry had a gun last time,” whimpered the boy. “I thought that driver was goin’ to die.”
“Lucky for us he didn’t, or we’d ha’ been on a murder rap. You can still get the rope for shooting. Now then. Curly, you leave this to me, see. Unless you aim to go back to that nice cosy little cell of yours, with the walls so high you can’t see nothing beyond them.”
The boy’s slender form shook. “No, Maggs, no. If on’y they’d of put me to work outside somewhere, sweeping leaves, anything. Even as a kid I couldn’t stand being shut in.”
“Then you do as I say.”
But still he hung back. “Lady can’t open the door if she’s washing herself,” he pleaded.
“She can put on a dressing-gown, can’t she? Not that I’d have any objection. More’n a year since I saw a woman…”
He stormed down the path, skirting the dark barn, and hammered on the door.
The woman in the upper room had heard their voices and peeped through a crack in the blind. Her heart was thudding in her breast. She had lived too long with a violent man not to know the folly of expecting them to go away if she paid no heed. No, they’d smash the place up. She couldn’t have that.
She threw down the towel and drew a short coat over her bare arms; she twitched off the handkerchief and went to stare at herself in the looking-glass square on the cupboard. She saw a thin, haggard face that might once have been beautiful; faded, sandy hair drawn into an economical knot at the back of her head; defiant, suspicious hazel eyes; a thin, scornful, high-bridged nose; a mouth that had learned to set as tight as a trap.
The invaders thumped again. “I’ll give her one more chance, and then I’ll get the door down,” swore Maggs.
“The light’s gone out,” said Curly. “She’s coming. Listen.”
“I don’t hear nothing. You got ears like a bat.” He lifted his great foot to crash it against the panel of the door when suddenly it opened and he almost fell over.
The woman set down the lamp in her hand to say harshly, “No sense doing that. Doors cost money. You in a hurry, it seems.”
“And seemingly you ain’t.” He made to enter, but she shut the door against him.
Maggs thrust his foot in the gap. “’Scuse me, lady, we’re coming in.”
“We don’t buy at the door.”
“That’s O.K. We ain’t got nothing to sell.”
“And we don’t need no help.”
“We ain’t looking for work.”
“Fancy me thinking that. Who are you, then?”
Curly spoke over the older man’s shoulder. “Maggs don’t mean no harm, ma’am. We’re hungry, we want food and a few shillings if you got it to spare…”
“Beggars, eh?”
“I said I’d handle this,” said Maggs furiously, stamping on the boy’s foot. “He’s right, though. We want a change of clobber first thing, and then some food and dough, and we’ll be saying goodbye.”
“And if I ain’t got them? Or ain’t willing to part?”
Maggs could have hit her, standing there, so defiant and as plain as the back of a taxicab. Women with her looks had no right to talk like they were queens. Why, she must be as old as him, and nothing feminine there, for all she wore a wedding-ring.
“It could pay to be co-operative,” he said, slurring the last word, which was long for his clumsy tongue.
“Maggs!” The boy pulled at his arm. “You said no violence. You promised.”
“You homesick?” Maggs suggested, and once more the boy shrank back.
But from the shadow he spoke again courageously. “Maybe we shouldn’t trouble the lady, seeing she’s alone.”
“Who said I was alone?” She stood back and Maggs sprang through the entry. “Bellman!”
She hadn’t raised her voice but on the word a great crossbred dog bounded toward them.
Maggs stopped dead in his tracks, but Curly came past and stooped to caress the big noble head.
“This sure is a grand dog you got, ma’am,” he cried eagerly. “These cross-strains, you can’t better ’em. For folding sheep, say.”
“What do you know about folding sheep?”
“Grew up in the country,” said Maggs in surly tones.
“That so? Then how come you’re going ’round with this—scum? I know a hoodlum when I see one.”
Maggs swung up his great fists, black with rage. “You keep a civil tongue in your head, missis, or it might be worse for you.”
The dog growled warningly.
“And call that brute off. He’s a killer.”
