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RESCUE DOG
of the
HIGH PASS

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RESCUE DOG
of the
HIGH PASS

Jim Kjelgaard

AUTHOR OF "SWAMP CAT," ETC.

Illustrated by Edward Shenton

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Jim Kjelgaard has long wanted to tell the story of the gallant dogs who have gone out with the monks of St. Bernard Hospice to rescue travelers lost in the deep snows of the Swiss mountain passes. Unable to find the facts, he decided to reconstruct the tale as he feels it might have been. The result is this very moving story of a simple mountain boy and his devoted dog.

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Franz Halle felt he was worthless because he could not manage book learning, but his schoolmaster and the village pastor knew that the boy had a priceless knowledge all his own. The kindly priest secured work for Franz at near-by St. Bernard Hospice, helping a gentle giant of a man who made it possible for him to keep his beloved Alpine mastiff, Caesar, although the huge animal refused to earn his keep, even by turning the spit. When the scarcity of food forced Caesar's reluctant banishment, Franz—who had joined the monks in their daily patrol of the dangerous passes—proved that where even he, with all his rare knowledge of the ways of the blizzards, might fail, a dog could detect a man buried under an avalanche! So Franz and his brave helper initiated the rescue work of the St. Bernard dogs that was to become famous throughout the world.

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DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

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SWAMP CAT

Jim Kjelgaard

AUTHOR OF "DOUBLE CHALLENGE," ETC.

Illustrated by Edward Shenton

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An outstanding writer about the outdoors gives us two heroes in this fascinating book. One is a young boy who lives alone most happily on the edge of a swamp, earning his living from it. The other is, astonishingly, a black house cat. At least, Frosty started off as a city kitten, but by the time he proves his ability to survive the perils of the swamp wilderness and decides to share the boy's cabin with him, he is as much a part of his rugged environment as the deer, the horned owls, and the muskrats.

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The boy decides to stock the swamp with muskrats, without realizing that there are other enemies besides the predatory swamp creatures in this location where ancient family feuds have been allowed to hang on.

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There is the very feel of the wild country in all its moods, death-dealing or life-giving, and a wonderful closeness to the sensitive feelings and seesaw development of a boy.

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Edward Shenton's pictures are wonderful, as always.

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DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

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JIM KJELGAARD

was born in New York City. Happily enough, he was still in the pre-school age when his father decided to move the family to the Pennsylvania mountains. There young Jim grew up among some of the best hunting and fishing in the United States. He says: "If I had pursued my scholastic duties as diligently as I did deer, trout, grouse, squirrels, etc., I might have had better report cards!"

Jim Kjelgaard has worked at various jobs—trapper, teamster, guide, surveyor, factory worker and laborer. When he was in the late twenties he decided to become a full-time writer. He has succeeded in his wish. He has published several hundred short stories and articles and quite a few books for young people.

His hobbies are hunting, fishing, dogs, and questing for new stories. He tells us: "Story hunts have led me from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic Circle to Mexico City. Stories, like gold, are where you find them. You may discover one three thousand miles from home or, as in The Spell of the White Sturgeon, right on your own door step." And he adds: "I am married to a very beautiful girl and have a teen-age daughter. Both of them order me around in a shameful fashion, but I can still boss the dog! We live in Phoenix, Arizona."

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. . . DODD, MEAD & COMPANY . . .

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RESCUE DOG OF THE HIGH PASS

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RESCUE DOG OF
THE High Pass


By Jim Kjelgaard

Illustrated by Edward Shenton


DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, NEW YORK, 1958

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© 1958 by Jim Kjelgaard
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher





Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-10336



Printed in the United States of America
by The Cornwall Press, Inc., Cornwall, N. Y.

