Lad: a dog

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PSYCH.
LIBRARY

BEQUEST

OF
ANITA D. S. BLAKE

LAD: A DOG

( From a photograph by Lacy Van Wagenen)

LAD: A DOG

BY

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

NEW YORK

E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY

681 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright 1919
By E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

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Twentieth Printing - __„„_„,..,__

Twenty-first Printing - Sept. 1922

Twenty-second Pr'ting, Feb., 1923

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EDUC.-
PSYCH.

LIBRARY

GIFT

Printed in the United States of America

P/.o

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T2T3

MY BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF

THOROUGHBRED IN BODY AND SOUL

099

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. His MATE i

II. "QUIET!" 26

III. A MIRACLE OP Two 49

IV. His LITTLE SON 74

V. FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 97

VI. LOST! 126

VII. THE THROWBACK 156

VIII. THE GOLD HAT 180

IX. SPEAKING OP UTILITY 218

X. THE KILLER 251

XL WOLP 297

t XII. IN THE DAY or BATTLE . . . .321

AFTERWORD 347

LAD: A DOG

LAD: A DOG

CHAPTER I
HIS MATE

EDY was as much a part of Lad's everyday
happiness as the sunshine itself. She
seemed to him quite as perfect, and as
gloriously indispensable. He could no more have
imagined a Ladyless life than a sunless life. It
had never occurred to him to suspect that Lady
could be any less devoted than he — until Knave
came to The Place.

Lad was an eighty-pound collie, thoroughbred in
spirit as well as in blood. He had the benign dig-
nity that was a heritage from endless generations
of high-strain ancestors. He had, too, the gay
courage of a d'Artagnan, and an uncanny wisdom.
Also — who could doubt it, after a look into his
mournful brown eyes — he had a Soul.

His shaggy coat, set off by the snowy ruff and
chest, was like orange-flecked mahogany. His ab-

2 LAD: A DOG

surdly tiny forepaws — in which he took inordinate
pride — were silver white.

Three years earlier, when Lad was in his first
prime (before the mighty chest and shoulders had
filled out and the tawny coat had waxed so shaggy),
Lady had been brought to The Place. She had
been brought in the Master's overcoat pocket, rolled
up into a fuzzy gold-gray ball of softness no bigger
than a half -grown kitten.

The Master had fished the month-old puppy out
of the cavern of his pocket and set her down,
asprawl and shivering and squealing, on the veranda
floor. Lad had walked cautiously across the
veranda, sniffed inquiry at the blinking pigmy who
gallantly essayed to growl defiance up at the huge
welcomer — and from that first moment he had
taken her under his protection.

First it had been the natural impulse of the
thoroughbred — brute or human — to guard the help-
less. Then, as the shapeless yellow baby grew into
a slenderly graceful collie, his guardianship changed
to stark adoration. He was Lady's life slave.

And she bullied him unmercifully — bossed the
gentle giant in a shameful manner, crowding him
from the warmest spot by the fire, brazenly yet
daintily snatching from between his jaws the
choicest bone of their joint dinner, hectoring her
dignified victim into lawn-romps in hot weather
when he would far rather have drowsed under the
lakeside trees.

HIS MATE 3

Her vagaries, her teasing, her occasional little
flurries of temper, were borne by Lad not meekly,
but joyously. All she did was, in his eyes, perfect.
And Lady graciously allowed herself to be idolized,
for she was marvelously human in some ways.
Lad, a thoroughbred descended from a hundred
generations of thoroughbreds, was less human and
more disinterested.

Life at The Place was wondrous pleasant for
both the dogs. There were thick woods to roam
in, side by side; there were squirrels to chase and
rabbits to trail. (Yes, and if the squirrels had
played fair and had not resorted to unsportsmanly
tactics by climbing trees when close pressed, there
would doubtless have been squirrels to catch as well
as to chase. As for the rabbits, they were easier
to overtake. And Lady got the lion's share of all
such morsels.)

There was the ice-cool lake to plunge into for
a swim or a wallow, after a run in the dust and
July heat. There was a deliciously comfortable old
rug in front of the living-room's open fire whereon
to lie, shoulder to shoulder, on the nights when
the wind screamed through bare trees and the snow
scratched hungrily at the panes.

Best of all, to them both, there were the Master
and the Mistress; especially the Mistress.

Any man with money to make the purchase may
become a dog's owner. But no man — spend he
ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort —

4 LAD: A DOG

may become a dog's Master without the consent of
the dog. Do you get the difference? And he
whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master
is forever that dog's God.

To both Lad and Lady, from the first, the man
who bought them was not the mere owner but the
absolute Master. To them he was the unquestioned
lord of life and death, the hearer and answerer,
the Eternal Law ; his the voice that must be obeyed,
whatever the command.

From earliest puppyhood, both Lad and Lady
had been brought up within the Law. As far back
as they could remember, they had known and obeyed
The Place's simple code.

For example: All animals of the woods might
lawfully be chased; but the Mistress' prize chickens
and the other little folk of The Place must be
ignored no matter how hungry or how playful
a collie might chance to be. A human, walking
openly or riding down the drive into The Place
by daylight, must not be barked at except by way
of friendly announcement. But anyone entering
the grounds from other ingress than the drive, or
anyone walking furtively or with a tramp slouch,
must be attacked at sight.

Also, the interior of the house was sacrosanct.
It was a place for perfect behavior. No rug must
be scratched, nothing gnawed or played with. In
fact, Lady's one whipping had followed a puppy-
frolic effort of hers to "worry" the huge stuffed

HIS MATE 5

bald eagle that stood on a papier-mache stump in
the Master's study, just off the big living-room
where the fireplace was.

That eagle, shot by himself as it raided the flock
of prize chickens, was the delight of the Master's
heart. And at Lady's attempt on it, he had taught
her a lesson that made her cringe for weeks there-
after at bare sight of the dog-whip. To this day,
she would never walk past the eagle without making
the widest possible detour around it.

But that punishment had been suffered while she
was still in the idiotic days of puppyhood. After
she was grown, Lady would no more have thought
of tampering with the eagle or with anything else
in the house than it would occur to a human to
stand on his head in churchy

Then, early one spring, came Knave — a showy,
magnificent collie; red-gold of coat save for a black
"saddle," and with alert topaz eyes.

Knave did not belong to the Master, but to a
man who, going to Europe for a month, asked him
to care for the dog in his absence. The Master,
glad to have so beautiful an ornament to The Place,
had willingly consented. He was rewarded when,
on the train from town, an admiring crowd of com-
muters flocked to the baggage-car to stare at the
splendid-looking collie.

The only dissenting note in the praise-chorus was
the grouchy old baggage-man's.

"Maybe he's a thoroughbred, like you say,"

6 LAD: A DOG

drawled the old fellow to the Master, "but I
never yet saw a yellow-eyed, prick-eared dog I'd
give hell-room to/'

Knave showed his scorn for such silly criticism
by a cavernous yawn.

"Thoroughbred?" grunted the baggage-man.
'With them streaks of pinkish-yeller on the roof
of his mouth ? Ever see a thoroughbred that didn't
have a black mouth-roof?"

But the old man's slighting words were ignored
with disdain by the crowd of volunteer dog-experts
in the baggage-car. In time the Master alighted
at his station, with Knave straining joyously at the
leash. As the Master reached The Place and
turned into the drive, both Lad and Lady, at sound
of his far-off footsteps, came tearing around the
side of the house to greet him.

On simultaneous sight and scent of the strange
dog frisking along at his side, the two collies paused
in their madly joyous onrush. Up went their ruffs.
Down went their heads.

Lady flashed forward to do battle with the
stranger who was monopolizing so much of the
Master's attention. Knave, not at all averse to
battle (especially with a smaller dog), braced him-
self and then moved forward, stiff -legged, fangs
bare.

But of a sudden his head went up; his stiff-
poised brush broke into swift wagging; his lips
curled down. He had recognized that his prospec-

HIS MATE 7

tive foe was not of his own sex. (And nowhere,
except among humans, does a full-grown male ill-
treat or even defend himself against the female
of his species.)

Lady, noting the stranger's sudden friendliness,
paused irresolute in her charge. And at that in-
stant Lad darted past her. Full at Knave's throat
he launched himself.

The Master rasped out:

"Down, Lad! Down!"

Almost in midair the collie arrested his onset —
coming to earth bristling, furious and yet with no
thought but to obey. Knave, seeing his foe was
not going to fight, turned once more toward Lady.

"Lad," ordered the Master, pointing toward
Knave and speaking with quiet intentness, "let him
alone. Understand? Let him alone/'

And Lad understood — even as years of training
and centuries of ancestry had taught him to un-
derstand every spoken wish of the Master's. He
must give up his impulse to make war on this
intruder whom at sight he hated. It was the Law ;
and from the Law there was no appeal.

With yearningly helpless rage he looked on while
the newcomer was installed on The Place. With
a wondering sorrow he found himself forced to
share the Master's and Mistress' caresses with this
interloper. With growing pain he submitted to
Knave's gay attentions to Lady, and to Lady's

8 LAD: A DOG

evident relish of the guest's companionship. Gone
were the peaceful old days of utter contentment.

Lady had always regarded Lad as her own
special property — to tease and to boss and to de-
spoil of choice food-bits. But her attitude toward
Knave was far different. She coquetted, human-
fashion, with the gold-and-black dog — at one mo-
ment affecting to scorn him, at another meeting
his advances with a delighted friendliness.

She never presumed to boss him as she had
always bossed Lad. He fascinated her. Without
seeming to follow him about, she was forever at
his heels. Lad, cut to the heart at her sudden in-
difference toward his loyal self, tried in every way
his simple soul could devise to win back her in-
terest. He essayed clumsily to romp with her as
the lithely graceful Knave romped, to drive rabbits
for her on their woodland rambles, to thrust him-
self, in a dozen gentle ways, upon her attention.

But it was no use. Lady scarcely noticed him.
When his overtures of friendship chanced to annoy
her, she rewarded them with a snap or with an
impatient growl. And ever she turned to the all-
conquering Knave in a keenness of attraction that
was all but hypnotic.

As his divinity's total loss of interest in himself
grew too apparent to be doubted, Lad's big heart
broke. Being only a do& and a Grail-knight in
thought, he did not realize that Knave's newness
and his difference from anything she had known,

HIS MATE 9

jbrmed a large part of Lady's desire for the visitor's
favor; nor did he understand that such interest
must wane when the novelty should wear off.

All Lad knew was that he loved her, and that for
the sake of a flashy stranger she was snubbing him.

As the Law forbade him to avenge himself in
true dog-fashion by fighting for his Lady's love,
Lad sadly withdrew from the unequal contest, too
proud to compete for a fickle sweetheart. No
longer did he try to join in the others' lawn-romps,
but lay at a distance, his splendid head between his
snowy little forepaws, his brown eyes sick with
sorrow, watching their gambols.

Nor did he thrust his undesired presence on them
during their woodland rambles. He took to mop-
ing, solitary, infinitely miserable. Perhaps there is
on earth something unhappier than a bitterly ag-
grieved dog. But no one has ever discovered that
elusive something.

Knave from the first had shown and felt for
Lad a scornful indifference. Not understanding
the Law, he had set down the older collie's refusal to
fight as a sign of exemplary, if timorous prudence,
and he looked down upon him accordingly. One
day Knave came home from the morning run
through the forest without Lady. Neither the
Master's calls nor the ear-ripping blasts of his dog-
whistle could bring her back to The Place.
Whereat Lad arose heavily from his favorite rest-

10 LAD: A DOG

ing-place under the living-room piano and cantered
off to the woods. Nor did he return.

Several hours later the Master went to the woods
to investigate, followed by the rollicking Knave. At
the forest edge the Master shouted. A far-off
bark from Lad answered. And the Master made
his way through shoulder-deep underbrush in the
direction of the sound.

In a clearing he found Lady, her left forepaw
caught in the steel jaws of a fox-trap. Lad was
standing protectingly above her, stooping now and
then to lick her cruelly pinched foot or to whine
consolation to her; then snarling in fierce hate at
a score of crows that flapped hopefully in the tree-
tops above the victims

The Master set Lady free, and Knave frisked
forward right joyously to greet his released in-
amorata. But Lady was in no condition to play
— then nor for many a day thereafter. Her fore-
foot was so lacerated and swollen that she was
fain to hobble awkwardly on three legs for the
next fortnight.

It was on one pantingly hot August morning, a
tittle later, that Lady limped into the house in
search of a cool spot where she might lie and lick
her throbbing forefoot. Lad was lying, as usual,
under the piano in the living-room. His tail
thumped shy welcome on the hardwood floor as
die passed, but she would not stay or so much as
notice him.

HIS MATE 11

On she limped, into the Master's study, where
an open window sent a faint breeze through the
house. Giving the stuffed eagle a wide berth, Lady
hobbled to the window and made as though to lie
down just beneath it. As she did so, two things
happened : she leaned too much weight on the sore
foot, and the pressure wrung from her an involun-
tary yelp of pain; at the same moment a cross-
current of air from the other side of the house
swept through the living-room and blew shut the
door of the adjoining study. Lady was. a prisoner.

Ordinarily this would have caused her no ill-ease,
for the open window was only thirty inches above
the floor, and the drop to the veranda outside was
a bare three feet. It would have been the simplest
matter in the world for her to jump out, had she
wearied of her chance captivity.

But to undertake the jump with the prospect of
landing her full weight and impetus on a forepaw
that was horribly sensitive to the lightest touch —
this was an exploit beyond the sufferer's will-power.
So Lady resigned herself to imprisonment. She
curled herself up on the floor as far as possible
from the eagle, moaned softly and lay still.

At sound of her first yelp, Lad had run forward,
whining eager sympathy. But the closed door
blocked his way. He crouched, wretched and
anxious, before it, helpless to go to his loved one's
assistance.

Knave, too, loping back from a solitary prowl

13 LAD: A DOG

of the woods, seeking Lady, heard the yelp. His
prick-ears located the sound at once. Along the
veranda he trotted, to the open study window.
With a bound he had cleared the sill and alighted
inside the room.

It chanced to be his first visit to the study. The
door was usually kept shut, that drafts might not
blow the Master's desk-papers about. And Knave
felt, at best, little interest in exploring the interior
of houses. He was an outdoor dog, by choice.

He advanced now toward Lady, his tail a-wag,
his head on one side, with his most irresistible air.
Then, as he came forward into the room, he saw
the eagle. He halted in wonder at sight of the
enormous white-crested bird with its six-foot sweep
of pinion. It was a wholly novel spectacle to
Knave; and he greeted it with a gruff bark, half
of fear, half of bravado. Quickly, however, his
sense of smell told him this wide-winged apparition
was no living thing. And ashamed of his mo-
mentary cowardice, he went over to investigate it.

As he went, Knave cast over his shoulder a look
of invitation to Lady to join him in his inspection.
She understood the invitation, but memory of that
puppyhood beating made her recoil from accepting
it. Knave saw her shrink back, and he realized
with a thrill that she was actually afraid of this
lifeless thing which could harm no one. With due
pride in showing off his own heroism before her,

HIS MATE 13

and with the scamp-dog's innate craving to destroy,
he sprang growling upon the eagle.

Down tumbled the papier-mache stump. Down
crashed the huge stuffed bird with it ; Knave's white
teeth buried deep in the soft feathers of its breast.

Lady, horror-struck at this sacrilege, whimpered
in terror. But her plaint served only to increase
Knave's zest for destruction.

He hurled the bird to the floor, pinned it down
with his feet and at one jerk tore the right wing
from the body. Coughing out the mouthful of
dusty pinions, he dug his teeth into the eagle's
throat. Again bracing himself with his forelegs
on the carcass, he gave a sharp tug. Head and
neck came away in his mouth. And then before
he could drop the mouthful and return to the work
of demolition, he heard the Master's step.

All at once, now, Knave proved he was less
ignorant of the Law — or, at least, of its penalties
— than might have been supposed from his act of
vandalism. In sudden panic he bolted for the
window, the silvery head of the eagle still, unheeded,
between his jaws. With a vaulting spring, he shot
out through the open casement, in his reckless
eagerness to escape, knocking against Lady's in-
jured leg as he passed.

He did not pause at Lady's scream of pain, nor
did he stop until he reached the chicken-house.
Crawling under this, he deposited the incriminating
eagle-head in the dark recess. Finding no pursuer,

14 LAD: A DOG

he emerged and jogged innocently back toward the
veranda.

The Master, entering the house and walking
across the living-room toward the stairs, heard
Lady's cry. He looked around for her, recogniz-
ing from the sound that she must be in distress.
His eye fell on Lad, crouching tense and eager in
front of the shut study door.

The Master opened the door and went into the
study.

At the first step inside the room he stopped,
aghast. There lay the chewed and battered frag-
ments of his beloved eagle. And there, in one
corner, frightened, with guilt writ plain all over
her, cowered Lady. Men have been "legally" done
to death on far lighter evidence than encompassed
her.

The Master was thunderstruck. For more than
two years Lady had had the free run of the house.
And this was her first sin — at that, a sin unworthy
any well-bred dog that has graduated from puppy-
hood and from milk-teeth. He would not have
believed it. He could not have believed it. Yet
here was the hideous evidence, scattered all over
the floor.

The door was shut, but the window stood wide.
Through the window, doubtless, she had gotten into
the room. And he had surprised her at her vandal-
work before she could escape by the same opening.

