With ten minutes left to run, Jud became desperate. I’m shore about to lose my old dog to that doctor, he thought.

Jud Lee lay hiding underneath the elderberry bush, chewing contentedly on a sweetgum stem when his small son came and said, “Pa! It ain’t that little old fool from the bank this time. It’s a big old fool with a revolver in his belt, and he’s gittin’ ready to load our stuff on his truck.”

Jud stared incredulously. “If that bank has set the sheriff onto me just because I owe three years of rent,” he said ominously, “I just be durn if I ain’t goan git mad! They just keep worrying me and worrying me about that old money, and I ain’t goan put up with it much longer.”

The sheriff spoke to him pleasantly and the deputy nodded as he brought out a chair and put it in the truck.

“Sheriff,” Jud said, “Let’s talk this over. If you put me out of here, my little family won’t have nowheres to go at.”

“You had the money after your dog won them trials, and you spent it, and the bank says for me to turn you out and that’s all there is to it.” He spoke to his deputy. “Keep the stuff coming, Alwin.”

Jud watched his meager belongings being loaded. They were really going to throw him out.

From the interior the deputy called, “Sheriff, he’s got a right nice bed in here, but there’s a dog laying on it and he keeps growling at me when I try to git him off.”

“Bring the bed on out, dog and all.”

The deputy folded the mattress with Jud’s bird dog, Fred, inside, and came stumbling out with it. He opened it up on the truck, and Fred looked around and then went back to sleep.

“Sheriff,” Jud said, suddenly, “I’ve thought up sump’m. There’s a doctor in town, and he’s stuck on that durn dog yonder, and I bet I could git him to make a loan on Fred!”

The sheriff motioned to his deputy. “Just wait, Alwin.” He said to Jud, “The bank said that I wasn’t to listen to nothing you said, unless you happened to mention selling a valuable dog you had. They never spoke of mortgaging no dog, but if they git the money that’s all they care about. Come on and we’ll go to town. I’ll go, and we’ll take the dog.”

The receptionist in Doctor Ingram’s office told Jud that the doctor was in but busy.

Jud said, “Shuh, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing when he hears it’s about my old dog, Fred.” And without waiting, he pushed through the door to the doctor’s office before the receptionist could get up to stop him.

The doctor was examining a woman patient when Jud burst in. The woman gave a horrified scream. The startled doctor pushed Jud outside and shut the door.

“You idiot, you shouldn’t have come bursting in there like that!” the doctor said angrily.

“Shuh, Doc, don’t worry none. Stuff like that don’t embarrass me. Let me tell you my proposition.”

“If you’ve got a proposition, tell it to me quickly.”

Jud’s face saddened. “Well, the sheriff’s out at my place a-fixing to turn my little family out into the cold.”

“That’s exactly what he should do. Goodby.”

“Wait. You’ve always had a hankering to buy my dog Fred.”

The doctor’s interest quickened. “You mean you’re actually willing to sell Fred to save your farm?”

“Not exactly. I figured to mortgage him to you until another one them trials, and then I would win the money to pay you back.”

The doctor’s eyes gleamed briefly.

“Jud, the only reason I would consider such a proposition is because it may end in my owning the dog. I warned you about that. Now there’s an open trial at Spencer this weekend. I’ll pay the bank sixty dollars – one year’s rent, enough to stall them off for several months – and I’ll put up the forty-dollar entry fee at Spencer, and I’ll give you thirty dollars for transportation and expenses. Miss Monroe, please go with Mr. Lee to my lawyer’s office and have him draw up an airtight lien on his dog Fred for the sum of one hundred and thirty dollars. I’ll keep the dog here until you get back. Remember, Jud, next week bring either a hundred and thirty dollars or my dog Fred.”

With thirty dollars cash money in his pocket and the bird dog Fred at his heels, Jud had started to the bus station to learn the bus schedule when he passed a used-car lot. At once it occurred to him that, if he was going to be traveling here and there following field trials, it would really be better to have his own car to drive. He got into conversation with the salesman, and went from one car to another, and finally, in the absolute back of the lot, they came to a vehicle the salesman was willing to let go for a cash down payment of twenty-five dollars.

The car did run pretty good, for the shape it was in, and Jud drove around town a couple of times with Fred holding his head out the back window and grinning into the breeze. When he stopped, Clem Frisby, who had come to town to get some new calendars, approached him.

“Well, Jud, you acting mighty biggity, now that you got a car. Passed me right by while ago without a lift of a finger.”

“I swear I never seen you, Clem, er I’d a-shore retched out and wove to you. Me and my money-making dog is all set to go win a field trial. Git in and go. We’ll be back Monday er so.”