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To
Alice Bedford

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CONTENTS

1.	THE SCHOOL	15
2.	SHAME	27
3.	THE GREEDY VILLAGER	39
4.	NIGHT MISSION	49
5.	THE "MARONNIER"	63
6.	FATHER BENJAMIN	69
7.	THE HOSPICE	83
8.	A FREE DAY	95
9.	THE BLIZZARD	105
10.	THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD	115
11.	CAESAR'S SENTENCE	127
12.	JEAN'S STORY	135
13.	CAESAR'S FEAT	143
14.	THE MESSAGE	153

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Then a dog appeared, a half dozen bounds behind the madly-racing fox	21
From the topmost eminence of Little Sister, he had viewed a breath-taking array of other peaks	31
Caesar stayed just far enough behind to avoid stepping on the tail of either ski	57
He saw Franz and Caesar.... "Hello, fellow travelers!" he called cheerfully. "I am Father Benjamin."	75
Presently the boy understood.... The Hospice must be visible from as great a distance as possible	89
Suddenly, Caesar left Franz's side, bounded ahead and seized the priest's habit in his great jaws	111
But it was not until past noon of the following day, during a lull in the storm, that Anton did return	125
Suddenly Franz remembered when Caesar had found Emil Gottschalk buried in the snow	149

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The characters and situations in this book are wholly fictional and imaginative: they do not portray and are not intended to portray any actual persons or parties.

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RESCUE DOG OF THE HIGH PASS

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1: THE
SCHOOL

Sitting on his assigned portion of the backless wooden school bench, fourteen-year-old Franz Halle tried earnestly to concentrate on the Latin text before him. He read, "Deinde rex perterritus Herculi hunc laborem, graviorem, imposuit. Augeas—"

Very interesting, he thought, and doubtless very important. Professor Luttman, who taught the school at Dornblatt, said so, and Professor Luttman was both wise and educated. Franz himself had heard the village men say that he could discuss the classics, politics, history, higher mathematics, astronomy and the latest method of bloodletting as a cure for the ague, at endless length and most thoroughly. Franz tried again.

"Deinde rex—" Surely it meant something or Professor Luttman never would have assigned it. But what? If only it were a squirrel track in the snow, a chamois doe trying to lure an eagle away from its kid, a trout in the cold little stream that foamed past Dornblatt, or an uncertain patch of snow that was sure to become an avalanche, it would be simplicity itself. But written words were never simple, not even when they were written in the German that Franz could read.

Franz made one more manful effort. Then he gave up and devoted himself to looking through the window on the south side of the school.

The mighty birches that had once grown there, and that had been so lovely to see when spring clothed their branches in tightly curled new leaves that looked oddly like baby lambs, or when the wind set trees and leaves to dancing, had been felled for half a furlong down the mountainside.

Franz smiled wistfully. Furlong—furrow long—the distance a team of oxen could pull a plow without tiring. Now there was a word he understood perfectly. Not that there were any gardens a furlong in length around Dornblatt, for not even the strongest oxen could pull a plow through solid rock. Some of the villagers had even carried dirt, basket by basket, to cover the rocks and form more garden space.

Vaguely it occurred to Franz that there was something he had been doing or should do, but he had forgotten what it was. He continued to look out of the window.

The village spread below him, sturdy log buildings with living quarters for humans on the second floor and stables for the cattle beneath. The villages lined the narrow path that trailed on up the mountain and, eventually, into the mighty Alps. Here and there was a garden patch, for where there was so little land to cultivate, not even one square foot must be wasted. But most of the gardens were beyond the limits of Dornblatt itself. Summer pasturage for the village cattle, and the fields where the villagers cut most of their hay, were far above timber line.

Franz thought again of the birch trees that had been and a twinge of remorse stirred his heart. It was right and just to fell trees, but only when timber was needed for new buildings or wood was required for the village stoves. It was wrong to destroy so many beautiful birches simply because one greedy man had the power to gratify his greed.

The land upon which the school was built had belonged to Emil Gottschalk, the only man in Dornblatt who had managed to acquire any wealth. It was a foregone conclusion that a site for the schoolhouse would be bought from Emil—and this was the only location that he offered. Since practically everybody else in Dornblatt was in Emil's debt, none had dared protest vehemently even though all knew that the schoolhouse, at the very foot of a steep and almost forestless mountain, was directly in the path of an avalanche and, sooner or later, would be destroyed by one.