The Master was a just man — as humans go; but

HIS MATE 15

this was a crime the most maudlin dog-spoiler could
not have condoned. The eagle, moreover, had been
the pride of his heart — as perhaps I have said.
Without a word, he walked to the wall and took
down a braided dog-whip, dust-covered from long
disuse.

Lady knew what was coming. Being a thorough-
bred, she did not try to run, nor did she roll for
mercy. She cowered, moveless, nose to floor,
awaiting her doom.

Back swished the lash. Down it came, whistling
as a man whistles whose teeth are broken. Across
Lady's slender flanks it smote, with the full force
of a strong driving-arm. Lady quivered all over.
But she made no sound. She who would whimper
at a chance touch to her sore foot, was mute under
human punishment.

But Lad was not mute. As the Master's arm
swung back for a second blow, he heard, just be-
hind, a low, throaty growl that held all the menace
of ten thousand wordy threats.

He wheeled about. Lad was close at his heels,
fangs bared, eyes red, head lowered, tawny body
taut in every sinew.

The Master blinked at him, incredulous. Here
was something infinitely more unbelievable than
Lady's supposed destruction of the eagle. The Im-
possible had come to pass.

For, know well, a dog does not growl at its
Master. At its owner, perhaps; at its Master,

16 LAD: A DOG

never. As soon would a devout priest blaspheme
his deity.

Nor does a dog approach anything or anybody,
growling and with lowered head, unless intent on
battle. Have no fear when a dog barks or even
growls at you, so long as his head is erect. But
when he growls and lowers his head — then look
out. It means but one thing.

The Master had been the Master — the sublime,
blindly revered and worshiped Master — for all the
blameless years of Lad's life. And now, growling,
head down, the dog was threatening him.

It was the supreme misery, the crowning hell,
of Lad's career. For the first time, two overpow-
ering loves fought with each other in his Galahad
soul. And the love for poor, unjustly blamed, Lady
hurled down the superlove for the Master.

In baring teeth upon his lord, the collie well
knew what he was incurring. But he did not flinch.
Understanding that swift death might well be his
portion, he stood his ground.

(Is there greater love? Humans — sighing
swains, vow-laden suitors — can any of you match
it? I think not. Not even the much-lauded
Antonys. They throw away only the mere world
of earthly credit, for love.)

The Master's jaw set. He was well-nigh as
unhappy as the dog. For he grasped the situation,
and he was man enough to honor Lad's proffered
sacrifice. Yet it must be punished, and punished in-

HIS MATE 17

stantly — as any dog-master will testify. Let a dog
once growl or show his teeth in menace at his
Master, and if the rebellion be not put down in
drastic fashion, the Master ceases forever to be
Master and degenerates to mere owner. His mys-
terious power over his dog is gone for all time.

Turning his back on Lady, the Master whirled
his dog-whip in air. Lad saw the lash 'coming
down. He did not flinch. He did not cower. The
growl ceased. The orange-tawny collie stood erect.
Down came the braided whiplash on Lad's shoul-
ders— again over his loins, and yet again and again.

Without moving — head up, dark tender eyes un-
winking— the hero-dog took the scourging. When
it was over, he waited only to see the Master throw
the dog-whip fiercely into a corner of the study.
Then, knowing Lady was safe, Lad walked ma-
jestically back to his "cave" under the piano, and
with a long, quivering sigh he lay down.

His spirit was sick and crushed within him. For
the first time in his thoroughbred life he had been
struck. For he was one of those not wholly rare
dogs to whom a sharp word of reproof is more
effective than a beating — to whom a blow is not a
pain, but a damning and overwhelming ignominy.
Had a human, other than the Master, presumed to
strike him, the assailant must have fought for life.

Through the numbness of Lad's grief, bit by bit,
began to smolder and glow a deathless hate for
Knave, the cause of Lady's humiliation. Lad had

18 LAD: A DOG

known what passed behind that closed study door
as well as though he had seen. For ears and scent
serve a true collie quite as usefully as do mere
eyes.

The Master was little happier than was his fa-
vorite dog. For he loved Lad as he would have
loved a human son. Though Lad did not realize it,
the Master had "let off" Lady from the rest of her
beating, in order not to increase her champion's
grief. He simply ordered her out of the study.

And as she limped away, the Master tried to re-
kindle his own indignation and deaden his sense of
remorse by gathering together the strewn frag-
ments of the eagle. It occurred to him that though
the bird was destroyed, he might yet have its fierce-
eyed silvery head mounted on a board, as a minor
trophy.

But he could not find the head.

Search the study as he would, he could not find
it. He remembered distinctly that Lady had been
panting as she slunk out of the room. And dogs
that are carrying things in their mouths cannot pant.
She had not taken the head away with her. The
absence of the head only deepened the whole annoy-
ing domestic mystery. He gave up trying to solve
any of the puzzle — from Lady's incredible vandal-
ism to this newest turn of the affair.

Not until two days later could Lad bring him-
self to risk a meeting with Lady, the cause and
the witness of his beating. Then, yearning for a

HIS MATE 19

sight of her and for even her grudged recognition
of his presence, after his forty-eight hours of isola-
tion, he sallied forth from the house in search
of her.

He traced her to the cool shade of a lilac clump
near the outbuildings. There, having with one
paw dug a little pit in the cool earth, she was
curled up asleep under the bushes. Stretched out
beside her was Knave.

Lad's spine bristled at sight of his foe. But ignor-
ing him, he moved over to Lady and touched her
nose with his own in timid caress. She opened one
eye, blinked drowsily and went to sleep again^\

But Lad's coming had awakened Knave. Much
refreshed by his nap, he woke in playful mood.
He tried to induce Lady to romp with him, but
she preferred to doze. So, casting about in his
shallow mind for something to play with, Knave
chanced to remember the prize he had hidden be-
neath the chicken-house.

Away he ambled, returning presently with the
eagle's head between his teeth. As he ran, he
tossed it aloft, catching it as it fell — a pretty trick
he had long since learned with a tennis-ball.

Lad, who had lain down as near to sleepily scorn-
ful Lady as he dared, looked up and saw him ap-
proach. He saw, too, with what Knave was play-
ing; and as he saw, he went quite mad. Here
was the thing that had caused Lady's interrupted
punishment and his own black disgrace. Knave

«0 LAD: A DOG

was exploiting it with manifest and brazen delight.

For the second time in his life — and for the
second time in three days — Lad broke the law. He
forgot, in a trice, the command "Let him alone!"
And noiseless, terrible, he flew at the gamboling
Knave.

Knave was aware of the attack, barely in time to
drop the eagle's head and spring forward to meet
his antagonist. He was three years Lad's junior
and was perhaps five pounds heavier. Moreover,
constant exercise had kept him in steel-and-whale-
bone condition; while lonely brooding at home had
begun of late to soften Lad's tough sinews.

Knave was mildly surprised that the dog he had
looked on as a dullard and a poltroon should have
developed a flash of spirit. But he was not at all
unwilling to wage a combat whose victory must
make him shine with redoubled glory in Lady's
eyes.

Like two furry whirlwinds the collies spun for-
ward toward each other. They met, upreared and
snarled, slashing wolf -like for the throat, clawing
madly to retain balance. Then down they went,
rolling in a right unloving embrace, snapping, tear-
ing, growling.

Lad drove straight for the throat. A half-hand-
ful of Knave's golden ruff came away in his jaws.
For except at the exact center, a collie's throat is
protected by a tangle of hair as effective against as-
sault as were Andrew Jackson's cotton-bale breast-

HIS MATE 21

works at New Orleans. And Lad had missed the
exact center.

Over and over they rolled. They regained their
footing and reared again. Lad's saber-shaped tusk
ripped a furrow in Knave's satiny forehead; and
Knave's half deflected slash in return set bleeding
the big vein at the top of Lad's left ear.

Lady was wide awake long before this. Stand-
ing immovable, yet wildly excited — after the age-
old fashion of the female brute for whom males
battle and who knows she is to be the winner's
prize — she watched every turn of the fight.

Up once more, the dogs clashed, chest to chest.
Knave, with an instinctive throwback to his wolf
forebears of five hundred years earlier, dived for
Lad's forelegs with the hope of breaking one of
them between his foaming jaws.

He missed the hold by a fraction of an inch.
The skin alone was torn. And down over the little
white forepaw — one of the forepaws that Lad was
wont to lick for an hour a day to keep them snowy
— ran a trickle of blood.

That miss was £ costly error for Knave. For
Lad's teeth sought and found his left shoulder, and
sank deep therein. Knave twisted and wheeled
with lightning speed and with all his strength.
Yet had not his gold-hued ruff choked Lad and
pressed stranglingly against his nostrils, all the
heavier dog's struggles would not have set him free.

As it was, Lad, gasping for breath enough to fill

22 LAD: A DOG

his lungs, relaxed his grip ever so slightly. And
in that fraction of a second Knave tore free, leav-
ing a mouthful of hair and skin in his enemy's jaws.

In the same wrench that liberated him — and as
the relieved tension sent Lad stumbling forward —
Knave instinctively saw his chance and took it.
Again heredity came to his aid, for he tried a
manceuver known only to wolves and to collies.
Flashing above his stumbling foe's head, Knave
seized Lad from behind, just below the base of
the skull. And holding him thus helpless, he pro-
ceeded to grit and grind his tight-clenched teeth in
the slow, relentless motion that must soon or late
eat down to and sever the spinal cord.

Lad, even as he thrashed frantically about, felt
there was no escape. He was well-nigh as power-
less against a strong opponent in this position as is
a puppy that is held up by the scruff of the neck.

Without a sound, but still struggling as best he
might, he awaited his fate. No longer was he
growling or snarling.

His patient, bloodshot eyes sought wistfully for
Lady. And they did not find her.

For even as they sought her, a novel element
entered into the battle. Lady, hitherto awaiting
with true feminine meekness the outcome of the
scrimmage, saw her old flame's terrible plight, under
the grinding jaws. And, proving herself false to
all canons of ancestry — moved by some impulse
she did not try to resist — she jumped forward.

HIS MATE 23

Forgetting the pain in her swollen foot, she nipped
Knave sharply in the hind leg. Then, as if abashed
by her un feminine behavior, she drew back, in
shame.

But the work was done.

Through the red war lust Knave dimly realized
that he was attacked from behind — perhaps that his
new opponent stood an excellent chance of gaining
upon him such a death-hold as he himself now held.

He loosed his grip and whizzed about, frothing
and snapping, to face the danger. Before Knave
had half completed his lightning whirl, Lad had him
by the side of the throat.

It was no death-grip, this. Yet it was not only
acutely painful, but it held its victim quite as power-
less as he had just now held Lad. Bearing down
with all his weight and setting his white little front
teeth and his yellowing tusks firmly in their hold,
Lad gradually shoved Knave's head sideways to
the ground and held it there.

The result on Knave's activities was much the
same as is obtained by sitting on the head of a kick-
ing horse that has fallen. Unable to wrench
loose, helpless to counter, in keen agony from the
pinching of the tender throat-skin beneath the
masses of ruff, Knave lost his nerve. And he forth-
with justified those yellowish streaks in his mouth-
roof whereof the baggage-man had spoken.

He made the air vibrate with his abject howls of
pain and fear. He was caught. He could not get

24 LAD: A DOG

away. Lad was hurting him horribly. Wherefore
he ki-yi-ed as might any gutter cur whose tail is
stepped upon.

Presently, beyond the fight haze, Lad saw a
shadow in front of him — a shadow that resolved
itself in the settling dust, as the Master. And Lad
came to himself.

He loosed his hold on Knave's throat, and stood
up, groggily. Knave, still yelping, tucked his tail
between his legs and fled for his life — out of The
Place, out of your story.

Slowly, stumblingly, but without a waver of hesi-
tation, Lad went up to the Master. He was gasp-
ing for breath, and he was weak from fearful exer-
tion and from loss of blood. Up to the Master he
went — straight up to him.

And not until he was a scant two yards away
did he see that the Master held something in his
hand — that abominable, mischief -making eagle's
head, which he had just picked up! Probably the
dog-whip was in the other hand. It did not matter
much. Lad was ready for this final degradation.
He would not try to dodge it, he the double breaker
of laws.

Then — the Master was kneeling beside him. The
kind hand was caressing the dog's dizzy head, the
dear voice — a queer break in it — was saying re-
morsefully:

"Oh Lad! Laddie! I'm so sorry. So sorry!

HIS MATE 25

You're — your're more of a man than I am, old
friend. I'll make it up to you, somehow!"

And now besides the loved hand, there was an-
other touch, even more precious — a warmly caress-
ing little pink tongue that licked his bleeding
foreleg.

Lady — timidly, adoringly — was trying to stanch
her hero's wounds.

"Lady, I apologize to you too," went on the fool-
ish Master. "I'm sorry, girl."

Lady was too busy soothing the hurts of her
newly discovered mate to understand. But Lad
understood, Lad always understood,

CHAPTER II
"QUIET"

TO Lad the real world was bounded by The
Place. Outside, there were a certain num-
ber of miles of land and there were an un-
certain number of people. But the miles were
uninspiring, except for a cross-country tramp with
the Master. And the people were foolish and
strange folk who either stared at him — which
always annoyed Lad — or else tried to pat him;
which he hated. But The Place was— The Place.

Always, he had lived on The Place. He felt he
owned it. It was assuredly his to enjoy, to guard,
to patrol from high road to lake. It was his world.

The denizens of every world must have at least
one deity to worship. Lad had one: the Master.
Indeed, he had two: the Master and the Mistress.
And because the dog was strong of soul and chival-
ric, withal, and because the Mistress was altogether
lovable, Lad placed her altar even above the
Master's. Which was wholly as it should have
been.

There were other people at The Place — people
to whom a dog must be courteous, as becomes a

26

"QUIET" 27

thoroughbred, and whose caresses he must accept.
Very often, there were guests, too. And from
puppyhood, Lad had been taught the sacredness of
the Guest Law. Civilly, he would endure the pet-
tings of these visiting outlanders. Gravely, he
would shake hands with them, on request. He
would even permit them to paw him or haul him
about, if they were of the obnoxious, dog-mauling
breed. But the moment politeness would permit,
he always withdrew, very quietly, from their reach
and, if possible, from their sight as well.

Of all the dogs on The Place, big Lad alone
had free run of the house, by day and by night.

He slept in a "cave" under the piano. He even
had access to the sacred dining-room, at mealtimes
— where always he lay to the left of the Master's
chair.

With the Master, he would willingly unbend for
a romp at any or all times. At the Mistress* be-
hest he would play with all the silly abandon of a
puppy; rolling on the ground at her feet, making
as though to seize and crush one of her little
shoes in his mighty jaws ; wriggling and waving his
legs in air when she buried her hand in the masses
of his chest-ruff; and otherwise comporting him-
self with complete loss of dignity.

But to all except these two, he was calmly un-
approachable. From his earliest days he had never
forgotten he was an aristocrat among inferiors.
And, calmly aloof, he moved among his subjects.

28 LAD: A DOG

Then, all at once, into the sweet routine of the
House of Peace, came Horror.

It began on a blustery, sour October day. The
Mistress had crossed the lake to the village, in her
canoe, with Lad curled up in a furry heap in the
prow. On the return trip, about fifty yards from
shore, the canoe struck sharply and obliquely
against a half -submerged log that a Fall freshet
had swept down from the river above the lake.
At the same moment a flaw of wind caught the
canoe's quarter. And, after the manner of such
eccentric craft, the canvas shell proceeded to turn
turtle.

Into the ice-chill waters splashed its two occu-
pants. Lad bobbed to the top, and glanced around
at the Mistress to learn if this were a new practical
joke. But, instantly, he saw it was no joke at all,
so far as she was concerned.

Swathed and cramped by the folds of her heavy
outing skirt, the Mistress' was making no progress
shoreward. And the dog flung himself through the
water toward her with a rush that left his shoulders
and half his back above the surface. In a second he
had reached her and had caught her sweater-shoul-
der in his teeth.

She had the presence of mind to lie out straight,
as though she were floating, and to fill her lungs
with a swift intake of breath. The dog's burden
was thus made infinitely lighter than if she had
struggled or had lain in a posture less easy for

"QUIET" 29

towing. Yet he made scant headway, until she
wound one hand in his mane, and, still lying
motionless and stiff, bade him loose his hold on her
shoulder.

In this way, by sustained effort that wrenched
every giant muscle in the collie's body, they came at
last to land.A

Vastly rejoiced was Lad, and inordinately proud
of himself. And the plaudits of the Master and the
Mistress were music to him. Indefinably, he under-
stood he had done a very wonderful thing and that
everybody on The Place was talking about him,
and that all were trying to pet him at once.

This promiscuous handling he began to find un-
welcome. And he retired at last to his "cave"
under the piano to escape from it. Matters soon
quieted down; and the incident seemed at an end.

Instead, it had just begun.

For, within an hour, the Mistress — who, for
days had been half -sick with a cold — was stricken
with a chill, and by night she was in the first stages
of pneumonia.

Then over The Place descended Gloom. A gloom
Lad could not understand until he went upstairs
at dinner-time to escort the Mistress, as usual, to
the dining-room. But to his light scratch at her
door there was no reply. He scratched again and
presently Master came out of the room and ordered
him down-stairs again.

Then from the Master's voice and look, Lad

30 LAD: A DOG

understood that something was terribly amiss. Also,
as she did not appear at dinner and as he was for
the first time in his life forbidden to go into her
room, he knew the Mistress was the victim of
whatever mishap had befallen.