“Reckon that should make you feel at home. What d’you suppose I have him for? He ain’t a lapdog. He’s here to guard me against fellows like you. Bellman always knows. Blood will tell.”
Maggs yanked something out of his pocket that gleamed in the lamplight. “Maybe it wouldn’t do him any harm to lose a little of that blood.”
“You said you hadn’t got no gun.” The boy’s voice was yeasty with panic.
“Found it lying around and figured it might come in useful. Now, missis, do you put that dog out or…?”
“You can’t blame him looking ugly, seeing the company I’m keeping tonight,” the woman flared.
She took him by the collar and dragged him through into the kitchen, the men following. She thrust him out of the back door, whispering and caressing as she let him go. Maggs pushed past her and turned the key in the lock; then he put the key in his pocket.
“Best that way,” he said, patting it.
“Don’t try nothing funny,” the woman warned him. “Bellman wouldn’t make nothing of them windows.”
“I’ll be waiting for him,” Maggs promised her. “Nothing speaks quicker than a gun.”
She whipped open a drawer and snatched out a knife. “You hurt a hair of that dog’s head and I—I’ll carve you into bits.”
“God, I pity your husband,” Maggs exclaimed.
“Maybe you should change places with him.”
“I’d sooner do a life stretch,” retorted Maggs heartily. “Now, missis, you give us what we ask for or else…”
“Or else?” she prompted.
“We’d have to help ourselves, wouldn’t we? And we might make a bit of a mess, not knowing where everything’s kept, see?”
“They should ha’ given you a cup of cold pizen instead of a dose of jail,” said the woman, contemptuously.
“Who said anything about jail?”
“They got you on the radio—didn’t you know? Two men that broke out of Hollerton Jail day afore yesterday, seen heading this way. The bigger of the two, Stanley Maggs, may be dangerous. The boy called you Maggs.”
The man turned furiously. “I might have knowed it was plumb crazy making a break with a chap who’s no more’n ninepence in the shilling. Bound to louse things up, weren’t you?”
“He warn’t afraid of a dog anyways,” the woman jibed.
“That’s enough about the dog. You start finding that clobber, and don’t tell me your man ain’t got a spare suit, because I wouldn’t believe you, see?”
The woman smiled; it was a smile enough to curdle your blood.
“Reckon you don’t know my man. He’s mean—’bout the meanest thing there is. If he was here he wouldn’t say, ‘They’re on the run, they got to have food and clothes and dough, so let’s open up the larder and turn out our pockets.’ No, sir.”
“Then we’d best wait and take the one he’s wearing off his back,” suggested Maggs.
The woman screamed with laughter. “You’re welcome. Mind you, he’s only a little fellow—but tough. The boy now—what’s your name?”
“Curly, ma’am.”
“Maybe he could wear women’s clothes, those blue eyes and all that fair hair. Not like you, Maggs, unless you aim to join a circus —the Bearded Lady. You’d like fine to have folk paying their tanners to take a gawp at you, wouldn’t you now?”
“That’ll be enough from you.”
“You should ha’ come earlier. Curly. When I had my pretties, when I was a bride.”
“You a bride!” Maggs jeered.
“I ain’t so old. Curly.” Her voice had softened. It’s just life’s hard.”
“Maybe you’d best do as he says, ma’am,” the boy urged. “He don’t like being kept waiting, and he’s got a gun.”
“Sometimes you talk like you had sense, same as anyone else,” Maggs congratulated him. “Get on with it, missis.”
“I told you, we ain’t got nothing to fit you.” She began to laugh again and turned coaxingly to the boy. “Your mother ever read you that fairy tale. Curly, where the tailer snipped with magic scissors and wonderful clothes began to fall down on all the company. There was a picture in the book I had—blue and green and gold—satin.” She began to stride about the room, snipping with a pair of imaginary scissors. “Doublets and hose,” she explained. “That’s what they wore in them days, doublets and hose.”
Maggs turned to his companion. “She’s crazy,” he said, “and that makes two of you.”
“No,” contradicted Curly. “She’s scairt, that’s all. And you wouldn’t let her keep her dog.”