“I’d shore like to see old Fred outhunt them city dogs,” Clem said, “but right here at the end of the physical year when the stores is giving out new calendars, I ought to stay on the job.”

“Git in. You got enough calendars.”

Clem hesitated another moment, and finally unloaded his armful of rolled-up calendars on the floor of the back seat and got in. “Okay,” he said with an excited grin, “let ’er go.”

Spencer was a 150 miles away, and after a while the novelty of the ride began to wear off, and as night came Clem and Fred went to sleep. The car rocketed through the darkness, its one light blinking occasionally. For an hour the motor ran as smoothly as could be expected, and then suddenly began a rapid, hammering knock that grew in intensity until Clem roused up and Fred cocked his head inquiringly. Jud kept the accelerator pedal on the floor.

Finally Clem shouted, “Don’t it sound to you like one them bearings is burnt out a little bit?”

“Yep. Sounds like it.”

Clem went back to sleep. The knocking grew still louder. Clem woke up and said, “If that thing’s going to keep up such-all a racket as that, let’s stop and git it fixed.”

The next town was fairly large. They were reluctant to slow down for fear the car wouldn’t crank again, so they leaned out and yelled, “Where’s a garage at?” but the few passers-by who were able to understand them above the clatter were too astonished to answer in time, so Clem said, “I’ll hop out and get the inflammation and catch you coming round the block.” Jud circled the block. Clem was waiting but missed him on the first round, and Jud had to circle him again.

Clem directed him to the garage, and as they drove in the whole night shift of mechanics came near and regarded the car interestedly.

“We want to git a bearing fixed, and we’re in sort of a hurry,” Jud said. “How much will it cost?”

“Can’t tell, offhand,” said the foreman. “Maybe you’ve busted a piston too. We’ll take a look.”

A half-hour later he said, “This repair job will cost you about fifteen dollars.”

Jud said, “Fifteen dollars! You must think I’m made of money! Can’t you fix up a bearing out of a piece of old shoe leather?”

“Not hardly, ” he answered. “Might as well git it fixed. You can’t run like that – the burnt-out bearing driving the piston will wear your crankshaft down, and then you’ll really be into it.”

“Tell you what,” Jud said. “Just take the durned old piston plumb out.”

“You can’t do that. There’s another piston has to operate in rhythm with it. They’ll be out of balance and she’ll go to pieces.”

“Then take the other piston out, too,” Jud instructed.

The garageman argued, but Jud insisted. So they took out two pistons, crammed cardboard into the empty cylinders to keep any stray raw gas from leaking into the crankcase, and the job was done. When time came to crank up, all the garage employees retreated to the other end. Clem stood down, too.

The motor started all right, and the four cylinders that had pistons fired fine; but there was a break in the roar when time came for the empty cylinders to fire. This caused the car to shake. Fred in the back, held his seat with difficulty, and his face took on an apprehensive look.

Jud cut the motor, and Fred, having momentary purchase for his feet, sprang through the window and ran to the other end of the garage, where he hid beneath a disabled car.

“You come here, sah!” Jud called. But Fred didn’t come until Jud crawled underneath and got him.

Again he cranked up, and someone got in beside him, but the vibration of the car was such that his companion was just a blur.

“That you, Clem?” Jud shouted.

“Yep, That you, Jud?” Clem shouted.

“Yep.”

Out on the road again, the tailpipe shook loose from the muffler so that part of the exhaust gas seeped up through the floorboards, and Fred presently sank to the seat in a grateful semicoma.

Jud said, “What’s that clicking noise I keep hearing?”

“It’s my false teeth hitting together,” Clem complained. “I shore hate fer them to git all chipped up.”

“Here,” Jud said. “Just hold this old croaker sack between your teeth.”

Clem bit down on the sack and it worked fine. The next thing that bothered him was the heat that threatened to scald his feet.

“Suppose she catches afire?” Clem shouted suddenly.

Jud thought for a moment, and then his face lit up. “She’s insured, so the man says. Just before we git to Spencer, if she’d catch and burn up, it would be right nice. We’d be there, and git our money back too. Now if she catches, you grab your calendars, and I’ll grab old Fred, and we’ll git out and let ’er burn up.”

“Reckon we hadn’t ought to have a little fire drill?” Clem suggested. “I’d hate to forgit to save my calendars.”

“Ain’t a bad idea,” Jud said. “After while, now, I’ll make out she’s afire, and we’ll practice up.”

“That’s it, do it when I ain’t expectant.”

Presently Jud slammed on the brakes and shouted, “She’s afire!” Clem grabbed his calendars, and Jud dragged out the torpid bird dog.