A strange man, with a black bag, came to the
house early in the evening; and he and the Master
were closeted for an interminable time in the
Mistress' room. Lad had crept dejectedly up-
stairs behind them; and sought to crowd into the
room at their heels. The Master ordered him back
and shut the door in his face.

Lad lay down on the threshold, his nose to the
crack at the bottom of the door, and waited. He
heard the murmur of speech.

Once he caught the Mistress* voice — changed
and muffled and with a puzzling new note in it —
but undeniably the Mistress*. And his tail
thumped hopefully on the hall floor. But no one
came to let him in. And, after the mandate to
keep out, he dared not scratch for admittance.

The doctor almost stumbled across the couchant
body of the dog as he left the room with the
Master. Being a dog-owner himself, the doctor
understood and his narrow escape from a fall
over the living obstacle did not irritate him. But
it reminded him of something.

"Those other dogs of yours outside there," he
said to the Master, as they went down the stairs,
"raised a fearful racket when my car came down

"QUIET" 31

the drive, just now. Better send them all away
somewhere till she is better. The house must be
kept perfectly quiet."

The Master looked back, up the stairway; at its
top, pressed close against the Mistress* door,
crouched Lad. Something in the dog's heartbroken
attitude touched him.

"I'll send them over to the boarding-kennels in
the morning," he answered. "All except Lad. He
and I are going to see this through, together. He'll
be quiet, if I tell him to."

All through the endless night, while the October
wind howled and yelled around the house, Lad lay
outside the sick-room door, his nose between his
absurdly small white paws, his sorrowful eyes wide
open, his ears alert for the faintest sound from the
room beyond.

Sometimes, when the wind screamed its loudest,
Lad would lift his head — his ruff a-bristle, his teeth
glinting from under his upcurled lip. And he would
growl a throaty menace. It was as though he heard,
in the tempest's racket, the strife of evil gale-spirits
to burst in through the rattling windows and attack
the stricken Mistress. Perhaps — well, perhaps
there are things visible and audible to dogs; to
which humans were deaf and blind. Or perhaps
they are not.

Lad was there when day broke and when the
Master, heavy-eyed from sleeplessness, came out-
He was there when the other dogs were herded

32 LAD: A DOG

into the car and carried away to the boarding-
kennels.

Lad was there when the car came back from the
station, bringing to The Place an angular, wooden-
faced woman with yellow hair and a yellower suit-
case— a horrible woman who vaguely smelt of dis-
infectants and of rigid Efficiency, and who pres-
ently approached the sick-room, clad and capped in
stiff white. Lad hated her.

He was there when the doctor came for his
morning visit to the invalid. And again he tried
to edge his own way into the room, only to be
rebuffed once more.

"This is the third time I've nearly broken my
neck over that miserable dog," chidingly announced
the nurse, later in the day, as she came out of the
room and chanced to meet the Master on the land-
ing. "Do please»drive him away. I've tried to do
it, but he only snarls at me. And in a dangerous
case like this "

"Leave him alone," briefly ordered the Master.

But when the nurse, sniffing, passed on, he called
Lad over to him. Reluctantly, the dog quitted the
door and obeyed the summons.

"Quiet!" ordered the Master, speaking very
slowly and distinctly. "You must keep quiet.
Quiet! Understand?"

Lad understood. Lad always understood. He
must not bark. He must move silently. He must
make no unnecessary sound. But, at least, the

"QUIET" 33

Master had not forbidden him to snarl softly and
loathingly at that detestable white-clad woman
every time she stepped over him.

So there was one grain of comfort.

Gently, the Master called him downstairs and
across the living-room, and put him out of the
house. For, after all, a shaggy eighty-pound dog
is an inconvenience stretched across a sick-room
doorsill.

Three minutes later, Lad had made his way
through an open window into the cellar and thence
upstairs ; and was stretched out, head between paws,
at the threshold of the Mistress' room.

On his thrice-a-day visits, the doctor was forced
to step over him, and was man enough to forbear
to curse. Twenty times a day, the nurse stumbled
over his massive, inert body, and fumed in im-
potent rage. The Master, too, came back and
forth from the sick-room, with now and then a
kindly word for the suffering collie, and again and
again put him out of the house.

But always Lad managed, by hook or crook, to
be back on guard within a minute or two. And
never once did the door of the Mistress' room
open that he did not make a strenuous attempt to
enter.

Servants, nurse, doctor, and Master repeatedly
forgot he was there, and stubbed their toes across
his body. Sometimes their feet drove agonizingly
into his tender flesh. But never a whimper or

34 LAD: A DOG

growl did the pain wring from him. "Quiet!" had
been the command, and he was obeying.

And so it went on, through the awful days and
the infinitely worse nights. Except when he was
ordered away by the Master, Lad would not stir
from his place at the door. And not even the
Master's authority could keep him away from it
for five minutes a day.

The dog ate nothing, drank practically nothing,
took no exercise; moved not one inch, of his own
will, from the doorway. In vain did the glories
of Autumn woods call to him. The rabbits would
be thick, out yonder in the forest, just now. So
would the squirrels — against which Lad had long
since sworn a blood- feud (and one of which it
had ever been his futile life ambition to catch).

For him, these things no longer existed. Nothing
existed; except his mortal hatred of the unseen
Something in that forbidden room — the Something
that was seeking to take the Mistress away with It.
He yearned unspeakably to be in that room to
guard her from her nameless Peril. And they
would not let him in — these humans.

Wherefore he lay there, crushing his body close
against the door and — waiting.

And, inside the room, Death and the Napoleonic
man with the black bag fought their "no-quarter"
duel for the life of the still, little white figure in
the great white bed.

One night, the doctor did not go home at all.

"QUIET" 35

Toward dawn the Master lurched out of the room
and sat down for a moment on the stairs, his face
in his hands. Then and then only, during all that
time of watching, did Lad leave the doorsill of his
own accord.

Shaky with famine and weariness, he got to his
feet, moaning softly, and crept over to the Master;
he lay down beside him, his huge head athwart the
man's knees; his muzzle reaching timidly toward
the tight-clenched hands.

Presently the Master went back into the sick-
room. And Lad was left alone in the darkness —
to wonder and to listen and to wait. With a tired
sigh he returned to the door and once more took
up his heartsick vigil.

Then — on a golden morning, days later, the
doctor came and went with the look of a Con-
queror. Even the wooden-faced nurse forgot to
grunt in disgust when she stumbled across the dog's
body. She almost smiled. And presently the
Master came out through the doorway. He stopped
at sight of Lad, and turned back into the room.
Lad could hear him speak. And he heard a dear,
dear voice make answer ; very weakly, but no longer
in that muffled and foreign tone which had so
frightened him. Then came a sentence the dog
could understand.

"Come in, old friend," said the Master, opening
the door and standing aside for Lad to enter.

At a bound, the collie was in the room. There

36 LAD: A DOG

lay the Mistress. She was very thin, very white,
very feeble. But she was there. The dread Some-
thing had lost the battle.

Lad wanted to break forth into a peal of ecstatic
barking that would have deafened every one in the
room. The Master read the wish and interposed,

" Quiet t"

Lad heard. He controlled the yearning. But
it cost him a world of will-power to do it. As
sedately as he could force himself to move, he
crossed to the bed.

The Mistress was smiling at him. One hand
was stretched weakly forth to stroke him. And
she was saying almost in a whisper, "Lad!
Laddie!"

That was all. But her hand was petting him
in the dear way he loved so well. And the Master
was telling her all over again how the dog had
watched outside her door. Lad listened — not to
the man's praise, but to the woman's caressing
whisper — and he quivered from head to tail. He
fought furiously with himself once again, to choke
back the rapturous barking that clamored for ut-
terance. He knew this was no time for noise.
Even without the word of warning, he would have
known it. For the Mistress was whispering. Even
the Master was speaking scarce louder.

But one thing Lad realized : the black danger was
past. The Mistress was alive ! And the whole house
was smiling. That was enough. And the yearn-

"QUIET" 87

ing to show, in noise, his own wild relief, was all
but irresistible. Then the Master said:

"Run on, Lad. You can come back by-and-by."

And the dog gravely made his way out of the
room and out of the house.

The minute he was out-of-doors, he proceeded
to go crazy. Nothing but sheer mania could excuse
his actions during the rest of that day. They were
unworthy of a mongrel puppy. And never before
in all his blameless, stately life had Lad so grossly
misbehaved as he now proceeded to do. The
Mistress was alive. The Horror was past. Reac-
tion set in with a rush. As I have said, Lad went
crazy.

Peter Grimm, the Mistress's cynical and temper-
amental gray cat, was picking its dainty way across
the lawn as Lad emerged from the house.

Ordinarily, Lad regarded Peter Grimm with a
cold tolerance. But now, he dashed at the cat with
a semblance of stark wrath. Like a furry whirl-
wind he bore down upon the amazed feline. The
cat, in dire offense, scratched his nose with a quite
unnecessary virulence and fled up a tree, spitting
and yowling, tail fluffed out as thick as a man's
wrist.

Seeing that Peter Grimm had resorted to un-
sportsmanly tactics by scrambling whither he could
not follow, Lad remembered the need for silence
and forbore to bark threats at his escaped victim.

88 LAD: A DOG

Instead, he galloped to the rear of the house where
stood the dairy.

The dairy door was on the latch. With his head
Lad butted it open and ran into the stone-floored
room. A line of full milk-pans were ranged side
by side on a shelf. Rising on his hind-legs and
bracing his forepaws on the shelf, Lad seized edges
of the deep pans, one after another, between his
teeth, and, with a succession of sharp jerks brought
them one and all clattering to the floor.

Scampering out of the dairy, ankle deep in a
river of spilt milk, and paying no heed to the cries
of the scandalized cook, he charged forth in the
open again. His eye fell on a red cow, tethered
by a long chain in a pasture-patch beyond the
stables.

She was an old acquaintance of his, this cow.
She had been on The Place since before he was
born. Yet, to-day Lad's spear knew no brother.
He tore across the lawn and past the stables,
straight at the astonished bovine. In terror, the
cow threw up her tail and sought to lumber away
at top speed. Being controlled by her tether she
could run only in a wide circle. And around and
around this circle Lad drove the bellowing brute
as fast as he could make her run, until the gardener
came panting to her relief.

But neither the gardener nor any other living
creature could stay Lad's rampage that day. He
fled merrily up to the Lodge at the gate, burst into

"QUIET" 39

its kitchen ahd through to the refrigerator. There,
in a pan, he found a raw leg of mutton. Seizing
this twelve-pound morsel in his teeth and dodging
the indignant housewife, he careered out into the
highway with his prize, dug a hole in the roadside
ditch and was gleefully preparing to bury the
mutton therein, when its outraged owner rescued it.

A farmer was jogging along the road behind a
half-dozing horse. A painful nip on the rear hind-
leg turned the nag's drowsy jog into a really in-
dustrious effort at a runaway. Already, Lad had
sprung clear of the front wheel. As the wagon
bumped past him, he leaped upward; deftly caught
a hanging corner of the lap-robe and hauled it
free of the seat.

Robe in mouth, he capered off into a field; play-
fully keeping just out of the reach of the pursuing
agrarian ; and at last he deposited the stolen treasure
in the heart of a bramble-patch a full half-mile
from the road.

Lad made his way back to The Place by a wide
detour that brought him through the grounds of
a neighbor of the Master's.

This neighbor owned a dog — a mean-eyed, rangy
and mangy pest of a brute that Lad would ordinarily
have scorned to notice. But, most decidedly, he
noticed the dog now. He routed it out of its kennel
and bestowed upon it a thrashing that brought its
possessor's entire family shrieking to the scene of
conflict.

40 LAD: A DOG

Courteously refusing to carry the matter further,
in face of a half-dozen shouting humans, Lad
cantered homeward.

From the clothes-line, on the drying-ground at
The Place, fluttered a large white object. It was
palpably a nurse's uniform — palpably the nurse's
uniform. And Lad greeted its presence there with
a grin of pure bliss.

In less than two seconds the uniform was off
the line, with three huge rents marring its stiff
surface. In less than thirty seconds, it was re-
posing in the rich black mud on the verge of the
lake, and Lad was rolling playfully on it.

Then he chanced to remember his long-neglected
enemies, the squirrels, and his equally-neglected
prey, the rabbits. And he loped off to the forest
to wage gay warfare upon them. He was glori-
ously, idiotically, criminally happy. And, for the
time, he was a fool.

All day long, complaints came pouring in to the
Master. Lad had destroyed the whole "set" of
cream. Lad had chased the red cow till it would be
a miracle if she didn't fall sick of it. Lad had scared
poor dear little Peter Grimm so badly that the cat
seemed likely to spend all the rest of its nine lives
squalling in the tree-top and crossly refusing to
come down.

Lad had spoiled a Sunday leg of mutton, up at
the Lodge. Lad had made a perfectly respectable
horse run madly away for nearly twenty-five feet,

"QUIET" 41

and had given the horse's owner a blasphemous
half-mile run over a plowed field after a cherished
and ravished lap-robe. Lad had well-nigh killed
a neighbor's particularly killable dog. Lad had
wantonly destroyed the nurse's very newest and
most expensive uniform. All day it was Lad — Lad
—Lad!

Lad, it seemed, was a storm-center, whence
radiated complaints that ran the whole gamut from
tears to lurid profanity; and, to each and every
complainant, the Master made the same answer :

"Leave him alone. We're just out of hell — Lad
and I! He's doing the things I'd do myself, if I
had the nerve."

Which, of course, was a manifestly asinine way
for a grown man to talk.

Long after dusk, Lad pattered meekly home,
very tired and quite sane. His spell of imbecility
had worn itself out. He was once more his calmly
dignified self, though not a little ashamed of his
babyish pranks, and mildly wondering how he had
come to behave so.

Still, he could not grieve over what he had done.
He could not grieve over anything just yet. The
Mistress was alive! And while the craziness had
passed, the happiness had not. Tired, drowsily at
peace with all the world, he curled up under the
piano and went to sleep.

He slept so soundly that the locking of the house
for the night did not rouse him. But something

42 LAD: A DOG

else did. Something that occurred long after every-
one on The Place was sound asleep. Lad was
joyously pursuing, through the forest aisles of
dreamland, a whole army of squirrels that had not
sense enough to climb trees — when in a moment,
he was wide awake and on guard. Far off, very
far off, he heard a man walking.

Now, to a trained dog there is as much difference
in the sound of human footfalls as, to humans,
there is a difference in the aspect of human faces.
A belated countryman walking along the highway,
a furlong distant, would not have awakened Lad
from sleep. Also, he knew and could classify, at
any distance, the footsteps of everyone who lived
on The Place. But the steps that had brought him
wide awake and on the alert to-night, did not be-
long to one of The Place's people; nor were they
the steps of anybody who had a right to be on the
premises.

Someone had climbed the fence, at a distance
from the drive, and was crossing the grounds, ob-
liquely, toward the house. It was a man, and he
was still nearly two hundred yards away. More-
over, he was walking stealthily; and pausing every
now and then as if to reconnoiter.

No human, at that distance, could have heard the
steps. No dog could have helped hearing them.
Had the other dogs been at home instead of at
the boarding-kennels, The Place would by this time
have been re-echoing with barks. Both scent and

"QUIET" 43

sound would have given them ample warning of the
stranger's presence.

To Lad, on the lower floor of the house, where
every window was shut, the aid of scent was denied.
Yet his sense of hearing was enough. Plainly, he
heard the softly advancing steps — heard and read
them. He read them for an intruder's — read them
for the steps of a man who was afraid to be heard
or seen, and who was employing all the caution in
his power.

A booming, trumpeting bark of warning sprang
into Lad's throat — and died there. The sharp
command "Quiet!" was still in force. Even in his
madness, that day, he had uttered no sound. He
strangled back the tumultuous bark and listened
in silence. He had risen to his feet and had come
out from under the piano. In the middle of the
living-room he stood, head lowered, ears pricked.
His ruff was abristle. A ridge of hair rose
grotesquely from the shaggy mass of coat along
his spine. His lips had slipped back from his teeth.
And so he stood and waited.

The shuffling, soft steps were nearer now. Down
through the trees they came, and then onto the
springy grass of the lawn. Now they crunched
lightly on the gravel of the drive. Lad moved for-
ward a little and again stood at attention.

The man was climbing to the veranda. The vines
rustled ever so slightly as he brushed pa3t them.
His footfall sounded lightly on the veranda itself*

44 LAD: A DOG

Next there was a faint clicking noise at the old-
fashioned lock of one of the bay windows. Pres-
ently, by half inches, the window began to rise.
Before it had risen an inch, Lad knew the tres-
passer was a negro. Also that it was no one with
whose scent he was familiar.

Another pause, followed by the very faintest
scratching, as the negro ran a knife-blade along
the crack of the inner wooden blinds in search
the catch.

The blinds parted slowly. Over the window-sill
the man threw a leg. Then he stepped down, noise-
lessly into the room.

He stood there a second, evidently listening.

And, before he could stir or breathe, something
in the darkness hurled itself upon him.

Without so much as a growl of warning, eighty
pounds of muscular, hairy energy smote the negro
full in the chest. A set of hot-breathing jaws
flashed for his jugular vein, missed it by a half-
inch, and the graze left a red-hot searing pain along
the negro's throat. In the merest fraction of a
moment, the murderously snapping jaws sank into
the thief's shoulder. It is collie custom to fight
with a running accompaniment of snarling growls.
But Lad did not give voice. In total silence he
made his onslaught. In silence, he sought and
gained his hold.