The woman, overhearing them, turned sharply. “What makes you think I’m scairt of a pair of hoodlums?”
“Maybe it’s not us scared you. If you was to give Maggs what he asks, ma’am…”
“Reckon you don’t understand. I can’t give you what I ain’t got.”
“Maggs, let’s be going. It’s like the lady says. She can’t give you what she ain’t got.”
Maggs crossed to the window and stared out through the deepening shadows.
“What d’you keep in the barn, missis?”
“Flotsam and jetsam.” The words came like a rap of a pistol. “Just flotsam and jetsam.”
“There wouldn’t be an old jalopy along of the rest?” His voice was sly.
“My man took that along with him this morning. Not that it would help you. Everyone round here knows that jalopy, and everyone knows my man. They wouldn’t mistake him for you nor Angel-face here.”
“Maybe he could have loaned it to us.”
Again the woman screamed with laughter.
“Stop that,” said Maggs. “You freeze my blood. Curly, you stop here and get the money and the grub. I’m going down to the barn.”
“I tell you, you’re wasting your time.”
“Ask pretty and you might get it without trouble. But—get it, see?”
“Could I drive the jalopy, Maggs?”
“Reckon you can. Curly’s a right nice driver, missis. Come driving for me and my friends one night ’bout a year since. You ask him.”
Curly’s face darkened. “I didn’t know Harry had a gun,” he whispered. “You didn’t know neither, did you, Maggs?”
“Who’s talking about guns? We won’t hurt the jalopy, missis. Curly never hurt a car in his life, and we’ll leave it somewheres for him to collect.”
The woman came to a sudden resolution. “How’d it be if I was to give you money—I tell him I lost it or something—then you could get along to the next town and get some duds, duds that ’ud fit you.”
“Yes,” broke in Curly, eagerly. “Why shouldn’t we do that, Maggs?”
“How far’s the nearest town?” demanded Maggs suspiciously.
“Not far. Well—six miles, say.”
“And while we’re trampin’ in, you put a call through from that phone booth at the crossroads, and we find a depitation waiting for us? I’ve a mind to put a bullet through you just for luck.”
“No, Maggs!” screamed the boy.
“O.K., Curly, O.K. I’ll be getting down to the barn. Out of the way, missis.” Suddenly he grinned. “I know what it is. You got a man there. It ain’t the jalopy you’re worrying about. Suppose he thinks we’re your husband. Shakin’ in his shoes, I daresay.”
“Nothing to stop him walking out while you’re yammering here,” said the woman indifferently.
“Maybe he thinks we won’t be long, and he’s waiting to get what he came for.” He took the key from his pocket and fitted it in the lock. “You do your stuff, mind, Curly, and—no double crossing, see? It’s a long road a bullet can’t find you.”
He flung open the door and vanished into the dark, locking it behind him.
Before the sound of his feet had died away the woman turned to Curly. “Now’s your chance,” she implored him. “He won’t be up right away. You could get along through the front, go hide in the woods. I’ll tell him I couldn’t hold you and you gone down to the river. You could lie up in the woods till the hunt’s moved on.”
“Eatin’ nuts like a squirrel?” asked Curly solemnly. “It ain’t the right time of year for nuts, ma’am.”
“You don’t want to be here when the police come,” she insisted.
“The police?”
“Bellman’s gone for them. If they find you here, they’ll take you back.”
“The police!” The boy brooded. “That’s why you let Maggs shoot his mouth off? Making time, like?”
“That’s right. That big shot!”
“You’re a brave woman, ma’am. Maybe it’s you should be making for the woods. He don’t like being double-crossed.”
“You’ll want money,” she said, pulling open a drawer. “I’ll give you this...”
“Well, thanks, ma’am. Maggs ’ull be pleased. That’s one thing I done for him.”
“Maggs don’t come into this. You want to get off before he’s back.”
“But” he stared, “he don’t know about the dog.”
“He will.”
“I’ll have to tell him, ma’am. Him and me’s mates.”
“Mates? And the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Not that Maggs wouldn’t make the lousiest lion. How come you met up with him at all?”