“We got it down, pat,” Clem said with satisfaction. “What’s the matter with Fred? He looks sorta sick.”

“Just sulling,” Jud said. “He’ll be all right when he sees we’re a-going bird hunting.”

Just before dawn, with the croaker sack in his mouth straining Clem’s snores, the car really did catch fire. Jud slammed on the brakes and cried, “Clem, she’s afire shore enough!”

Clem stumbled out, still holding the sack between his teeth, Jud, dragging Fred out, didn’t see that Clem had opened the hood, and in his half-sleep state was throwing sand on the blazing motor. The fire quickly smothered.

“Well, I’ll just be durned,” Jud said in disgust. “Look what you went and done. You act to me like you ain’t never had nothing insured before!”

With Clem chewing apologetically on the sack, Jud cranked up angrily and they drove on.

The field trial assembly was waiting impatiently when Jud’s car drove up, stopped and backfired, causing Judge Rice’s horse to rear. The field-trial judge was angry even before that.

“Is that the post entry Dr. Ingram phoned in last night?” he asked Jud, when Fred staggered shakily out.

“Yep,” Jud said. “His name is Fred and he’s raring to go.”

Judge Rice bit off his words. “So are we, Mr. Lee. We’ve been waiting here ten minutes. You’re in the first brace. Next time, be here when you’re supposed to.”

Jud said to Clem, “He sounds like somebody with a guvment job.”

The judges rode out to the front of the gallery, and the secretary of the club announced, “First brace, Wildwood Jack and Fred. Bring your dogs forward.”

Wildwood Jack was eager, jumping about and straining in the grasp of his handler. Fred trotted alongside Jud with a fatuous grin on his face. When they were out front, the big judge glanced at his watch. He started to say, “Are you ready, gentlemen?”

Wildwood Jack broke away in quick jumps the instant of release. Fred strolled forward a few steps, then lay down and panted contentedly. The gallery, already impatient to get started, was forced to draw up to prevent running over Fred.

“Your dog,” Judge Rice said elaborately, “doesn’t quite show the drive we like to see in a class dog.”

“Judge,” Jud said worriedly, “somebody has tampered with that dog! Fred, you git going, sah!”

Fred wagged his tail briefly, and put his head on his legs.

“That dog ain’t at hisself. He don’t belong to lay there like that,” Jud said, “and he don’t belong to wag his tail.”

Clem had gone back to the car, intending to follow in it as best he could, in company with the dog wagons and a spectator truck. Finally he got it cranked and underway. Fred, hearing the unmistakable racking noise of the motor, lifted his head in alarm. As the sound drew nearer, Fred got his feet up and started running.

With Fred on his way, Jud steered his horse to the rear of the gallery where Clem followed in the car.

“Something bad ails old Fred. Maybe I should have give him a throw of medicine before we come,” Jud said. “But it’s too late now. Listen to me, Clem. If we can keep him out yonder in front, maybe he’ll git back at hisself. He’s took it into his head that he don’t like our car, so if he tries to quit again, I’ll raise up my head and you race the motor to beat all hell, so he can hear it.”

Clem accepted this responsibility with a sense of pride. “We’ll work inco-ornication and keep old Fred a-going,” he said.

Wildwood Jack found birds. It was a small covey huddled in a hawthorne thicket, and when they burst out the other side, the dog was steady to wing and shot, and the gallery murmured in approval. Jack was sent away, and he raced along the fringe of the cornfield.

Fred had not been seen since the initial sprint which carried him over the hill and out of sight. On the right side of the course was a creek swamp, on the left beyond the broad and varying avenue of fields, a body of short-leaf pine woods. Jud began to wonder, worriedly, if Fred had taken it into his head to run away.

But presently, after galloping his horse hard, he found him. Fred was asleep in a patch of sunlight in the woods.

“I’m plumb disagusted at you,” Jud said angrily. “Git up and go to work. Er do you want to do your hunting from now on with an old fool doctor that smells like sheep-dip?”

Fred made no effort to get going, but lay there looking up at Jud lazily. Presently, however, the gallery drew near. Jud moved his horse out into the clear and held up his hand to Clem. Quickly there came the racing and badly broken rhythm of the old car. Fred lifted his head in sudden alarm, and the next instant he sprang away and headed across the cornfield.

This second sprint cleared Fred’s lungs somewhat of the gas, and instead of disappearing into the woods on the other side for another nap, he swung back out in front, far ahead of the gallery and gave the appearance of hunting. In fact, when Wildwood Jack found his third covey, Fred was in the vicinity and seeing his bracemate on birds, honored the point.