The negro was less considerate of the Mistress*
comfort. With a screech that would have waked

"QUIET" 45

every mummy in Egypt, he reeled back, under that
first unseen impact, lost his balance and crashed to
the hardwood floor, overturning a table and a lamp
in his fall. Certain that a devil had attacked him
there in the black darkness, the man gave forth yell
after yell of mortal terror. Frantically, he strove
to push away his assailant and his clammy hand
encountered a mass of fur.

The negro had heard that all the dogs on The
Place had been sent away because of the Mistress*
illness. Hence his attempt at burglary. Hence
also, his panic fear when Lad had sprung on him.

But with the feel of the thick warm fur, the
man's superstitious terror died. He knew he had
roused the house ; but there was still time to escape
if he could rid himself of this silent, terrible
creature. He staggered to his feet. And, with the
knife he still clutched, he smote viciously at his
assailant.

Because Lad was a collie, Lad was not killed
then and there. A bulldog or a bull-terrier, attack-
ing a man, seeks for some convenient hold. Hav-
ing secured that hold — be it good or bad — he locks
his jaws and hangs on. You can well-nigh cut his
head from his body before he will let go. Thus,
he is at the mercy of any armed man who can keep
cool long enough to kill him.

But a collie has a strain of wolf in his queer
brain. He seeks a hold, it is true. But at an in-
stant's notice, he is ready to shift that hold for a

46 LAD: A DOG

better. He may bite or slash a dozen times in as
many seconds and in as many parts of the body.
He is everywhere at once — he is nowhere in par-
ticular. He is not a pleasant opponent.

Lad did not wait for the negro's knife to find
his heart. As the man lunged, the dog transferred
his profitless shoulderhold to a grip on the stabbing
arm. The knife blade plowed an ugly furrow along
his side. And the dog's curved eye-tooth slashed
the negro's arm from elbow to wrist, clean through
to the bone.

The knife clattered to the floor. The negro
wheeled and made a leap for the open window; he
had not cleared half the space when Lad bounded
for the back of his neck. The dog's upper set of
teeth raked the man's hard skull, carrying away
a handful of wool and flesh; and his weight threw
the thief forward on hands and knees again. Twist-
ing, the man found the dog's furry throat ; and with
both hands sought to strangle him; at the same
time backing out through the window. But it is
not easy to strangle a collie. The piles of tumbled
ruff-hair form a protection no other breed of dog
can boast. Scarcely had the hands found their grip
when one of them was crushed between the dog's
vise-like jaws.

The negro flung off his enemy and turned to
clear the veranda at a single jump. But before
he had half made the turn, Lad was at his throat
again, and the two crashed through the vines to-

"QUIET" 47

gather and down onto the driveway below. The
entire combat had not lasted for more than thirty
seconds.

The Master, pistol and flashlight in hand, ran
down to find the living-room amuck with blood
and with smashed furniture, and one of the win-
dows open. He flashed the electric ray through
the window. On the ground below, stunned by
striking against a stone jardiniere in his fall, the
negro sprawled senseless upon his back. Above him
was Lad, his searching teeth at last having found
their coveted throat-hold. Steadily, the great dog
was grinding his way through toward the jugular.

There was a deal of noise and excitement and
light after that. The negro was trussed up and
the local constable was summoned by telephone.
Everybody seemed to be doing much loud talking.

Lad took advantage of the turmoil to slip back
into the house and to his "cave" under the piano;
where he proceeded to lick solicitously the flesh
wound on his left side.

He was very tired ; and he was very unhappy and
he was very much worried. In spite of all his own
precautions as to silence, the negro had made a
most ungodly lot of noise. The commandment
"Quiet!" had been fractured past repair. And,
somehow, Lad felt blame for it all. It was really
his fault — and he realized it now — that the man
had made such a racket. Would the Master punish

48 LAD: A DOG

him? Perhaps. Humans have such odd ideas of
Justice. He

Then it was that the Master found him; and
called him forth from his place of refuge. Head
adroop, tail low, Lad crept out to meet his scolding.
He looked very much like a puppy caught tearing
a new rug.

But suddenly, the Master and everyone else in
the room was patting him and telling him how
splendid he was. And the Master had found the
deep scratch on his side and was dressing it, and
stopping every minute or so, to praise him again.
And then, as a crowning reward, he was taken
upstairs for the Mistress to stroke and make
much of.

When at last he was sent downstairs again, Lad
did not return to his piano-lair. Instead, he went
out-of-doors and away from The Place. And,
when he thought he was far enough from the house,
he solemnly sat down and began to bark.

It was good — passing good — to be able to make
a noise again. He had never before known how
needful to canine happiness a bark really is. He
had long and pressing arrears of barks in his sys-
tem. And thunderously he proceeded to divest
himself of them for nearly half an hour.

Then, feeling much, much better, he ambled
homeward, to take up normal life again after a
whole fortnight of martyrdom.

CHAPTER III
A MIRACLE OF TWO

THE connecting points between the inner and
outer Lad were a pair of the wisest and
darkest and most sorrowful eyes in all
dogdom — eyes that gave the lie to folk who say
no dog has a soul. There are such dogs once in
a human generation.

Lad had but one tyrant in all the world. That
was his dainty gold-and-white collie-mate, Lady;
Lady, whose affections he had won in fair life-and-
death battle with a younger and stronger dog;
Lady, who bullied him unmercifully and teased
him and did fearful things to his stately dignity;
and to whom he allowed liberties that would have
brought any other aggressor painfully near to
death.

Lady was high-strung and capricious; a collie de
luxe. Lad and she were as oddly contrasted a
couple, in body and mind, as one could find in a
day's journey through their North Jersey hinter-
land. To The Place (at intervals far too few be-
tween to suit Lad), came human guests; people,
for the most part, who did not understand dogs

4Q

50 LAD: A DOG

and who either drew away in causeless fear from
them or else insisted on patting or hauling them
about.

Lad detested guests. He met their advances with
cold courtesy, and, as soon as possible, got himself
out of their way. He knew the Law far too well
to snap or to growl at a guest. But the Law did
not compel him to stay within patting distance of
one.

The careless caress of the Mistress or the Master
— especially of the Mistress — was a delight to him.
He would sport like an overgrown puppy with
either of these deities; throwing dignity to the
four winds. But to them alone did he unbend — to
them and to his adored tyrant, Lady.

To The Place, of a cold spring morning, came
a guest; or two guests. Lad at first was not cer-
tain which. The visible guest was a woman. And,
in her arms she carried a long bundle that might
have been anything at all.

Long as was the bundle, it was ridiculously light.
Or, rather, pathetically light. For its folds con-
tained a child, five years old; a child that ought to
have weighed more than forty pounds and weighed
barely twenty. A child with a wizened little old
face, and with a skeleton body which was powerless
from the waist down.

Six months earlier, the Baby had been as vigor-
ous and jolly as a collie pup. Until an invisible
Something prowled through the land, laying Its

A MIRACLE OP TWO 51

finger-tips on thousands of such jolly and vigorous
youngsters, as frost's fingers are laid on autumn
flowers — and with the same hideous effect.

This particular Baby had not died of the plague,
as had so many of her fellows. At least, her brain
and the upper half of her body had not died.

Her mother had been counseled to try mountain
air for the hopeless little invalid. She had written
to her distant relative, the Mistress, asking leave
to spend a month at The Place.

Lad viewed the arrival of the adult guest with
no interest and with less pleasure. He stood,
aloof, at one side of the veranda, as the newcomer
alighted from the car.

But, when the Master took the long bundle from
her arms and carried it up the steps, Lad waxed
curious. Not only because the Master handled his
burden so carefully, but because the collie's uncanny
scent-power told him all at once that it was human.

Lad had never seen a human carried in this
manner. It did not make sense to him. And he
stepped, hesitantly, forward to investigate.

The Master laid the bundle tenderly on the
veranda hammock-swing, and loosed the blanket-
folds that swathed it. Lad came over to him, and
looked down into the pitiful little face.

There had been no baby at The Place for many
a year. Lad had seldom seen one at such close
quarters. But now the sight did something queer
to his heart — the big heart that ever went out to th

52 LAD: A DOG

weak and defenseless, the heart that made a play-
fully snapping puppy or a cranky little lapdog as
safe from his terrible jaws as was Lady herself.

He sniffed in friendly fashion at the child's
pathetically upturned face. Into the dull baby-eyes,
at sight of him, came a look of pleased interest —
the first that had crossed their blankness for many
a long day. Two feeble little hands reached out
and buried themselves lovingly in the mass of soft
ruff that circled Lad's neck.

The dog quivered all over, from nose to brush,
with joy at the touch. He laid his great head down
beside the drawn cheek, and positively reveled in
the pain the tugging fingers were inflicting on his
sensitive throat.

In one instant, Lad had widened his narrow and
hard-established circle of Loved Ones, to include
this half -dead wisp of humanity.

The child's mother came up the steps in the
Master's wake. At sight of the huge dog, she
halted in quick alarm.

"Look out!" she shrilled. "He may attack her!
Oh, do drive him away!"

"Who? Lad," queried the Mistress. "Why, Lad
wouldn't harm a hair of her head if his life de-
pended on it! See, he adores her already. I
never knew him to take to a stranger before. And
she looks brighter and happier, too, than she has
looked in months. Don't make her cry by sending
him away from her."

A MIRACLE OF TWO 53

"But," insisted the woman, "dogs are full of
germs. I've read so. He might give her some
terrible "

"Lad is just as clean and as germless as I am/'
declared the Mistress, with some warmth. "There
isn't a day he doesn't swim in the lake, and there
isn't a day I don't brush him. He's "

"He's a collie, though," protested the guest,
looking on in uneasy distaste, while Baby secured
a tighter and more painful grip on the delighted
dog's ruff. "And I've always heard collies are
awfully treacherous. Don't you find them so?"

"If we did/' put in the Master, who had heard
that same asinine question until it sickened him, "if
we found collies were treacherous, we wouldn't
keep them. A collie is either the best dog or the
worst dog on earth. Lad is the best. We don't
keep the other kind. I'll call him away, though,
if it bothers you to have him so close to Baby.
Come, Lad!"

Reluctantly, the dog turned to obey the Law;
glancing back, as he went, at the adorable new idol
he had acquired; then crossing obediently to where
the Master stood.

The Baby's face puckered unhappily. Her pipe-
stem arms went out toward the collie. In a tired
little voice she called after him:

"Dog! Doggie! Come back here, right away!
I love you, Dog !"

Lad, vibrating with eagerness, glanced up at the

54 LAD: A DOG

Master for leave to answer the call. The Master,
in turn, looked inquiringly at his nervous guest.
Lad translated the look. And, instantly, he felt
an unreasoning hate for the fussy woman.

The guest walked over to her weakly gesticulating
daughter and explained:

"Dogs aren't nice pets for sick little girls, dear.
They're rough; and besides, they bite. I'll find
Dolly for you as soon as I unpack:"

"Don't want Dolly," fretted the child. "Want
the dog ! He isn't rough. He won't bite. Doggie !
I love you ! Come here!"

Lad looked up longingly at the Master, his
plumed tail a-wag, his ears up, his eyes dancing.
One hand of the Master's stirred toward the ham-
mock in a motion so imperceptible that none but a
sharply watchful dog could have observed it.

Lad waited for no second bidding. Quietly, un-
obtrusively, he crossed behind the guest, and stood
beside his idol. The Baby fairly squealed with
rapture, and drew his silken head down to her face.

"Oh, well !" surrendered the guest, sulkily. "If
she won't be happy any other way, let him go to
her. I suppose it's safe, if you people say so. And

it's the first thing she's been interested in, since

No, darling," she broke off, sternly. "You shall
not kiss him ! I draw the line at that. Here ! Let
Mamma rub your lips with her handkerchief."

"Dogs aren't made to be kissed," said the Master,
sharing, however, Lad's disgust at the lip-scrubbing

A MIRACLE OF TWO 55

process. "But she'll come to less harm from kissing
the head of a clean dog than from kissing the
mouths of most humans. I'm glad she likes Lad.
And I'm still gladder that he likes her. It's almost
the first time he ever went to an outsider of his
own accord."

That was how Lad's idolatry began. And that,
too, was how a miserably sick child found a new
interest in life.

Every day, from morning to dusk, Lad was with
the Baby. Forsaking his immemorial "cave"
under the music-room piano, he lay all night out-
side the door of her bedroom. In preference even
to a romp through the forest with Lady, he would
pace majestically alongside the invalid's wheel-
chair as it was trundled along the walks or up and
down the veranda.

Forsaking his post on the floor at the left of the
Master's seat, at meals — a place that had been his
alone since puppyhood — he lay always behind the
Baby's table couch. This to the vast discomfort of
the maid who had to step over him in circumnavi-
gating the board, and to the open annoyance of
the child's mother.

Baby, as the days went on, lost none of her
first pleasure in her shaggy playmate. To her, the
dog was a ceaseless novelty. She loved to twist and
braid the great white ruff on his chest, to toy
with his sensitive ears, to make him "speak" or
shake hands or lie down or stand up at her bidding.

56 LAD: A DOG

She loved to play a myriad of intricate games with
him — games ranging from Beauty and the Beast,
to Fairy Princess and Dragon.

Whether as Beast (to her Beauty) or in the more
complex and exacting role of Dragon, Lad entered
wholesouledly into every such game. Of course,
he always played his part wrong. Equally, of
course, Baby always lost her temper at his stupidity,
and pummeled him, by way of chastisement, with
her nerveless fists — a punishment Lad accepted with
a grin of idiotic bliss.

Whether because of the keenly bracing mountain
air or because of her outdoor days with a chum
who awoke her dormant interest in life, Baby was
growing stronger and less like a sallow ghostling.
And, in the relief of noting this steady improve-
ment, her mother continued to tolerate Lad's chum-
ship with the child, although she had never lost her
own first unreasoning fear of the big dog.

Two or three things happened to revive this
foolish dread. One of them occurred about a week
after the invalid's arrival at The Place.

Lady, being no fonder of guests than was Lad,
had given the veranda and the house itself a wide
berth. But one day, as Baby lay in the hammock
(trying in a wordy irritation to teach Lad the
alphabet), and as the guest sat with her back to
them, writing letters, Lady trotted around the
corner of the porch.

At sight of the hammock's queer occupant, she

A MIRACLE OF TWO 57

paused, and stood blinking inquisitively. Baby
spied the graceful gold-and- white creature. Push-
ing Lad to one side, she called, imperiously:

"Come here, new Doggie. You pretty, pretty
Doggie!"

Lady, her vanity thus appealed to, strolled minc-
ingly forward. Just within arm's reach, she halted
again. Baby thrust out one hand, and seized her
by the ruff to draw her into petting-distance.

The sudden tug on Lady's fur was as nothing to
the haulings and maulmgs in which Lad so meekly
reveled. But Lad and Lady were by no means
alike, as I think I have said. Boundless patience
and a chivalrous love for the Weak, were not num-
bered among Lady's erratic virtues. She liked
liberties as little as did Lad; and she had a far
more drastic way of resenting them.

At the first pinch of her sensitive skin there was
an instant flash of gleaming teeth, accompanied by
a nasty growl and a lightning-quick forward lunge
of the dainty gold-white head. As the wolf
slashes at a foe — and as no animals but wolf and
collie know how to — Lady slashed murderously at
the thin little arm that sought to pull her along.

And Lad, in the same breath, hurled his great
bulk between his mate and his idol. It was a move
unbelievably swift for so large a dog. And it
served its turn.

The eye-tooth slash that would have cut the little

58 LAD: A DOG

girl's arm to the bone, sent a red furrow athwart
Lad's massive shoulder.

Before Lady could snap again, or, indeed, could
get over her surprise at her mate's intervention, Lad
was shouldering her off the edge of the veranda
steps. Very gently he did this, and with no show
of teeth. But he did it with much firmness.

In angry amazement at such rudeness on the part
of her usually subservient mate, Lady snarled
ferociously, and bit at him.

Just then, the child's mother, roused from her
letter-writing by the turmoil, came rushing to her
endangered offspring's rescue.

"He growled at Baby," she reported hysterically,
as the noise brought the Master out of his study
and to the veranda on the run. "He growled at
her, and then he and that other horrid brute got to
fighting, and "

"Pardon me/' interposed the Master, calling both
dogs to him, "but Man is the only animal to mal-
treat the female of his kind. No male dog would
fight with Lady. Much less would Lad — Hello!"
he broke off. "Look at his shoulder, though ! That
was meant for Baby. Instead of scolding Lad, you
may thank him for saving her from an ugly slash.
I'll keep Lady chained up, after this."

"But "

"But, with Lad beside her, Baby is in just about
as much danger as she would be with a guard of
forty U. S. Regulars," went on the Master. "Take

A MIRACLE OF TWO 59

my word for it. Come along, Lady. It's the
kennel for you for the next few weeks, old girl.
Lad, when I get back, I'll wash that shoulder for
you."

With a sigh, Lad went over to the hammock and
lay down, heavily. For the first time since Baby's
advent at The Place, he was unhappy — very, very
unhappy. He had had to jostle and fend off Lady,
whom he worshipped. And he knew it would be
many a long day before his sensitively tempera-
mental mate would foygive or forget. Meantime,
so far as Lady was concerned, he was in Coventry.

And just because he had saved from injury a
Baby who had meant no harm and who could not
help herself ! Life, all a once, seemed dismayingly
complex to Lrd's simple soul.