“He give me a job. Driving a car. He said I drove nice. Never took an exam, though.”
“L-driver, eh?”
“But not at night. Maggs said best not. Might attract attention, see.”
“Was you driving the car that night, when you got nabbed?”
Curly looked nervous. “Just driving, ma’am.”
“The radio said a mail van driver got hurted bad.”
“Must have been armor-plated Maggs said, not to ha’ died. I parked the car in the alley and kept a lookout. Holler if you see police, Harry said—leastways, whistle. Like this.” He whistled, clear and radiant as a blackbird. “So I whistled, and then I heard the shot—and the car drivin’ away.”
“Leaving you to hold the baby?”
“Maybe I move slow,” Curly apologized.
“How come they got Maggs?”
“He come back for me. He told the police I never set eyes on any of ’em before, and it was true—except for Maggs.”
“What did they give you?” asked the woman in harsh tones.
“Three years—because he didn’t die, see.”
“A child like you! Didn’t you have no one to advise you?”
“They asked me did I want to plead unfit, like I was silly, see? But Maggs said that ’ud mean they’d never let me go. Think of it —all my life behind them walls.” He looked about him wonderingly. “It don’t seem I did much,” he said. “Just drove the car.” He looked troubled. “Why don’t Maggs come back? Maybe he met up with your man in the barn?”
“Maybe he did. Or maybe he’s trying to get the jalopy to go. It’s O.K., Curly. My man ain’t coming back tonight. That’s what I didn’t want Maggs to know. Well, he’s got a gun, and all I got are these.”
She thrust her hands together and pushed them toward him. Thin and tanned and bitten with work and weather they were. “Look like hide now, don’t they?” she said. “But they was white and supple once, afore I was wed. Soft hands, soft heart, that was me. You married, Curly?”
Curly stared. “No, ma’am.”
“When you do, you remember a woman don’t stop bein’ herself because she’s your wife. She ain’t a piece of stock you look to make a profit; she likes a bit of attention, a bit of loving, that way she stays loving, too. How old you. Curly?”
“Nigh twenty, ma’am.”
“You could ha’ been the son I never had. You got a mother?”
“Not so fur’s I know.”
“No folks?”
“On’y Maggs.”
“He ain’t folks.”
“He’s all I got.”
“You want to keep away from his sort. You’re not like him. You’re—gentle. Women like that in a man. You’d be good to a woman. Curly. You tried to be good to me. There’s joy in the world for them as can find it. You take my share, the share I missed. And now—go. Go quick. Here. Take this macintosh cape of my husband’s. No, he won’t be wanting it. And go now. Not that way,” as he turned towards the kitchen door. “Maggs locked that. You go out the front.”
“Thank you for the money, ma’am. Maggs ’ull be pleased.”
“You’re going to stick to him? A chap that was born to be hanged.” She could scarcely contain her rage and scorn.
“That’s a turr’ble thing to say about any man, ma’am. He’s coming now,” he added, simply.
“I don’t hear nothing.”
But Curly was right. A moment later the key shot into the lock, the door was flung open, Maggs came in, his face shiny with sweat, his voice thick as though choked with phlegm.
“You didn’t toot the horn, Maggs,” Curly accused him. “Wasn’t there no jalopy in the barn?”
“Never mind about the jalopy,” said Maggs, breathless and disheveled. “We’re getting out.”
“I got the money, Maggs.” He shook the purse triumphantly.
Maggs took it from him and flung it on the table. “We don’t want nothing from this house. What’s that you got on your shoulders? I didn’t notice no scarecrow on the way in.”
“She said her man wouldn’t miss it.”
Maggs threw back his head and roared with laughter. “No, he won’t miss it. You ask him if you don’t believe me.”
“You mean—he’s down in the barn?”
“That’s right. He’s down in the barn. God!” he turned savagely on the silent woman. “You musta hated him. His head’s nigh stove in.”
“You been a long time thinking up that story,” said the woman. “Very pretty, ain’t it? I go flying down to the barn and when I come back you’ve stripped the house. No, we’ll wait till the police come. You can tell your fairy tale to them.”