Emil had prepared for that, too. After selling the site for a school to the citizens of Dornblatt, he had proceeded to sell them the birches. Every man in the village had helped cut and trim the trees, and every horse and ox team had been pressed into service to drag the trimmed trunks to the north side of the school. There the men, including Professor Luttman, had again fallen to and erected a breastwork that probably would stop anything except a major avalanche.

So Dornblatt had its school, but at three times the cost in money and labor that would have been necessary had any of a half dozen other sites that were available—and out of the path of avalanches—been selected.

Franz straightened suddenly and grew tense. A squirrel had emerged from the far side of the clearing where the birches had been and was crossing to the near side. Franz's eyes widened, for this promised both stark drama and excitement. Squirrels lived among the trees, and almost always they were safe as long as they stayed there. But almost invariably they were doomed when they left their arboreal haunts.

Obviously not alarmed, for it was not running fast, the squirrel came a quarter of the way into the clearing. Franz knitted puzzled brows. Latin was a mystery to him, but almost without exception the creatures of the forest were an open book. The squirrel presented a puzzle, for the very fact that it was not running fast proved that it had not been frightened from the forest. It was no baby but an adult, therefore it was acquainted with danger. What had prompted it to risk this foolhardy journey?

As unexpectedly as a sudden wind can whirl a spiral of snow into the air, the squirrel's leisurely pace changed to wild flight. Franz ceased pondering whys and wherefores and lost himself in watching.

From the same side of the clearing where the squirrel had first appeared, a fox emerged from the forest. But rather than choosing a leisurely pace, the fox was running so furiously that it seemed little more than a streak of fur. Franz watched with pounding heart as the animal, whose every leap equalled twenty of the short-legged squirrel's frantic lunges, overtook its quarry.

There was just one possible end, the fox would catch and kill the squirrel before the latter was able to reach the safety of the trees on the other side of the clearing. Then both passed out of Franz's field of vision and, crane his neck as he would, he could no longer see the chase.

He felt a pang of disappointment. He could find no life in a Latin text, but life in its fullest was represented by the fox and squirrel chase.

A split second later, to his vast astonishment, he saw the fox streaking back toward that part of the forest from which it had emerged. Since no squirrel dangled from its jaws, it was evident that the fox had failed to catch its quarry. Then a dog appeared, a half dozen bounds behind the terrified and madly-racing fox. The dog was light tawny in color, with no dark markings. About thirty-two inches high at the shoulder and six feet from tip of its black nose to the end of its tail, it weighed well over a hundred pounds. It was short-haired, square-faced, long-legged, and its tail was curled over its back. Lean of paunch, its shoulders were massive and blocky. Even had it been standing still, instead of running, its great power and strength would have been evident.

Franz smiled. The dog, an Alpine Mastiff, was his own Caesar. Three years ago he'd found it, a whimpering puppy, on the refuse heap where Emil Gottschalk had tossed it to die. Inch by inch, he had nursed it back to health.

He had learned a little of its history, and its roots went very deep. Originating in Asia, probably Tibet, many thousands of years ago, Alpine Mastiffs were brought to Asia Minor by silk merchants. Some fell into the hands of the early Romans, who used them as war dogs. When the Romans crossed the Alps, they took a number of these mastiffs with them. Some became hurt, or a female might give birth to puppies. These were left behind, simply because the marching columns could not afford to be slowed by them. And so, after thousands of years, the Alpine Mastiff found in the Swiss Alps a land very like the Tibet of its forefathers.

Caesar had an almost uncanny ability to adapt himself to the mountains. His huge paws supported him where another dog would have been hopelessly mired. At the height of winter, with Franz on skis and Caesar trailing alongside or behind, the two went where they willed and always safely.

Should the snow be soft, Caesar plowed his own path with his tremendous shoulders and never experienced the least difficulty. Even when all the rest of his body sank out of sight, Franz could always tell where he was by looking at the tip of his tail.

Let the wind blow as it might, and alter the outward appearance of the snow as it would, Caesar still knew the safe trails. He had an inborn foreknowledge of impending avalanches and a feeling for unsafe ice. When the brothers Karsmin were caught in an avalanche and buried beneath seven feet of snow, Caesar found them when all humans failed. Franz was satisfied that the dog had heard their hearts beating.