He whimpe :ed a little, under his breath; and
lifted his head toward. Baby's dangling hand for a
caress that might help make things easier. But
Baby had been bitterly chagrined at Lady's recep-
tion of her friendly advances. Lady could not be
punished for this. But Lad could.

She slapped the lovingly upthrust muzzle with
all her feeble force. For once, Lad was not amused
by the castigation. He sighed, a second time; and
curled up on the floor beside the hammock, in a
right miserable heap; his head between his tiny
forepaws, his great sorrowful eyes abrim with
bewildered grief.

Spring drowsed into early summer. And, with

60 LAD: A DOG

the passing days, Baby continued to look less and
less like an atrophied mummy, and more like a thin,
but normal, child of five. She ate and slept, as
she had not done for many a month.

The lower half of her body was still dead. But
there was a faint glow of pink in the flat cheeks,
and the eyes were alive once more. The hands
that pulled at Lad, in impulsive friendliness or in
punishment, were stronger, too. Their fur-tugs
hurt worse than at first. But the hurt always gave
Lad that same twinge of pleasure — a twinge that
helped to ease his heart's ache over the defection
of Lady.

On a hot morning in early June, when the Mis-
tress and the Master had driven over to the village
for the mail, the child's mother wheeled the invalid
chair to a tree-roofed nook down by the lake — a
spot whose deep shade and lush long grass prom-
ised more coolness than did the veranda.

It was just the spot a city-dweller would have
chosen for a nap — and just the spot through which
no countryman would have cared to venture, at that
dry season, without wearing high boots.

Here, not three days earlier, the Master had
killed a copperhead snake. Here, every summer,
during the late June mowing, The Place's scythe-
wielders moved with glum caution. And seldom
did their progress go unmarked by the scythe-
severed body of at least one snake.

The Place, for the most part, lay on hillside

A MIRACLE OF TWO 61

and plateau, free from poisonous snakes of all
kinds, and usually free from mosquitoes as well.
The lawn, close-shaven, sloped down to the lake.
To one side of it, in a narrow stretch of bottom-
land, a row of weeping willows pierced the loose
stone lake-wall.

Here, the ground was seldom bone-dry. Here,
the grass grew rankest. Here, also, driven to
water by the drought, abode eft, lizard and an oc-
casional snake, finding coolness and moisture in the
long grass, and a thousand hiding places amid the
stone-crannies or the lake-wall.

If either the Mistress or the Master had been at
home on this morning, the guest would have been
warned against taking Baby there at all. She
would have been doubly warned against the folly
which she now proceeded to commit — of lifting
the child from the wheel-chair, and placing her on
a spread rug in the grass, with her back to the low
wall.

The rug, on its mattress of lush grasses, was soft.
The lake breeze stirred the lower boughs of the
willows. The air was pleasantly cool here, and
had lost the dead hotness that brooded over the
higher ground.

The guest was well pleased with her choice of
a resting place. Lad was not.

The big dog had been growingly uneasy from
the time the wheel-chair approached the lake-wall.
Twice he put himself in front of it; only to be

62 LAD: A DOG

ordered aside. Once the wheels hit his ribs with
jarring impact. As Baby was laid upon her grassy
bed, Lad barked loudly and pulled at one end of
the rug with his teeth.

The guest shook her parasol at him and ordered
him back to the house. Lad obeyed no orders, save
those of his two deities. Instead of slinking away,
he sat down beside the child; so close to her that
his ruff pressed against her shoulder. He did not
lie down as usual, but sat — tulip ears erect, dark
eyes cloudy with trouble ; head turning slowly from
side to side, nostrils pulsing.

To a human, there was nothing to see or hear or
smell — other than the cool beauty of the nook, the
soughing of the breeze in the willows, the soft fra-
grance of a June morning. To a dog, there were
faint rustling sounds that were not made by the
breeze. There were equally faint and elusive scents
that the human nose could not register. Notably,
a subtle odor as of crushed cucumbers. (If ever
you have killed a pit-viper, you know that smell.)

The dog was worried. He was uneasy. His un-
easiness would not let him sit still. It made him
fidget and shift his position; and, once or twice,
growl a little under his breath.

Presently, his eyes brightened, and his brush
began to thud gently on the rug-edge. For, a
quarter mile above, The Place's car was turning
in from the highway. In it were the Mistress and
the Master, coming home with the mail. Now

A MIRACLE OF TWO 63

everything would be all right. And the onerous
duties of guardianship would pass to more capable
hands.

As the car rounded the corner of the house and
came to a stop at the front door, the guest caught
sight of it. Jumping up from her seat on the rug,
she started toward it in quest of rnail. So hastily
did she rise that she dislodged <>ne of the wall's
small stones and sent it rattling down into a wide
crevice between two larger rocks.

She did not heed the tinkle of stone on stone; nor
a sharp little hiss that followed, as the falling mis-
sile smote the coils of a sleeping copperhead snake
in one of the wall's lowest cavities. But Lad heard
it. And he heard the slithering of scales against
rocksides, as the snake angrily sought new sleeping
quarters.

The guest walked away, all ignorant of what she
had done. And, before she had taken three steps,
a triangular grayish-ruddy head was pushed out
from the bottom of the wall.

Twistingly, the copperhead glided out onto the
grass at the very edge of the rug. The snake was
short, and thick, and dirty, with a distinct and in-
tricate pattern interwoven on its rough upper body.
The head was short, flat, wedge-shaped. Between
eye and nostril, on either side, was the sinister "pin-
hole," that is the infallible mark of the poison-sac
serpent.

(The rattlesnake swarms among some of the

64 LAD: A DOG

stony mountains of the North Jersey hinterland;
though seldom, nowadays, does it venture into the
valleys. But the copperhead — twin brother in
murder to the rattler — still infests meadow and
lakeside. Smaller, fatter, deadlier than the
diamond-back, it gives none of the warning which
redeems the latter from complete abhorrence. It is
a creature as evil as its own aspect — and name.
Copperhead and rattlesnake are the only pit-vipers
left now between Canada and Virginia.)

Out from its wall-cranny oozed the reptile.
Along the fringe of the rug it moved for a foot or
two; then paused uncertain — perhaps momentarily
dazzled by the light. It stopped within a yard
of the child's wizened little hand that rested idle on
the rug. Baby's other arm was around Lad, and
her body was between him and the snake.

Lad, with a shiver, freed himself from the frail
embrace and got nervously to his feet.

There are two things — and perhaps only two
things — of which the best type of thoroughbred
collie is abjectly afraid and from which he will
run for his life. One is a mad dog. The other is
a poisonous snake. Instinct, and the horror of
death, warn him violently away from both.

At stronger scent, and then at sight of the cop-
perhead, Lad's stout heart failed him. Gallantly
had he attacked human marauders who had invaded
The Place. More than once, in dashing fearless-
ness, he had fought with dogs larger than himself.

A MIRACLE OF TWO 65

With a d'Artagnan-like gaiety of zest, he had
tackled and deflected a bull that had charged head
down at the Mistress.

Commonly speaking, he knew no fear. Yet now
he was afraid; tremulously, quakingly, sickly
afraid. Afraid of the deadly thing that was halt-
ing within three feet of him, with only the Baby's
fragile body as a barrier between.

Left to himself, he would have taken, incon-
tinently, to his heels. With the lower animal's in-
stinctive appeal to a human in moments of danger,
he even pressed closer to the helpless child at his
side, as if seeking the protection of her humanness.
A great wave of cowardice shook the dog from
foot to head.

The Master had alighted from the car; and was
coming down the hill, toward his guest, with several
letters in his hand. Lad cast a yearning look at
him. But the Master, he knew, was too far away
to be summoned in time by even the most imperious
bark.

And it was then that the child's straying gaze
fell on the snake.

With a gasp and a shudder, Baby shrank back
against Lad. At least, the upper half of her body
moved away from the peril. Her legs and feet lay
inert. The motion jerked the rug's fringe an inch
or two, disturbing the copperhead. The snake
coiled, and drew back its three-cornered head, the
forklike maroon tongue playing fitfully.

66 LAD: A DOG

With a cry of panic-fright at her own impotence
to escape, the child caught up a picture book from
the rug beside her, and flung it at the serpent. The
fluttering book missed its mark. But it served its
purpose by giving the copperhead reason to believe
itself attacked.

Back went the triangular head, farther than ever ;
and then flashed forward. The double move was
made in the minutest fraction of a second.

A full third of the squat reddish body going with
the blow, the copperhead struck. It struck for the
thin knee, not ten inches away from its own coiled
body. The child screamed again in mortal terror.

Before the scream could leave the fear-chalked
lips, Baby was knocked flat by a mighty and hairy
shape that lunged across her toward her foe.

And the copperhead's fangs sank deep in Lad's
nose.

He gave no sign of pain ; but leaped back. As he
sprang his jaws caught Baby by the shoulder. The
keen teeth did not so much as bruise her soft flesh
as he half -dragged, half -threw her into the grass
behind him.

Athwart the rug again, Lad launched himself
bodily upon the coiled snake.

As he charged, the swift-striking fangs found
a second mark — this time in the side of his jaw.

An instant later the copperhead lay twisting and
writhing and thrashing impotently among the grass-

A MIRACLE OF TWO 67

roots ; its back broken, and its body seared almost in
two by a slash of the dog's saber-like tusk.

The fight was over. The menace was past. The
diild was safe.

And, in her rescuer's muzzle and jaw were two
deposits of mortal poison.

Lad stood panting above the prostrate and cry-
ing Baby. His work was done; and instinct told
him at what cost. But his idol was unhurt and
he was happy. He bent down to lick the convulsed
little face in mute plea for pardon for his needful
roughness toward her.

But he was denied even this tiny consolation.
Even as he leaned downward he was knocked
prone to earth by a blow that all but fractured his
skull.

At the child's first terrified cry, her mother had
turned back. Nearsighted and easily confused, she
had seen only that the dog had knocked her sick
baby flat, and was plunging across her body. Next,
she had seen him grip Baby's shoulder with his
teeth and drag her, shrieking, along the ground.

That was enough. The primal mother-instinct
(that is sometimes almost as strong in woman as
in lioness — or cow), was aroused. Fearless of
danger to herself, the guest rushed to her child's
rescue. As she ran she caught her thick parasol
by the ferule and swung it aloft.

Down came the agate-handle of the sunshade
on the head of the dog. The handle was as large

68 LAD: A DOG

as a woman's fist, and was composed of a single
stone, set in four silver claws.

As Lad staggered to his feet after the terrific
blow felled him, the impromptu weapon arose once
more in air, descending this time on his broad
shoulders.

Lad did not cringe— did not seek to dodge or
run — did not show his teeth. This mad assailant
was a woman. Moreover, she was a guest, and as
such, sacred under the Guest Law which he had
mastered from puppyhood.

Had a man raised his hand against Lad — a man
other than the Master or a guest — there would
right speedily have been a case for a hospital, if not
for the undertaker. But, as things now were, he
could not resent the beating.

His head and shoulders quivered under the force
and the pain of the blows. But his splendid body
did not cower. And the woman, wild with fear
and mother-love, continued to smite with all her
random strength.

Then came the rescue.

At the first blow the child had cried out in
fierce protest at her pet's ill-treatment. Her cry
went unheard.

"Mother!'* she shrieked, her high treble cracked
with anguish. "Mother! Don't! Don't! He kept
the snake from eating me! He !"

The frantic woman still did not heed. Each suc-
cessive blow seemed to fall upon the little onlooker's

A MIRACLE OF TWO 69

own bare heart. And Baby, under the stress, went
quite mad.

Scrambling to her feet, in crazy zeal to protect
her beloved playmate, she tottered forward three
steps, and seized her mother by the skirt.

At the touch the woman looked down. Then
her face went yellow-white; and the parasol clat-
tered unnoticed to the ground.

For a long instant the mother stood thus; her
eyes wide and glazed, her mouth open, her cheeks
ashy — staring at the swaying child who clutched
her dress for support and who was sobbing forth
incoherent pleas for the dog.

The Master had broken into a run and into a
flood of wordless profanity at sight of his dog's
punishment. Now he came to an abrupt halt and
was glaring dazedly at the miracle before him.

The child had risen and had walked.

The child had walked! — she whose lower motive-
centers, the wise doctors had declared, were hope-
lessly paralyzed — she who could never hope to
twitch so much as a single toe or feel any sensation
from the hips downward! '

Small wonder that both guest and Master seemed
to have caught, for the moment, some of the
paralysis that so magically departed from the
invalid !

And yet — as a corps of learned physicians later
agreed — there was no miracle — no magic — about it.
Baby's was not the first, nor the thousandth case

70 LAD: A DOG

in pathologic history, in which paralyzed sensory
powers had been restored to their normal functions
by means of a shock.

The child had had no malformation, no accident,
to injure the spine or the co-ordination between
limbs and brain. A long illness had left her power-
less. Country air and new interest in life had
gradually built up wasted tissues. A shock had re-
established communication between brain and lower
body — a communication that had been suspended;
not broken.

When, at last, there was room in any of the
human minds for aught but blank wonder and
gratitude, the joyously weeping mother was made
to listen to the child's story of the fight with the
snake — a story corroborated by the Master's find of
the copperhead's half-severed body.

"I'll — I'll get down on my knees to that heaven-
sent dog," sobbed the guest, "and apologize to him.
Oh, I wish some of you would beat me as I beat
him! I'd feel so much better! Where is he?"

The question brought no answer. Lad had van-
ished. Nor could eager callings and searchings
bring him to view. The Master, returning from a
shout-punctuated hunt through the forest, made
Baby tell her story all over again. Then he nodded.

"I understand," he said, feeling a ludicrously
unmanly desire to cry. "I see how it was. The
snake must have bitten him, at least once. Prob-
ably oftener, and he knew what that meant. Lad

A MIRACLE OF TWO 71

knows everything — knew everything, I mean. If
he had known a little less he'd have been human.
But — if he'd been human, he probably wouldn't
have thrown away his life for Baby."

"Thrown away his life," repeated the guest
"I — I don't understand. Surely I didn't strike him
hard enough to "

"No," returned the Master, "but the snake did."

"You mean, he has ?"

"I mean it is the nature of all animals to crawl
away, alone, into the forest to die. They are more
considerate than we. They try to cause no further
trouble to those they have loved. Lad got his death
from the copperhead's fangs. He knew it. And
while we were all taken up with the wonder of
Baby's cure, he quietly went away — to die."

The Mistress got up hurriedly, and left the room.
She loved the great dog, as she loved few humans.
The guest dissolved into a flood of sloppy tears.

"And I beat him," she wailed. "I beat him —
horribly! And all the time he was dying from the
poison he had saved my child from J Oh, I'll never
forgive myself for this, the longest day I live."

"The longest day is a long day," drily com-
mented the Master. "And self-forgiveness is the
easiest of all lessons to learn. After all, Lad was
only a dog. That's why he is dead."

The Place's atmosphere tingled with jubilation
over the child's cure. Her uncertain, but always

72 LAD: A DOG

successful, efforts at walking were an hourly
delight.

But, through the general joy, the Mistress and
the Master could not always keep their faces bright.
Even the guest mourned frequently, and loudly, and
eloquently the passing of Lad. And Baby was
openly inconsolable at the loss of her chum.

At dawn on the morning of the fourth day, the
Master let himself silently out of the house, for
his usual before-breakfast cross-country tramp — a
tramp on which, for years, Lad had always been his
companion. Heavy-hearted, the Master prepared
to set forth alone.

As he swung shut the veranda door behind him,
Something arose stiffly from a porch rug — Some-
thing the Master looked at in a daze of unbelief.

It was a dog — yet no such dog as had ever before
sullied the cleanness of The Place's well-scoured
veranda.

The animal's body was lean to emaciation. The
head was swollen — though, apparently, the swelling
had begun to recede. The fur, from spine to toe,
from nose to tail-tip, was one solid and shapeless
mass of caked mud.

The Master sat down very suddenly on the
veranda floor beside the dirt-encrusted brute, and
caught it in his arms, sputtering disjointedly:

"Lad! — Laddie!— Old friend! You're alive
again ! You're — you're — alive!"

Yes, Lad had known enough to creep away to

A MIRACLE OF TWO 73

the woods to die. But, thanks to the wolf -strain in
his collie blood, he had also known how to do
something far wiser than die.

Three days of self -burial, to the very nostrils, in
the mysteriously healing ooze of the marshes,
behind the forest, had done for him what such
mud-baths have done for a million wild creatures.
It had drawn out the viper-poison and had left
him whole again — thin, shaky on the legs, slightly
swollen of head — but whole.

"He's— he's awfully dirty, though! Isn't he?"
commented the guest, when an idiotic triumph-yell
from the Master had summoned the whole family,
in sketchy attire, to the veranda. "Awfully dirty
and "

"Yes," curtly assented the Master, Lad's head
between his caressing hands. " 'Awfully dirty.'
That's why he's still alive/'

CHAPTER IV
HIS LITTLE SON

ED'S mate Lady was the only one of the
Little People about The Place who refused
to look on Lad with due reverence. In her
frolic-moods she teased him unmercifully; in a
prettily imperious way she bossed and bullied him
— for all of which Lad adored her. He had other
reasons, too, for loving Lady — not only because
she was dainty and beautiful, and was caressingly
fond of him, but because he had won her in fair
mortal combat with the younger and showier
Knave.