“Who said the police are coming?”
“It’s the dog, Maggs. She sent the dog for them.”
Maggs turned; his face was indescribable. “No,” he said. “You wouldn’t do that, not even a hellion like you. Not with him down there the way he is.”
“I don’t know what way he is,” returned the woman in a wooden sort of voice. “I wasn’t in the barn since yesterday. ’Sides, you’re forgetting Bellman. He wouldn’t let no stranger come nigh the barn, not without I was with him.”
“Who said anything about a stranger?” demanded Maggs sulkily.
Curly was pulling at his coat. “Maggs, you didn’t get it. The dog’s gone for the police. We got to get out. Quick.”
“You’re too late,” said Maggs coolly. “Hark to that!”
A distant full-throated barking could be heard.
“He’ll have found,” said the woman in a tone of bitter triumph.
Maggs snatched out the revolver. “This time,” he said, “he’ll get it right between the eyes. That’s the right treatment for a squealer.”
In an instant, heedless of her own security, the woman had flung herself upon him.
“Curly, go stop him!” she shouted.
“My God, you wildcat, I believe you blinded me!” howled Maggs.
“I’ll have to cry myself to sleep tonight,” she growled.
“I’m going, Maggs!” shouted Curly. “I can’t go back, not them walls.”
Neither heard him; nor did they hear the soft voice saying, “Thanks, son, but not so fast. There’s a few questions…”
The next instant the room was full of people. Before Maggs was aware, hands had gripped him, his gun was skittering along the floor, and a voice said, “Reckon we’ll use them bracelets,” and to his rage and shock he found himself handcuffed.
Curly, lost and heartbroken, found himself in the guard of a police constable. The third newcomer was a small dapper man in a dark suit and a black trilby who held Bellman by the collar.
The woman stepped back, pushing her disordered hair into place. The dog pulled forward and leaped up against her as the sergeant stooped and picked up the gun in a hand veiled by a handkerchief.
“Having a bit of trouble, ma’am?” he suggested.
“Who’s that you’ve brought along?” demanded the woman, indicating the stranger, who answered for himself.
“Name of Pryce,” he said. “Your dog here stopped my car, so I guessed there was summat wrong and I drove him down to the station. I travel in sardines,” he added.
“No wonder Bellman winded you. O.K., boy, we got the police here now.”
Curly was wailing softly. “You promised, Maggs, you promised. Now I’ll go back…”
“Go back?” Pryce looked from one face to another.
“We’ve been looking for these chaps,” the sergeant explained briefly.
“Oh, them two! Quite a haul you made.” He stopped to pat the dog.
“Warn’t there a reward?” said the woman. “If so, I reckon Bellman should have his share.”
“What you got in your veins instead of blood?” demanded Maggs. “Ice?”
“That’ll do,” said the sergeant.
Curly’s voice lifted. “Why couldn’t it be me in the barn with my head stove in? Oh Maggs, why couldn’t it be me?”
“What’s that?” exclaimed the sergeant.
“Best ask him.” The woman indicated Maggs with a derisive finger. “’Cording to him, there’s a body in the barn”
“As if you didn’t know,” taunted Maggs.
“I ain’t been near the barn today. Mind you, it’s just a trap to get the house to themselves. I’m not fooled that easy.”
The sergeant was staring at Maggs’ shoes. “You just come from the barn?”
“That’s right.”
“It was the jalopy,” broke in Curly. “Maggs thought I could drive the jalopy.”
For the first time the woman looked uncertain. “It’s a joke, ain’t it? Ain’t it?” she repeated more sharply.
“Not for him it ain’t,” Maggs retorted. “Though he could be better off that way than living alongside her.”
The sergeant silenced him effectively. “You Haywood, take a look in the barn,” he said. “Mr. Pryce and me’ll keep an eye on these two.”
Haywood went out. Pryce stood rather self-consciously near the distraught Curly. Bellman crouched at his mistress’s feet.