For all that, Dornblatt had no extra food for dogs. Franz never would have been allowed to keep Caesar had the animal not proven his worth. When the snow lay too deep for any horse or ox to venture forth, it was Caesar who dragged in the firewood. His back could carry as heavy a burden as two strong men were able to bear, so, even though Franz was the only human who could handle him, Caesar earned his way.

Professor Luttman said, "You will please translate the assignment."

Franz, whose body was present but whose spirit had flown to help Caesar chase the fox, paid no attention.

Then he was rudely jerked back into the hall of learning.

"I am talking to you, Franz," Professor Luttman said.

"Me? Oh! Yes, sir," Franz stammered.

"Proceed," Professor Luttman said.

"Well—You see, sir—"

Professor Luttman's kindly, studious face was suddenly very weary. "Did you even hear me?" he asked.

"No, sir," Franz admitted.

"Very well, I'll repeat. Translate the assigned lesson."

"I—I cannot do it, sir."

"Why not?" Professor Luttman asked.

"I do not know it, sir," Franz confessed.

Hertha Bittner, who was always able to do any lesson perfectly, giggled. Her laugh was echoed by the other students. Professor Luttman looked directly at Franz.

"I fear," he said sorrowfully, "that your scholarly instincts and abilities leave much to be desired. For two years I have tried earnestly to teach you, and I question whether you have yet mastered the simplest portion of any subject at all. It is my considered opinion that your time will be far more constructively spent if you devote it to helping your father. Will you be so good as to go home and tell him what I have said?"

"Yes, sir."

Franz left the schoolroom, his cheeks burning. Caesar's meeting him at the door lifted none of his shame and embarrassment, but did provide solace. Laying his hand on the big mastiff's neck, Franz struck directly away from the school.

At least, he could take the long way home.

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2: SHAME

Franz left by the north door. He began to run at once, with Caesar keeping effortless pace beside him.

With its base only a few rods from the schoolhouse, the mountain on the north side rose so steeply that the youngsters of Dornblatt used it as a practice site for their first lessons in mountain climbing. There were numerous sheer bluffs, and such soil as existed was thickly sprinkled with boulders that varied from the size of a man's head to the size of a Dornblatt house.

Shame was the spur that made Franz run, for as he sped between the school and the great log and earth barrier that the men of Dornblatt hoped would keep a major avalanche from crushing the school, it seemed to him that every pupil and Professor Luttman must be looking at him and jeering. He imagined the superior smile on Hertha Bittner's pretty lips, the scornful curve of Willi Resnick's mouth, the sardonic contempt that would be reflected in Hermann Gottschalk's cold eyes, and in his mind he heard Professor Luttman say, "There goes Franz Halle, the failure! There goes one too stupid to understand the true value of learning! Look upon him, so that you may never be like him!"

Franz's cheeks flamed and his ears were on fire. He might have chosen not to attend the school and everyone would have understood. But of his own free will he had become a student, and by Professor Luttman's order he was ignominiously expelled. Nobody in Dornblatt could ever live such a thing down.

Then Franz and Caesar were across the clearing and back in the hardwood forest.

Franz slowed to a walk, for the great trees that grew all about had always been his friends and they did not forsake him now. They formed a shield that no scornful eyes could penetrate, and as long as he was in the forest, he would know peace. His own practiced eye found a big sycamore that was half-rotted through, and he marked it for future firewood. The sycamore was sure to fall anyway, and in falling it would certainly crush some of the trees around it. But it could be felled in such a fashion that it would hurt nothing, and a healthy young tree would grow in its place.

Franz stole a moment to wonder at himself. Other Dornblatt boys and girls, some of whom were much younger than he, had no trouble learning Professor Luttman's assigned lessons. Why should that which was written in books be so hopelessly beyond his grasp while that which was written in the forest and mountains was always so easy to read?

He spied a squirrel's nest, a cluster of leaves high in a birch tree, and beneath the same tree he found a crushed and rounded set that meant a hare had crouched there. A jay tilted saucily on a limb and peered at Franz and Caesar without scolding. Jays never shrieked at him, Franz thought, as they did at almost everyone else, and he was sure that was because they knew he was their friend.