“Well, I’m glad to find out the old fool will back,” Jud said. “First time another dog ever found a covey in front of him.”

Mrs. Terrill, who owned the hunting preserve the trials were being run on, drew her frothing horse alongside Jud and said, “Is that really so, Mr. Lee?”

“It’s the truth, ma’am, and you know the truth will go from here to heaven.”

“I do hope your dog is feeling well,” she said.

“No’m, he ain’t.” He leaned slightly toward her and whispered, “I’m thinking he’s been messed with.”

Her eyes opened wide in horror. “Why, the poor thing! How terrible!”

But Fred was doing better now. He was covering his ground nicely, and Jud figured that if he could get him on birds a couple of times he might have a chance to be called back in the second series, even though Wildwood Jack had him beat on finds. But whereas Fred was now willing to hunt, his nose was badly off, and was proved a few minutes later.

Fred was seen to strike scent near a gallberry clump, then to turn, draw a few steps and point in fine style. Jud shouted, “He’s got ’em, Judge, shore’n hell,” and they rode to the place.

Jud dismounted, and with his gun in hand walked toward the pointing dog. Just as he got there, however, a sow with eight little pigs, to Fred’s astonishment, emerged from the gallery clump and with offended dignity, walked away.

“Did you ever see the beat of that?” Jud asked.

“I certainly did not,” said Judge Rice coldly.

With ten minutes left to run, Jud became desperate. I’m shore about to lose my old dog to that doctor, he thought. Then Fred came in from a long swing out to one side, and just as he was about to pass the front of the gallery he wheeled and pointed. Every horse was drawn to a quick stop.

“Your dog is pointing straight at me,” said Judge Rice.

“You must be standing sprang in the middle of the covey,” Jud said. “Back up real easy like and maybe they won’t flush.”

The judge backed his horse, then drew him around to one side. But strangely, Fred slowly turned with the man, still pointing. The judge, perceiving this, moved all the way around the dog, and Fred kept moving with him, pointing.

“Lee,” Judge Rice shouted, furiously, “your dog is pointing me.”

“I’ll be durn if he ain’t! First a sow and then you,” Jud said. “Judge, you didn’t eat quail for breakfast, did you?”

“No, I did not!” roared the judge. “Make that dog stop pointing me, Lee, and furthermore, don’t ever run him in another field I’m judging, you understand?” He rode off.

After another brace had been put down and the gallery moved on, Clem and Jud were sitting on the running board, with Fred tied to keep him from running away from the old car.

“Well, I guess I’ve lost my old dog sure enough,” Jud said, and tears rose in his eyes.

“I ain’t never seen him zibit so many idiocentricities,” Clem said. “It turned out to be a pretty good deal fer that doctor.”

Jud straightened. “Clem, listen here! When I went up to see that lawyer, that doctor made me leave the dog in his office! You know what he done? He give Fred a dost of some kind of pizen, to make him act like that so I couldn’t win!”

Clem ejaculated, “I just be durn!”

At this moment portly Mrs. Terrill rode back. “I couldn’t go away without telling you how sorry I am that you lost, Mr. Lee,” she said. “But I’m sure you must be wrong when you say someone tampered with your dog.”

“No, I ain’t wrong,” Jud shouted, “and I’ve done figured out the very scoun’l what done it.”

That afternoon Mrs. Terrill’s big car stopped in front of Doctor Ingram’s building, and out got Jud and Clem and the dog Fred, and Mrs. Terrill, and an officer of the S.P.C.A. and a policeman. They went inside. Doctor Ingram, in a bright herringbone suit, looked at the assembly in amazement.

Jud spoke. “First thing is to give you your old money back. Here she is, a hund’ed and thirty dollars. Now you ain’t got no more mortgage on my dog.”

“Congratulations!” the doctor said. “Fred must have won!”

“You ain’t fooling nobody with that made-up friendship. This fat lady here give me the money and took over the mortgage. Fred never won that field trial and you know how come!”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

The S.P.C.A. officer said gently, “Let us handle this little matter from here, Mr. Lee.”

The outraged protests of the doctor got pretty loud, so Jud and Clem slipped out the door for quieter surroundings.

“It just goes to show you,” Jud said darkly, “that you can’t tell who to trust in this world. I shore wouldn’t a-thought it of that doctor.”

“He shore turned out to be a wolf in cheap clothing,” Clem said.

They walked on. Finally Jud said, “You know, Clem, I still think that judge had et quail for breakfast.”

Editor’s Note: “Mortgage on a Dog” is from Brag Dog and Other Stories: The Best of Vereen Bell, published by Wilderness Adventures, Inc.