The woman said calmly, “If it’s true, sergeant, there ain’t been no one near the house all day but these two.”
“We come right up to the house,” declared Maggs. “That chap was a goner when we came. Why, now I come to recall it, she was cleaning herself when we come. Cleanin’ herself this time of day.”
“You wouldn’t understand cleaning yourself any time of day,” retorted the woman in scornful tones. “The dog would ha’ let me know if anyone was there,” she added an instant later.
“He’s a grand chap,” Pryce agreed. “Came right up like as if he could speak. Let me pat him…” He looked at his hands and his expression changed. “That’s a funny thing.”
“What’s that?” asked the sergeant with a bark that might have done credit to the dog.
“I dunno. Looks like blood—only—I’m not hurted anywhere. I was petting the dog—that’s it. Must be the dog. On’y he never let on he was hurt.”
The sergeant dropped down at Bellman’s side, touching him like a man who knows dogs like his own garden.
“Good fellow! Easy, boy.” The skillful hands explored the dog’s coat and legs. Then he rose slowly. “He ain’t hurt—but there’s blood on his ruff and one foreleg. How did he come by that?”
“I’ll tell you how he come by that,” shouted Maggs. “Got it in the barn, afore we come. Him and her, they ganged up ’on the old man. Well, stands to reason. He was here when we come. Ain’t that right, Curly?”
“That’s so,” agreed Curly.
“And if he hadn’t of been he’d have chased us off, wouldn’t he? But he was right inside the house with her. And afterward, long afore I shoved open the barn door, he must have been smelling the sardines on this gentleman’s coat. So how come he’s got blood on him if he wasn’t in the barn afore we reached the house? You tell me that, missis, if you can?”
“Don’t say anything,” said the sergeant swiftly. And then the door pushed open and Haywood came in.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, not meeting the woman’s eyes. “Reckon you’d best not go down. He—ain’t pretty.”
“That wouldn’t be no change,” the woman assured them all. “Well, a man that mean must have had enemies.”
“Reckon you won’t have to look far for this one,” jeered Maggs.
“I’ll have to ask you to come along to the station,” the sergeant continued, paying no attention to the interrupter.
“To make a statement about these hoodlums? I understand.”
Those small sharp hazel eyes met his without fear. He knew a wave of reluctant admiration for her; she must know how this was going to end, but she stood as steady as a house built upon the rock.
“Reckon I wouldn’t care about staying here alone with him the way he is,” she added. “We’ll take Bellman along with us.”
“We’ll see to Bellman,” the sergeant promised.
“He’s a good lad. Anyone might be proud…” For an instant there seemed a chance that she’d waver. Then she cried angrily, “Ain’t the rest of you going to get along? I don’t recall inviting none of you…”
“Leave your address,” said the sergeant to Pryce, who was fiddling nervously with the hat he’d taken off. “And don’t go anywhere we can’t reach you. See?”
The man nodded and dived for the door. Curly shook like a figure of perpetual grief. Beyond speech, beyond reproaches.
“You shud ha’ gone while you had the chance,” said the woman in sudden rage. “Now you can hang along of him one of these days.”
“Get the pair of them back to the station,” the sergeant told Haywood sharply. “The lady and me ’ull wait here till the doctor and the boys come to do their stuff. Ring from the box at the crossroads. Maybe you’d like to put a few things together,” he added gently to the woman. “We’ll be locking the place up for the time being.”
“Come on, you,” said Haywood to the savage Maggs. He came across and caught him by the arm, but the big fellow wrenched himself free.
“Don’t hustle me,” he said. “Where’s your manners? I got to say good-bye to the lady, ain’t I? Know what they say, missis, about women always getting the last word? Reckon you got that all right; had it a while back, you did, when you said blood will tell.”
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: Out of the blue there came into my visual imagination this ill-assorted couple of jailbirds staring down at a lonely house occupied by a woman alone. I don’t know when I thought of the dog, or when I knew a murder had been committed. I was fascinated by the set-up and went after it. Now I could tell you what all my people looked like, including the dog, a crossbred collie of a type I have never owned.