The two friends wandered on, and when they reached a little open space among the trees, Franz halted to tilt his head and turn his eyes heavenward. High above him towered a rock-ribbed peak, so tall that even in summer its upper reaches were snowbound. Franz stood a moment, contented just to look and grow happier in the looking.

Unknown to his father, or to anyone else in Dornblatt, he had climbed that peak. Little Sister it was called, to distinguish it from an adjoining peak known as Big Sister. Carrying only his ropes and alpenstock, he was accompanied by the mastiff until blocked by a wall that the dog could not climb and up which Franz could not rope him. He had ordered Caesar to wait and gone on alone. From the topmost eminence of Little Sister, he had viewed a breath-taking array of other peaks.

But there was infinitely more than just a view.

Franz had never told even Father Paul, Dornblatt's kindly little parish priest, how, as he stood on the summit of Little Sister, he had felt very close to Heaven—he, simple Franz Halle who could not even get ahead in school. He had never told anyone and he had no intention of telling.

Now, as he looked up at Little Sister, remembering that wonderful feeling, Franz became almost wholly at peace. The school seemed very far away, part of a different world. This, and this alone, was real. It seemed to Franz that he always heard music, with never a jarring or discordant note, whenever he was in the forest or climbing the mountains.

Presently he reached another downsloping gulley and halted on its near rim to look across. On the far rim was a farm that differed from the houses in Dornblatt because quarters for the people, a neat chalet, were separate from the building that housed the stock. It was the home of the Widow Geiser and had been the best farm anywhere around Dornblatt.

Then, three years ago, Jean Geiser had gone into the mountains to hunt chamois. He had never returned, and ever since the Widow Geiser had been hard put to make ends meet. Her two sons, aged four and six, were little help and no woman should even try doing all the work that a place such as this demanded. The Widow Geiser still tried, but it was rumored that she was heavily in debt to Emil Gottschalk.

Caesar pricked his ears up and looked at the goat shed. Following the dog's gaze, Franz saw a brown and white goat, one of the widow's small flock, come from the rear door, squeeze beneath the enclosing pole fence and make its way into a hay meadow. It stalked more like a wild animal than a domestic creature and its obvious destination was the forest. Should it get there, it would be almost impossible to capture the animal again.

Franz turned to his dog. "Take her back, Caesar."

Silent as a drifting cloud, for all his size, Caesar left Franz and set a course that would intercept the fleeing goat. He came in front of the escaping animal. The goat halted and stamped a threatening hoof.

Franz almost saw Caesar grin. The mighty dog could break this silly animal's spine with one chop of his jaws, if he wished to do so, but he was no killer. He advanced on the goat, that tried and failed to break around him. Then he began edging it back toward the paddock. When the goat squeezed under the dog leaped over and continued to herd the escapee toward the pen.

Laughing, Franz ran forward and arrived at the goat pen just in time to meet the Widow Geiser, who came from her chalet.

Despite the man's work she had been doing, the Widow Geiser was still attractive enough to furnish a lively subject for discussion among Dornblatt's unattached bachelors. If the fact that she was also proprietress of a good farm detracted nothing from her charms, that was natural enough.

Now she asked, "What's the matter, Franz?"

"Caesar and I were walking in the forest when we saw one of your goats trying to escape. I ordered Caesar to drive it back."

"Thank you, Franz. Hereafter I must keep that one tethered. She has tried to run away so many times. Won't you come in for some bread and milk?"

"I thank you, but the hour grows late and I must turn homeward."

"The sun is lowering," the Widow Geiser agreed. "Thank you again, Franz, and come again."

"I shall look forward to it."

With Caesar padding beside him, Franz started down the gulley toward Dornblatt and as he did so, his uneasiness mounted. He had delayed meeting his father for as long as possible, and now he admitted to himself that he feared to face him. But the meeting could no longer be postponed.

Franz made his way through Dornblatt to his father's house. Caesar, who preferred to remain outside, regardless of the weather, curled up in front of the cattle shed. Franz tried to be resolute as he climbed the stairs to the living quarters, but, once at the door, he halted uncertainly.