For a time after Knave's routing, Lad was bliss-
fully happy in Lady's undivided comradeship. To-
gether they ranged the forests beyond The Place
in search of rabbits. Together they sprawled
shoulder to shoulder on the disreputable old fur
rug in front of the living-room fire. Together they
did joyous homage to their gods, the Mistress and
the Master.

Then in the late summer a new rival appeared —
to be accurate, three rivals. And they took up all
of Lady's time and thought and love. Poor old

74

HIS LITTLE SON 75

Lad was made to feel terribly out in the cold. The
trio of rivals that had so suddenly claimed Lady's
care were fuzzy and roly-poly, and about the size
of month-old kittens. In brief, they were three
thoroughbred collie puppies.

Two of them were tawny brown, with white fore-
paws and chests. The third was not like Lad in
color, but like the mother — at least, all of him
not white was of the indeterminate yellowish
mouse-gray which, at three months or earlier, turns
to pale gold.

When they were barely a fortnight old — almost
as soon as their big mournful eyes opened — the two
brown puppies died. There seemed no particular
reason for their death, except the fact that a collie
is always the easiest or else the most impossible
breed of dog to raise.

The fuzzy grayish baby alone was left — the puppy
which was soon to turn to white and gold. The
Mistress named him "Wolf."

Upon Baby Wolf the mother-dog lavished a
ridiculous lot of attention — so much that Lad was
miserably lonely. The great collie would try with
pathetic eagerness, a dozen times a day, to lure
his mate into a woodland ramble or into a romp
on the lawn, but Lady met his wistful advances
with absorbed indifference or with a snarl. Indeed
when Lad ventured overnear the fuzzy baby, he
was warned off by a querulous growl from the
mother or by a slash of her shiny white teeth.

76 LAD: A DOG

Lad could not at all understand it. He felt no
particular interest — only a mild and disapproving
curiosity — in the shapeless little whimpering ball of
fur that nestled so helplessly against his beloved
mate's side. He could not understand the mother-
love that kept Lady with Wolf all day and all night.
It was an impulse that meant nothing to Lad.

After a week or two of fruitless effort to win
back Lady's interest, Lad coldly and wretchedly
gave up the attempt. He took long solitary walks
by himself in the forest, retired for hours at a
time to sad brooding in his favorite "cave" under
the living-room piano, and tried to console himself
by spending all the rest of his day in the company
of the Mistress and the Master. And he came
thoroughly to disapprove of Wolf. Recognizing
the baby intruder as the cause of Lady's estrange-
ment from himself, he held aloof from the puppy.

The latter was beginning to emerge from his
newborn shapelessness. His coat's texture was
changing from fuzz to silk. Its color was turning
from gray into yellow. His blunt little nose was
lengthening and growing thin and pointed. His
butter-ball body was elongating, and his huge feet
and legs were beginning to shape up. He looked
more like a dog now, and less like an animated
muff. Also within Wolf's youthful heart awoke
the devil of mischief, the keen urge of play. He
found Lady a pleasant-enough playfellow up to a
certain point. But a painfully sharp pinch from her

HIS LITTLE SON 77

teeth or a reproving and breath-taking slap from
one of her forepaws was likely to break up every
game that she thought had gone far enough; when
Wolf's clownish roughness at length got on her
hair-trigger nerves.

So, in search of an additional playmate, the
frolicsome puppy turned to Lad, only to find that
Lad would not play with him at all. Lad made
it very, very clear to everyone — except to the fool
puppy himself — that he had no desire to romp or
to associate in any way with this creature which
had ousted him from Lady's heart! Being cursed
with a soul too big and gentle to let him harm
anything so helpless as Wolf, he did not snap or
growl, as did Lady, when the puppy teased. He
merely walked away in hurt dignity.

Wolf had a positive genius for tormenting Lad.
The huge collie, for instance, would be snoozing
away a hot hour on the veranda or under the
wistaria vines. Down upon him, from nowhere in
particular, would pounce Wolf.

The puppy would seize his sleeping father by
the ear, and drive his sharp little milk-teeth fiercely
into the flesh. Then he would brace himself and
pull backward, possibly with the idea of dragging
Lad along the ground.

Lad would wake in pain, would rise in dignified
unhappiness to his feet and start to walk off — the
puppy still hanging to his ear. As Wolf was a
collie and not a bulldog, he would lose his grip as

78 LAD: A DOG

his fat little body left the ground. Then, at a
clumsy gallop, he would pursue Lad, throwing him-
self against his father's forelegs and nipping the
slender ankles. All this was torture to Lad, and
dire mortification too — especially if humans chanced
to witness the scene. Yet never did he retaliate;
he simply got out of the way.

Lad, nowadays, used to leave half his dinner
uneaten, and he took to moping in a way that is
not good for dog or man. For the moping had
in it no ill-temper — nothing but heartache at his
mate's desertion, and a weary distaste for the
puppy's annoying antics. It was bad enough for
Wolf to have supplanted him in Lady's affection,
without also making his life a burden and humil-
iating him in the eyes of his gods.

Therefore Lad moped. Lady remained ner-
vously fussy over her one child. And Wolf con-
tinued to be a lovable, but unmitigated, pest. The
Mistress and the Master tried in every way to make
up to Lad for the positive and negative afflictions
he was enduring, but the sorrowing dog's unhap-
piness grew with the days.

Then one November morning Lady met Wolf's
capering playfulness with a yell of rage so savage
as to send the puppy scampering away in mortal
terror, and to bring the Master out from his study
on a run. For no normal dog gives that hideous
yell except in racking pain or in illness; and mere

HIS LITTLE SON 79

pain could not wring such a sound from a thor-
oughbred.

The Master called Lady over to him. Sullenly
she obeyed, slinking up to him in surly unwilling-
ness. Her nose was hot and dry; her soft brown
eyes were glazed, their whites a dull red. Her
dense coat was tumbled.

After a quick examination, the Master shut her
into a kennel-room and telephoned for a veterinary.

"She is sickening for the worst form of dis-
temper," reported the vet* an hour later, "perhaps
for something worse. Dogs seldom get distemper
after they're a year old, but when they do it's
dangerous. Better let me take her over to my
hospital and isolate her there. Distemper runs
through a kennel faster than cholera through a
plague-district. I may be able to cure her in a
month or two — or I may not. Anyhow, there's
no use in risking your other dogs' lives by leaving
her here."

So it was that Lad saw his dear mate borne
away from him in the tonneau of a strange man's
car.

Lady hated to go. She whimpered and hung
back as the vet' lifted her aboard. At sound of
her whimper Lad started forward, head low, lips
writhing back from his clenched teeth, his shaggy
throat vibrant with growls. At a sharp word of
command from the Master, he checked his onset
and stood uncertain. He looked at his departing

80 LAD: A DOG

mate, his dark eyes abrim with sorrow, then
glanced at the Master in an agony of appeal.

"It's all right, Laddie," the Master tried to con-
sole him, stroking the dog's magnificent head as
he spoke. "It's all right. It's the only chance of
saving her."

Lad did not grasp the words, but their tone was
reassuring. It told him, at least, that this kidnap-
ing was legal and must not be prevented. Sor-
rowfully he watched the chugging car out of sight,
up the drive. Then with a sigh he walked heavily
back to his "cave" beneath the piano.

Lad, alone of The Place's dogs, was allowed to
sleep in the house at night, and even had free access
to that dog-forbidden spot, the dining-room. Next
morning, as soon as the doors were opened, he
dashed out in search of Lady. With some faint
hope that she might have been brought back in
the night, he ransacked every corner of The Place
for her.

He did not find Lady. But Wolf very promptly
found Lad. Wolf was lonely, too — terribly
lonely. He had just spent the first solitary night
of his three-month life. He missed the furry warm
body into whose shelter he had always cuddled for
sleep. He missed his playmate — the pretty mother
who had been his fond companion.

There are few things so mournful as the eyes
of even the happiest collie pup; this morning, lone-
liness had intensified the melancholy expression in

HIS LITTLE SON 81

Wolf's eyes. But at sight of Lad, the puppy gam-
boled forward with a falsetto bark of joy. The
world was not quite empty, after all. Though his
mother had cruelly absented herself, here was a
playfellow that was better than nothing. And up
to Lad frisked the optimistic little chap.

Lad saw him coming. The older dog halted and
instinctively turned aside to avoid the lively little
nuisance. Then, halfway around, he stopped and
turned back to face the puppy.

Lady was gone — gone, perhaps, forever. And
all that was left to remind Lad of her was this
bumptious and sharp-toothed little son of hers.
Lady had loved the youngster — Lady, whom Lad
so loved. Wolf alone was left; and Wolf was in
-some mysterious way a part of Lady.

So, instead of making his escape as the pest
cantered toward him, Lad stood where he was.
Wolt bounded upward and as usual nipped merrily
at one of Lad's ears. Lad did not shake off his
tormentor and stalk away. In spite of the pain
to the sensitive flesh, he remained quiet, looking
down at the joyful puppy with a sort of sorrowing
friendliness. He seemed to realize that Wolf, too,,
was lonely and that the little dog was helpless.

Tired of biting an unprotesting ear, Wolf dived
for Lad's white forelegs, gnawing happily at them
with a playfully unconscious throwback to his wolf
ancestors who sought thus to disable an enemy by
breaking the foreleg bone. For all seemingly aim-

82 LAD: A DOG

less puppy-play had its origin in some ancestral
custom.

Lad bore this new bother unflinchingly. Pres-
ently Wolf left off the sport. Lad crossed to the
veranda and lay down. The puppy trotted over
to him and stood for a moment with ears cocked
and head on one side as if planning a new attack
on his supine victim; then with a little satisfied
whimper, he curled up close against his father's
shaggy side and went to sleep.

Lad gazed down at the slumberer in some per-
plexity. He seemed even inclined to resent the
familiarity of being used for a pillow. Then, noting
that the fur on the top of the puppy's sleepy head
was rumpled, Lad bent over and began softly to
lick back the tousled hair into shape with his
curving tongue — his raspberry-pink tongue with the
single queer blue-black blot midway on its surface.
The puppy mumbled drowsily in his sleep and
nestled more snugly to his new protector.

And thus Lad assumed formal guardianship of
his obstreperous little son. It was a guardianship
more staunch by far than Lady's had been of late.
For animal mothers early wear out their zealously
self-sacrificing love for their young. By the time
the latter are able to shift for themselves, the
maternal care ceases. And, later on, the once-in-
separable relationship drops completely out of
mind.

Paternity, among dogs, is, from the very first,

HIS LITTLE SON 83

no tie at all. Lad, probably, had no idea of his
relationship to his new ward. His adoption of
Wolf was due solely to his own love for Lady and
to the big heart and soul that stirred him into pity
for anything helpless.

Lad took his new duties very seriously indeed.
He not only accepted the annoyance of Wolf's un-
divided teasing, but he assumed charge of the
puppy's education as well — this to the amusement
of everyone on The Place. But everyone's amuse-
ment was kept from Lad. The sensitive dog
would rather have been whipped than laughed at.
So both the Mistress and Master watched the edu-
cational process with outwardly straight faces.

A puppy needs an unbelievable amount of edu-
cating. It is a task to wear threadbare the teacher's
patience and to do all kinds of things to the temper.
Small wonder that many humans lose patience and
temper during the process and idiotically resort to
the whip, to the boot-toe and to bellowing — in which
case the puppy is never decently educated, but
emerges from the process with a cowed and broken
spirit or with an incurable streak of meanness that
renders him worthless.

Time, patience, firmness, wisdom, temper-con-
trol, gentleness — these be the six absolute essentials
for training a puppy. Happy the human who is
blessed with any three of these qualities. Lad,
being only a dog, was abundantly possessed of all
six. And he had need of them.

84 LAD: A DOG

To begin with, Wolf had a joyous yearning to
tear up or bury every portable thing that could
be buried or torn. He had a craze for destruction.
A dropped lace handkerchief, a cushion left on the
grass, a book or a hat lying on a veranda-chair —
these and a thousand other things he looked on
as treasure-trove, to be destroyed as quickly and
as delightedly as possible.

He also enjoyed taking a flying leap onto the
face or body of any hammock-sleeper. He would
howl long and lamentably, nearly every night, at
the moon. If the night were moonless, he howled
on general principles. He thrilled with bliss at a
chance to harry and terrify the chickens or pea-
cocks or pigeons or any others of The Place's Little
People that were safe prey for him. He tried this
form of bullying once — only once — on the Mis-
tress' temperamental gray cat, Peter Grimm. For
the rest of the day Wolf nursed a scratched nose
and a torn ear — which, for nearly a wreek, taught
him to give all cats a wide berth; or, at most, to
bark harrowingly at them from a safe distance.

Again, Wolf had an insatiable craving to find
out for himself whether or not everything on earth
was good to eat. Kipling writes of puppies' ex-
periments in trying to eat soap and blacking. Wolf
added to this limited fare a hundred articles, from
clothespins to cigars. The climax came when he
found on the veranda-table a two-pound box of
chocolates, from which the wrapping-paper and gilt

HIS LITTLE SON 85

cord had not yet been removed. Wolf ate not only
all the candy, but the entire box and the paper and
the string — after which he was tumultuously and
horribly ill.

The foregoing were but a small percentage of
his gay sins. And on respectable, middle-aged Lad
fell the burden of making him into a decent canine
citizen. Lad himself had been one of those rare
puppies to whom the Law is taught with bewilder-
ing ease. A single command or prohibition had
ever been enough to fix a rule in his almost un-
cannily human brain. Perhaps if the two little brown
pups had lived, one or both of them might have
taken after their sire in character. But Wolf was
the true son of temperamental, wilful Lady, and
Lad had his job cut out for him in educating the
puppy.

It was a slow, tedious process. Lad went at it,
as he went at everything — with a gallant dash, be-
hind which was an endless supply of resource and
endurance. Once, for instance, Wolf leaped bark-
ingly upon a filmy square of handkerchief that had
just fallen from the Mistress' belt. Before the
destructive little teeth could rip the fine cambric
into rags, the puppy found himself, to his amaze-
ment, lifted gently from earth by the scruff of his
neck and held thus, in midair, until he dropped
the handkerchief.

Lad then deposited him on the grass — whereupon
Wolf pounced once more upon the handkerchief.

86 LAD: A DOG

only to be lifted a second time, painlessly but ter-
rifyingly, above earth. After this was repeated
five times, a gleam of sense entered the puppy's
fluff-brain, and he trotted sulkily away, leaving the
handkerchief untouched.

Again, when he made a wild rush at the friendly
covey of peacock chicks, he found he had hurled
himself against an object as immobile as a stone
wall. Lad had darted in between the pup and the
chicks, opposing his own big body to the charge.
Wolf was bowled clean over by the force of the
impact, and lay for a minute on his back, the breath
knocked clean out of his bruised body.

It was a longer but easier task to teach him at
whom to bark and at whom not to bark. By a
sharp growl or a menacing curl of the lips, Lad
silenced the youngster's clamorous salvo when a
guest or tradesman entered The Place, whether on
foot or in a car. By his own thunderously menac-
ing bark he incited Wolf to a like outburst when
some peddler or tramp sought to slouch down the
drive toward the house.

The full tale of Wolf's education would require
many profitless pages in the telling. At times the
Mistress and the Master, watching from the side-
lines, would wonder at Lad's persistency and would
despair of his success. Yet bit by bit — and in a
surprisingly short time for so vast an undertaking
— Wolf's character was rounded into form. True,
he had the ever-goading spirits of a true puppy.

HIS LITTLE SON 87

And these spirits sometimes led him to smash even
such sections of the law as he fully understood.
But he was a thoroughbred, and the son of clever
parents. So he learned, on the whole, with grati-
fying speed — far more quickly than he could have
been taught by the wisest human.

Nor was his education a matter of constant
drudgery. Lad varied it by taking the puppy for
long runs in the December woods and relaxed to
the extent of romping laboriously with him at
times.

Wolf grew to love his sire as he had never loved
Lady. For the discipline and the firm kindliness
of Lad were having their effect on his heart as
well as on his manners. They struck a far deeper
note within him than ever had Lady's alternating
affection and crossness.

In truth, Wolf seemed to have forgotten Lady.
But Lad had not. Every morning, the moment he
was released from the house, Lad would trot over
to Lady's empty kennel to see if by any chance she
had come back to him during the night. There was
eager hope in his big dark eyes as he hurried over
to the vacant kennel. There was dejection in every
line of his body as he turned away from his hope-
less quest.

Late gray autumn had emerged overnight into
white early winter. The ground of The Place lay
blanketed in snow. The lake at the foot of the
lawn was frozen solid from shore to shore. The

88 LAD: A DOG

trees crouched away from the whirling north wind
as if in shame at their own black nakedness.
Nature, like the birds, had flown south, leaving the
northern world as dead and as empty and as cheer-
less as a deserted bird's-nest.

The puppy reveled in the snow. He would roll
in it and bite it, barking all the while in an ecstasy
of excitement His gold-and-white coat was
thicker and shaggier now, to ward off the stinging
cold. And the snow and the roaring winds were
his playfellows rather than his foes.

Most of all, the hard-frozen lake fascinated him.
Earlier, when Lad had taught him to swim, Wolf
had at first shrunk back from the chilly black water.
Now, to his astonishment, he could run on that
water as easily — if somewhat sprawlingly — as on
land. It was a miracle he never tired of testing.
He spent half his time on the ice, despite an occa-
sional hard tumble or involuntary slide.

Once and once only — in all her six-week absence
and in his own six- week loneliness — had Lad dis-
covered anything to remind him of his lost mate;
and that discovery caused him for the first time
in his blameless life to break the most sacred of
The Place's simple Laws — the inviolable Guest-
Law.

It was on a day in late November. A runabout
came down the drive to the front door of the
house. In it rode the vet* who had taken Lady
away. He had stopped for a moment on his way

HIS LITTLE SON 89

to Paterson, to report as to Lady's progress at his
dog-hospital.

Lad was in the living-room at the time. As a
maid answered the summons at the door, he walked
hospitably forward to greet the unknown guest.
The vet* stepped into the room by one door as the
Master entered it by the other — which was lucky
for the vet*.

Lad took one look at the man who had stolen
Lady. Then, without a sound or other sign of
warning, he launched his mighty bulk straight at
the vet's throat.

Accustomed though he was to the ways of dogs,
the vet* had barely time to brace himself and to
throw one arm in front of his throat. And then
Lad's eighty pounds smote him on the chest, and
Lad's powerful jaws closed viselike on the fore-
arm that guarded the man's throat. Deep into the
thick ulster the white teeth clove their way —
through ulster-sleeve and undercoat sleeve and the
sleeves of a linen shirt and of flannels — clear
through to the flesh of the forearm.

"Lad!" shouted the Master, springing forward.

In obedience to the sharp command, Lad loosed
tiis grip and dropped to the floor — where he stood
quivering with leashed fury.

Through the rage-mists that swirled over his
brain, he knew he had broken the Law. He had
never merited punishment. He did not fear it.
But the Master's tone of fierce disapproval cut the

00 LAD: A DOG

sensitive dog soul more painfully than any scourge
could have cut his body.

"Lad!" cried the Master again, in rebuking
amazement.

The dog turned, walked slowly over to the Master
and lay down at his feet. The Master, without
another word, opened the front door and pointed
outward. Lad rose and slunk out. He had been
ordered from the house, and in a stranger's
presence !

"He thinks I'm responsible for his losing Lady/'
said the vet', looking ruefully at his torn sleeve.
'That's why he went for me. I don't blame the
dog. Don't lick him."

"I'm not going to lick him," growled the Master.
"I'd as soon thrash a woman. Besides, I've just
punished him worse than if I'd taken an ax-handle
to him. Send me a bill for your coat."

In late December came a thaw — a freak thaw
that changed the white ground to brown mud and
rotted the smooth surface of the lake-ice to gray
slush. All day and all night the trees and the eaves
sent forth a dreary drip-drip-drip. It was the tra-
ditional January Thaw — set forward a month.

On the third and last morning of the thaw Wolf
galloped down to the lake as usual. Lad jogged
along at his side. As they reached the margin,
Lad sniffed and drew back. His weird sixth sense
somehow told him — as it tells an elephant — that
there was danger ahead.

HIS LITTLE SON 91

Wolf, however, was at the stage of extreme
youth when neither dogs nor humans are bothered
by premonitions. Ahead of him stretched the huge
sheet of ice whereon he loved to gambol. Straight-
way he frisked out upon it.

A rough growl of warning from Lad made him
look back, but the lure of the ice was stronger than
the call of duty.

The current, at this point of the lake, twisted
sharply landward in a half-circle. Thus, for a
few yards out, the rotting ice was still thick, but
where the current ran, it was thin, and as soggy
as wet blotting-paper — as Wolf speedily discovered.

He bounded on the thinner ice driving his hind
claws into the slushy surface for his second leap.
He was dismayed to find that the ice collapsed
under the pounding feet. There was a dull, sloppy
sound. A ten- foot ice-cake broke off from the
main sheet; breaking at once into a dozen smaller
cakes; and Wolf disappeared, tail first, into the
swift-running water beneath.

To the surface he came, at the outer edge of the
hole. He was mad, clear through, at the prank
his beloved lake had played on him. He struck
out for shore. On the landward side of the open-
ing his forefeet clawed helplessly at the unbroken
ledge of ice. He had not the strength or the wit
to crawl upon it and make his way to land. The
bitter chill of the water was already paralyzing
him. The strong current was tugging at his hind-

92 LAD: A DOG

quarters. Anger gave way to panic. The puppy
wasted much of his remaining strength by lifting
up his voice in ear-splitting howls.

The Mistress and the Master, motoring into the
drive from the highway nearly a quarter-mile dis-
tant, heard the racket. The lake was plainly visible
to them through the bare trees, even at that distance,
and they took in the impending tragedy at a
glance. They jumped out of the car and set off
at a run to the water-edge. The way was long and
the ground was heavy with mud. They could not
hope to reach the lake before the puppy's strength
should fail.

But Lad was already there. At Wolf's first cry,
Lad sprang out on the ice that heaved and chucked
and cracked under his greater weight. His rush car-
ried him to the very edge of the hole, and there,
leaning forward and bracing all four of his ab-
surdly tiny white paws, he sought to catch the
puppy by the neck and lift him to safety. But
before his rescuing jaws could close on Wolf's fur,
the decayed ice gave way beneath his weight, and
the ten-foot hole was widened by another twenty
feet of water.

Down went Lad with a crash, and up he came,
in almost no time, a few feet away from where
Wolf floundered helplessly among the chunks of
drifting ice. The breaking off of the shoreward
mass of ice, under Lad's pressure, had left the

HIS LITTLE SON 93

puppy with no foothold at all. It had ducked him
and had robbed him even of the chance to howl.

His mouth and throat full of water, Wolf
strangled and splashed in a delirium of terror. Lad
struck out for him, butting aside the impending ice-
chunks with his great shoulders, and swimming
with a rush that lifted a third of his tawny body
out of water. His jaws gripped Wolf by the
middle of the back, and he swam thus with him
toward shore. At the edge of the shoreward ice
he gave a heave which called on every numbing
muscle of the huge frame, and which — in spite of
the burden he held — again lifted his head and
shoulders high above water.

He thus flung Wolf's body halfway up on the
ledge of ice. The puppy's flying forepaws chanced
to strike the ice-surface. His sharp claws bit into
its soft upper crust. With a frantic wriggle he
was out of the water and on top of this thicker
stratum of shore-ice, and in a second he had re-
gained shore and was careering wildly up the lawn
toward the greater safety of his kennel.

Yet, halfway in his flight, courage returned to
the sopping-wet baby. He halted, turned about
and, with a volley of falsetto barks, challenged the
offending water to come ashore and fight fair.

As Wolf's forepaws had gripped the ice, he had
further aided his climb to safety by thrusting
downward with his hind legs. Both his hind paws

94 LAD: A DOG

had struck Lad's head, their thrust had driven Lad
clean under water. There the current caught him.

When Lad came up, it was not to the surface but
under the ice, some yards below. The top of his
head struck stunningly against the underpart of
the ice-sheet.

A lesser dog would then and there have given
up the struggle, or else would have thrashed about
futilely until he drowned. Lad, perhaps on in-
stinct, perhaps on reason, struck out toward the
light — the spot where the great hole had let in
sunshine through the gray ice-sheet.

The average dog is not trained to swim under
water. To this day, it is a mystery how Lad had
the sense to hold his breath. He fought his way
on, inch by inch, against the current, beneath the
scratching rough under-surface of the ice — always
toward the light. And just as his lungs must have
been ready to burst, he reached the open space.

Sputtering and panting, Lad made for shore.
Presently he reached the ice-ledge that lay between
him and the bank. He reached it just as the
Master, squirming along, face downward and at
full length, began to work his way out over the
swaying shore-ice toward him.

Twice the big dog raised himself almost to the
top of the ledge. Once the ice broke under his
weight, dousing him. The second time he got his
fore-quarters well over the top of the ledge, and

HIS LITTLE SON 95

he was struggling upward with all his tired body
when the Master's hand gripped his soaked ruff.

With this new help, Lad made a final struggle —
a struggle that laid him gasping but safe on the
slushy surface of the thicker ice. Backward over
the few yards that still separated them from land
he and the Master crawled to the bank.

Lad was staggering as he started forward to
greet the Mistress, and his eyes were still dim and
bloodshot from his fearful ordeal. Midway in his
progress toward the Mistress another dog barred
his path — a dog that fell upon him in an ecstasy
of delighted welcome.

Lad cleared his water-logged nostrils for c.
growl of protest. He had surely done quite enough
for Wolf this day, without the puppy's trying to
rob him now of the Mistress' caress. He was tired,
and he was dizzy; and he wanted such petting and
comfort and praise as only the worshipped Mistress
could give.

Impatience at the puppy's interference cleared the
haze a little from Lad's brain and eyes. He halted
in his shaky walk and stared, dum founded. This
dog which greeted him so rapturously was not
Wolf. It was — why, it was — Lady! Oh, it was
Lady !

"We've just brought her back to you, old friend,"
the Master was telling him. "We went over for
her in the car this morning. She's all well again,
and "

96 LAD: A DOG

But Lad did not hear. All he realized — all he
wanted to realize — was that his mate was ec-
statically nipping one of his ears to make him romp
with her.

It was a sharp nip; and it hurt like the very
mischief.

Lad loved to have it hurt.

CHAPTER V
FOR A BIT OF RIBBON

ED had never been in a city or in a crowd.
To him the universe was bounded by the soft
green mountains that hemmed in the valley
and the lake. The Place stood on the lake's edge,
its meadows running back to the forest. There
were few houses nearer than the mile-distant village.
It was an ideal home for such a dog as Lad, even
as Lad was an ideal dog for such a home.

A guest started all the trouble — a guest who
spent a week-end at The Place and who loved
dogs far better than he understood them. He made
much of Lad, being loud-voiced in his admiration
of the stately collie. Lad endured the caresses
when he could not politely elude them.

"Say!" announced the guest just before he de-
parted, "If I had a dog like Lad, I'd 'show' him —
at the big show at Madison Square, you know. It's
booked for next month. Why not take a chance
and exhibit him there ? Think what it would mean
to you people to have a Westminster blue ribbon the
big dog had won! Why, you'd be as proud as
Punch!"

' 97

98 LAD: A DOG

It was a careless speech and well meant. No harm
might have come from it, had not the Master the
next day chanced upon an advance notice of the
dog-show in his morning paper. He read the press-
agent's quarter-column proclamation. Then he re-
membered what the guest had said. The Mistress
was called into consultation. And it was she, as
ever, who cast the deciding vote.

"Lad is twice as beautiful as any collie we eve*
saw at the Show," she declared, "and not one of
them is half as wise or good or human as he is.
And — a blue ribbon is the greatest honor a dog can
have, I suppose. It would be something to re-
member."

After which, the Master wrote a letter to a
friend who kept a show kennel of Airedales. He
received this answer:

"I don't pretend to know anything, professionally,
about collies — Airedales being my specialty. But Lad
is a beauty, as I remember him, and his pedigree shows
a bunch of old-time champions. I'd risk it, if I were you.
If you are in doubt and don't want to plunge, why not
just enter him for the Novice class? That is a class for
dogs that have never before been shown. It will cos*, you
five dollars to enter him for a single class, like that. And
in the Novice, he won't be up against any champions or
other dogs that have already won prizes. That will make
it easier. It isn't a grueling competition like the 'Open'
or even the 'Limit/ If he wins as a Novice, yoif can
enter him, another time, in something more important.
Vm inclosing an application-blank for you to fiP «*4t

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 99

and send with your entrance-fee, to the secretary. You'll
find his address at the bottom of the blank. I'm show-
ing four of my Airedales there — so we'll be neighbors."

Thus encouraged, the Master filled in the blank
and sent it with a check. And in due time word
was returned to him that "Sunnybank Lad" was
formally entered for the Novice class, at the West-
minister Kennel Club's annual show at Madison
Square Garden.

By this time both the Mistress and the Master
were infected with the most virulent type of the
Show Germ. They talked of little else than the
forthcoming Event. They read all the dog-show
literature they could lay hands on.

As for Lad, he was mercifully ignorant of what
was in store for him.

The Mistress had an inkling of his fated ordeal
when she read the Kennel Club rule that no dog
could be taken from the Garden, except at stated
times, from the moment the show should begin,
at ten A.M. Wednesday morning, until the hour
of its close, at ten o'clock Saturday night. For
twelve hours a day — for four consecutive days —
every entrant must be there. By paying a forfeit
fee, dog owners might take their pets to some
nearby hotel or stable, for the remainder of the
night and early morning — a permission which, for
obvious reasons, would not affect most dogs.

"But Lad's never been away from home a night
in his life!" exclaimed the Mistress in dismay.

100 LAD: A DOG

"He'll be horribly lonely there, all that while — espe-
cially at night."

By this time, with the mysterious foreknowledge
of the best type of thoroughbred collie, Lad began
to be aware that something unusual had crept into
the atmosphere of The Place. It made him restless,
but he did not associate it with himself — until the
Mistress took to giving him daily baths and
brushings.

Always she had brushed him once a day, to keep
his shaggy coat fluffy and burnished; and the lake
had supplied him with baths that made him as clean
as any human. But never had he undergone such
searching massage with comb and brush as was
now his portion. Never had he known such soap-
infested scrubbings as were now his daily fate, for
the week preceding the show.

As a result of these ministrations his wavy fur
was like spun silk in texture; and it stood out all
over him like the hair of a Circassian beauty in a
dime museum. The white chest and f orepaws were
like snow. And his sides and broad back and
mighty shoulders shone like dark bronze.

He was magnificent — but he was miserable. He
knew well enough, now, that he was in some way
the center of all this unwonted stir and excitement
which pervaded The Place. He loathed change of
any sort — a thoroughbred collie being ever an ultra-
conservative. This particular change seemed to

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 101

threaten his peace; also it kept his skin scraped with
combs and his hair redolent of nasty-smelling soaps.

To humans there was no odor at all in the naphtha
soap with which the Mistress lathered the dog, and
every visible atom of it was washed away at once
with warm water. But a human's sense of smell,
compared with the best type of collie's, is as a
purblind puppy's power of sight in comparison to a
hawk's.

All over the East, during these last days before
the Show, hundreds of high-bred dogs were under-
going preparation for an exhibition which to the
beholder is a delight — and which to many of the
canine exhibits is a form of unremitting torture.
To do justice to the Master and the Mistress, they
had no idea — then — of this torture. Otherwise all
the blue ribbons ever woven would not have
tempted them to subject their beloved chum to it.

In some kennels Airedales were "plucked," by
hand, to rid them of the last vestige of the soft gray
outer coat which is an Airedale's chief natural beauty
— and no hair of which must be seen in a show.
"Plucking" a dog is like pulling live hairs from a
human head, so far as the sensation goes. But
show-traditions demand the anguish.

In other kennels, bull-terriers' white coats were
still further whitened by the harsh rubbing of pipe-
clay into the tender skin. Sensitive tails and still
more sensitive ears were sandpapered, for the vie-

102 LAD: A DOG

tims* greater beauty — and agony. Ear-Interiors,
also, were shaved close with safety-razors.

Murderous little "knife-combs" were tearing
blithely away at collies' ear-interiors and heads, to
"barber" natural furriness into painful and un-
natural trimness. Ears were "scrunched" until
their wearers quivered with stark anguish — to im-
part the perfect tulip-shape; ordained by fashion
for collies.

And so on, through every breed to be exhibited —
each to its own form of torment; torments com-
pared to which Lad's gentle if bothersome brushing
and bathing were a pure delight!

Few of these ruthlessly "prepared" dogs were
personal pets. The bulk of them were "kennel
dogs" — dogs bred and raised after the formula
for raising and breeding prize hogs or chickens, and
with little more of the individual element in it. The
dogs were bred in a way to bring out certain arbi-
trary "points" which count in show- judging, and
which change from year to year.

Brain, fidelity, devotion, the human side of a dog
— these were totally ignored in the effort to breed
the perfect physical animal. The dogs were kept in
kennel-buildings and in wire "runs" like so many
pedigreed cattle — looked after by paid attendants,
and trained to do nothing but to be the best-looking
of their kind, and to win ribbons. Some of them
did not know their owners by sight — having been
reared wholly by hirelings.

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 103

The body was everything; the heart, the mind,
the namelessly delightful quality of the master-
raised dog — these were nothing. Such traits do not
win prizes at a bench-show. Therefore fanciers,
whose sole aim is to win ribbons and cups, do not
bother to cultivate them. (All of this is extraneous ;
but may be worth your remembering, next time
you go to a dog-show.)

Early on the morning of the Show's first day,
the Mistress and the Master set forth for town
with Lad. They went in their little car, that the
dog might not risk the dirt and cinders of a train.

Lad refused to eat a mouthful of the tempting
breakfast set before him that day. He could not
eat, when foreboding was hot in his throat. He had
often ridden in the car. Usually he enjoyed the
ride; but now he crawled rather than sprang into
the tonneau. All the way up the drive, his great
mournful eyes were turned back toward the house
in dumb appeal. Every atom of spirit and gayety
and dash were gone from him. He knew he was
being taken away from the sweet Place he loved,
and that the car was whizzing him along toward
some dreaded fate. His heart was sick within him.

To the born and bred show-dog this is an every-
day occurrence — painful, but inevitable. To a
chum-dog like Lad, it is heartbreaking. The big
collie buried his head in the Mistress* lap and
crouched hopelessly at her feet as the car chugged
cityward.

104 LAD: A DOG

A thoroughly unhappy dog is the most thor-
oughly unhappy thing on earth. All the adored
Mistress' coaxings and pettings could not rouse Lad
from his dull apathy of despair. This was the hour
when he was wont to make his stately morning
rounds of The Place, at the heels of one of his two
deities. And now, instead, these deities were carry-
ing him away to something dire fully unpleasant. A
lesser dog would have howled or would have
struggled crazily to break away. Lad stood his
ground like a furry martyr, and awaited his fate.

In an hour or so the ride ended. The car drew
up at Madison Square — beside the huge yellowish
building, arcaded and Diana-capped, which goes by
the name of "Garden" and which is as nearly his-
toric as any landmark in feverish New York is
permitted to be.

Ever since the car had entered Manhattan
Island, unhappy Lad's nostrils had been aquiver with
a million new and troublous odors. Now, as the
car halted, these myriad strange smells were lost
in one — an all-pervasive scent of dog. To a human,
out there in the street, the scent was not observable.
To a dog it was overwhelming.

Lad, at the Master's word, stepped down from
the tonneau onto the sidewalk. He stood there,
dazedly sniffing. The plangent roar of the city
was painful to his ears, which had always been
attuned to the deep silences of forest and lake.
And through this dm he caught the muffled noise

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 105

of the chorused barks and howls of many of his
own kind.

The racket that bursts so deafeningly on humans
as they enter the Garden, during a dog-show, was
wholly audible to Lad out in the street itself. And,
as instinct or scent makes a hog flinch at going
into a slaughterhouse, so the gallant dog's spirit
quailed for a moment as he followed the Mistress
and the Master into the building.

A man who is at all familiar with the ways of
dogs can tell at once whether a dog's bark denotes
cheer or anger or terror or grief or curiosity. To
such a man a bark is as expressive of meanings
as are the inflections of a human voice. To an-
other dog these meanings are far more intelligible.
And in the timbre of the multiple barks and yells
that now assailed his ears, Lad read nothing to
allay his own fears.

He was the hero of a half-dozen hard-won
fights. He had once risked his life to save life.
He had attacked tramps and peddlers and other
stick-wielding invaders who had strayed into the
grounds of The Place. Yet the tiniest semblance
of fear now crept into his heart.

He looked up at the Mistress, a world of sor-
rowing appeal in his eyes. At her gentle touch on
his head and at a whisper of her loved voice, he
moved onward at her side with no further hesita-
tion. If these, his gods, were leading him to

106 LAD: A DOG

death, he would not question their right to do it,
but would follow on as befitted a good soldier.

Through a doorway they went. At a wicket a
yawning veterinary glanced uninterestedly at Lad.
As the dog had no outward and glaring signs of
disease, the vet' did not so much as touch him, but
with a nod suffered him to pass. The vef was
paid to inspect all dogs as they entered the show.
Perhaps some of them were turned back by him,
perhaps not; but after this, as after many another
show, scores of kennels were swept by distemper
and by other canine maladies, scores of deaths fol-
lowed. That is one of the risks a dog-exhibitor
must take — or rather that his luckless dogs must
take — in spite of the fees paid to yawning veterin-
aries to bar out sick entrants.

As Lad passed in through the doorway, he halted
involuntarily in dismay. Dogs — dogs — DOGS !
More than two thousand of them, from Great Dane
to toy terrier, benched in row after row throughout
the vast floor-space of the Garden! Lad had never
known there were so many dogs on earth.

Fully five hundred of them were barking or
howling. The hideous volume of sound swelled
to the Garden's vaulted roof and echoed back again
like innumerable hammer-blows upon the eardrum.

The Mistress stood holding Lad's chain and
softly caressing the bewildered dog, while the
Master went to make inquiries. Lad pressed his

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 107

shaggy body closer to her knee for refuge, as he
gazed blinkingly around him.

In the Garden's center were several large in-
closures of wire and reddish wood. Inside each
inclosure were a table, a chair and a movable plat-
form. The platform was some six inches high and
four feet square. At corners of these "judging-
rings" were blackboards on which the classes next
to be inspected were chalked up.

All around the central space were alleys, on each
side of which were lines of raised "benches," two
feet from the ground. The benches were carpeted
with straw and were divided off by high wire par-
titions into compartments about three feet in area.
Each compartment was to be the abiding-place of
some unfortunate dog for the next four days and
nights. By short chains the dogs were bound into
these open-fronted cells.

The chains left their wearers just leeway enough
to stand up or lie down or to move to the various
limits of the tiny space. In front of some of the
compartments a wire barrier was fastened. This
meant that the occupant was savage — in other
words, that under the four-day strain he was likely
to resent the stares or pokes or ticklings or promis-
cuous alien pattings of fifty thousand curious
visitors.

The Master came back with a plumply tipped
attendant. Lad was conducted through a babel
of yapping and snapping thoroughbreds of all

108 LAD: A DOG

breeds, to a section at the Garden's northeast
corner, above which, in large black letters on a
white sign, was inscribed "COLLIES" Here his
conductors stopped before a compartment numbered
"658."

"Up, Laddie!" said the Mistress, touching the
straw-carpeted bench.

Usually, at this command, Lad was wont to
spring to the indicated height — whether car-floor
or table-top — with the lightness of a cat. Now, one
foot after another, he very slowly climbed into the
compartment he was already beginning to detest
— the cell which was planned to be his only resting-
spot for four interminable days. There he, who
had never been tied, was ignominiously chained
as though he were a runaway puppy. The insult
bit to the depths of his sore soul. He curled down
in the straw.

The Mistress made him as comfortable as she
could. She set before him the breakfast she had
brought and told the attendant to bring him some
water.

The Master, meantime, had met a collie man
whom he knew, and in company with this ac-
quaintance he was walking along the collie-section
examining the dogs tied there. A dozen times had
the Master visited dog-shows; but now that Lad
was on exhibition, he studied the other collies with
new eyes.

"Look!" he said boastfully to his companion,

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 109

pausing before a bench whereon were chained a
half-dozen dogs from a single illustrious kennel.
"These fellows aren't in it with old Lad. See —
their noses are tapered like tooth-picks, and the
span of their heads, between the ears, isn't as wide
as my palm ; and their eyes are little and they slant
like a Chinaman's; and their bodies are as curved
as a grayhound's. Compared with Lad, some of
them are freaks. That's all they are, just freaks —
not all of them, of course, but a lot of them."

"That's the idea nowadays," laughed the collie
man patronizingly. "The up-to-date collie — this
year's style, at least — is bred with a borzoi (wolf-
hound) head and with graceful, small bones.
What's the use of his having brain and scenting-
power? He's used for exhibition or kept as a pet
nowadays — not to herd sheep. Long nose, narrow
head "

"But Lad once tracked my footsteps two miles
through a snowstorm/' bragged the Master; "and
again un a road where fifty people had walked
since I had; and he understands the meaning of
every simple word. He "

"Yes?" said the collie man, quite unimpressed.
"Very interesting — but not useful in a show. Some
of the big exhibitors still care for sense in their
dogs, and they make companions of them — Eileen
Moretta, for instance, and Fred Leighton and one
or two more; but I find most of the rest are just

110 LAD: A DOG

out for the prizes. Let's have a look at your dog.
Where is he?"

On the way down the alley toward Cell 658
they met the worried Mistress.

"Lad won't eat a thing," she reported, "and he
wouldn't eat before we left home this morning,
either. He drinks plenty of water, but he won't
eat. I'm afraid he's sick."

"They hardly ever eat at a show," the collie man
consoled her, "hardly a mouthful — most of the
high-strung ones, but they drink quarts of water.
This is your dog, hey?" he broke off, pausing at
658. "H'm !"

He stood, legs apart, hands behind his back, gaz-
ing down at Lad. The dog was lying, head be-
tween paws, as before. He did not so much as
glance up at the stranger, but his great wistful
eyes roved from the Mistress to the Master and
back again. In all this horrible place they two
alone were his salvation.

"H'm!" repeated the collie man thoughtfully.
"Eyes too big and not enough slanted. Head too
thick for length of nose. Ears too far apart. Eyes
too far apart, too. Not enough 'terrier expression'
in them. Too much bone, too much bulk. Won-
derful coat, though — glorious coat! Best coat I've
seen this five years. Great brush, too! What's he
entered for? Novice, hey? May get a third with
him at that. He's the true type — but old-fashioned.
I'm afraid he's too old-fashioned for such fast

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 111

company as he's in. Still, you never can tell. Only
it's a pity he isn't a little more "

"I wouldn't have him one bit different in any
way!" flashed the Mistress. "He's perfect as he
is. You can't see that, though, because he isn't
himself now. I've never seen him so crushed and
woe-begone. I wish we had never brought him
here."

"You can't blame him," said the collie man
philosophically. "Why, just suppose you were
brought to a strange place like this and chained
into a cage and were left there four days and
nights while hundreds of other prisoners kept
screaming and shouting and crying at the top of
their lungs every minute of the time ! And suppose
about a hundred thousand people kept jostling past
your cage night and day, rubbering at you and
pointing at you and trying to feel your ears and
mouth, and chirping at you to shake hands, would
you feel very hungry or very chipper? A four-
day show is the most fearful thing a high-strung
dog can go through — next to vivisection. A little
one-day show, for about eight hours, is no special
ordeal, especially if the dog's Master stays near
him all the time ; but a four-day show is — is Sheol !
I wonder the S. P. C. A. doesn't do something to
make it easier."

"If I'd known — if we'd known " began the

Mistress.

"Most of these folks know!" returned the collie

112 LAD: A DOG

man. "They do it year after year. There's a
mighty strong lure in a bit of ribbon. Why, look
what an exhibitor will do for it! He'll risk his
dog's health and make his dog's life a horror.
He'll ship him a thousand miles in a tight crate
from Show to Show. (Some dogs die under the
strain of so many journeys.) And he'll pay five
dollars for every class the dog's entered in. Some
exhibitors enter a single dog in five or six classes.
The Association charges one dollar admission to
the show. Crowds of people pay the price to come
in. The exhibitor gets none of the gate-money.
All he gets for his five dollars or his twenty-five
dollars is an off chance at a measly scrap of colored
silk worth maybe four cents. That, and the same
off-chance at a tiny cash prize that doesn't come
anywhere near to paying his expenses. Yet, for all,
it's the straightest sport on earth. Not an atom
of graft in it, and seldom any profit. ... So long!
I wish you folks luck with 658."

He strolled on. The Mistress was winking very
fast and was bending over Lad, petting him and
whispering to him. The Master looked in curiosity
at a kennel man who was holding down a nearby
collie while a second man was trimming the scared
dog's feet and fetlocks with a pair of curved shears;
and now the Master noted that nearly every dog
but Lad was thus clipped as to ankle.

At an adjoining cell a woman was sifting almost
a pound of talcum powder into her dog's fur to

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 113

make the coat fluffier. Elsewhere similar weird
preparations were in progress. And Lad's only
preparation had been baths and brushing! The
Master began to feel like a fool.

People all along the collie line presently began.
to brush dogs (smoothing the fur the wrong way
to fluff it) and to put other finishing touches on
the poor beasts' make-up. The collie man strolled
back to 658.

"The Novice class in collies is going to be called
presently," he told the Mistress. "Where's your
exhibition-leash and choke-collar? I'll help you
put them on."

"Why, we've only this chain," said the Mistress.
"We bought it for Lad yesterday, and this is his
regular collar — though he never has had to wear
it. Do we have to have another kind?"

"You don't have to unless you want to," said
the collie man, "but it's best — especially, the choke-
collar. You see, when exhibitors go into the ring,
they hold their dogs by the leash close to the neck.
And if their dogs have choke-collars, why, then
they've got to hold their heads high when the leash
is pulled. They've got to, to keep from strangling.
It gives them a fine, proud carriage of the head,
that counts a lot with some judges. All dog-photos
are taken that way. Then the leash is blotted out
of the negative. Makes the dog look showy, too
— keeps him from slumping. Can't slump much
you're trying not to choke, you know."

114 LAD: A DOG

"It's horrible! Horrible!" shuddered the Mis-
tress. "I wouldn't put such a thing on Lad for
all the prizes on earth. When I read Davis' won-
derful 'Bar Sinister' story, I thought dog-shows
were a real treat to dogs. I see, now, they're "

"Your class is called !" interrupted the collie man.
"Keep his head high, keep him moving as showily
as you can. Lead him close to you with the chain
as short as possible. Don't be scared if any of
the other dogs in the ring happen to fly at him.
The attendants will look out for all that. Good
luck."

Down the aisle and to the wired gate of the
north-eastern ring the unhappy Mistress piloted the
unhappier Lad. The big dog gravely kept beside
her, regardless of other collies moving in the same
direction. The Garden had begun to fill with
visitors, and the ring was surrounded with inter-
ested "rail-birds." The collie classes, as usual, were
among those to be judged on the first day of the
four.

Through the gate into the ring the Mistress
piloted Lad. Six other Novice dogs were already
there. Beautiful creatures they were, and all but
one were led by kennel men. At the table, be-
hind a ledger flanked by piles of multicolored
ribbons, sat the clerk. Beside the platform stood
a wizened and elderly little man in tweeds. He
was McGilead, who had been chosen as judge for
the collie division. He was a Scot, and he was also

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 115

a man with stubborn opinions of his own as to
dogs.

Around the ring, at the judge's order, the Novice
collies were paraded. Most of them stepped high
and fast and carried their heads proudly aloft —
the thin choke-collars cutting deep into their furry
necks. One entered was a harum-scarum puppy
who writhed and bit and whirled about in ecstasy
of terror.

Lad moved solemnly along at the Mistress' side.
He did not pant or curvet or look showy. He was
miserable and every line of his splendid body
showed his misery. The Mistress, too, glancing at
the more spectacular dogs, wanted to cry — not be-
cause she was about to lose, but because Lad was
about to lose. Her heart ached for him. Again
she blamed herself bitterly for bringing him here.

McGilead, hands in pockets, stood sucking at an
empty brier pipe, and scanning the parade that
circled around him. Presently he stepped up to
the Mistress, checked her as she filed past him, and
said to her with a sort of sorrowful kindness:

"Please take your dog over to the far end of
the ring. Take him into the corner where he won't
be in my way while I am judging."

Yes, he spoke courteously enough, but the Mis-
tress would rather have had him hit her across the
face. Meekly she obeyed his command. Across
the ring, to the very farthest corner, she went —
poor beautiful Lad beside her, disgraced, weeded

116 LAD: A DOG

out of the competition at the very start. There,
far out of the contest, she stood, a drooping little
figure, f edliig as though everyone were sneering at
her dear dog's disgrace.

Lad seemed to sense her sorrow. For, as he
stood beside her, head and tail low, he whined
softly and licked her hand as if in encouragement.
She ran her fingers along his silky head. Then,
to keep from crying, she watched the other con-
testants.

No longer were these parading. One at a time
and then in twos, the judge was standing them on
the platform. He looked at their teeth. He
pressed their heads between his hands. He
"hefted" their hips. He ran his fingers through
their coats. He pressed his palm upward against
their underbodies. He subjected them to a score
of such annoyances, but he did it all with a quick
and sure touch that not even the crankiest of them
could resent.

Then he stepped back and studied the quartet.
After that he seemed to remember Lad's presence,
and, as though by way of earning his fee, he
slouched across the ring to where the forlorn Mis-
tress was petting her dear disgraced dog.

Lazily, perfunctorily, the judge ran his hand over
Lad, with absolutely none of the thoroughness that
had marked his inspection of the other dogs. Ap-
parently there was no need to look for the finer
points in a disqualified collie. The sketchy examina-

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 117

tion did not last three seconds. At its end the
judge jotted down a number on a pad he held.
Then he laid one hand heavily on Lad's head and
curtly thrust out his other hand at the Mistress.

"Can I take him away now?" she asked, still
stroking Lad's fur.

"Yes," rasped the judge, "and take this along
with him."

In his outstretched hand fluttered a little bunch
of silk — dark blue, with gold lettering on it.

The blue ribbon ! First prize in the Novice class !
And this grouchy little judge was awarding it — to
Lad!

The Mistress looked very hard at the bit of blue
and gold in her fingers. She saw it through a
queer mist. Then, as she stooped to fasten it to
Lad's collar, she furtively kissed the tiny white spot
on the top of his head.

"It's something like the 'Bar Sinister' victory
after all!" she exclaimed joyously as she rejoined
the delighted Master at the ring gate. "But, oh,
it was terrible for a minute or two, wasn't it?"

Now, Angus McGilead, Esq. (late of Linlithgow,
Scotland), had a knowledge of collies such as is
granted to few men, and this very fact made him
a wretchedly bad dog-show judge; as the Kennel
Club, which — on the strength of his fame — had
engaged his services for this single occasion,
speedily learned. The greatest lawyer makes often
the worst judge. Legal annals prove this; and the

118 LAD: A DOG

same thing applies to dog-experts. They are sane
rather than judicial.

McGilead had scant patience with the ultra-
modern, inbred and grayhoundlike collies which
had so utterly departed from their ancestral
standards. At one glimpse he had recognized Lad
as a dog after his own heart — a dog that brought
back to him the murk and magic of the Highland
moors.

He had noted the deep chest, the mighty fore-
quarters, the tiny white paws, the incredible wealth
of outer- and under-coat, the brush, the grand
head, and the soul in the eyes. This was such a
dog as McGilead's shepherd ancestors had admitted
as an honored equal, at hearth and board — such a
dog, for brain and brawn and beauty, as a High-
land master would no sooner sell than he would
sell his own child.

McGilead, therefore, had waved Lad aside while
he judged the lesser dogs of his class, lest he be
tempted to look too much at Lad and too little at
them; and he rejoiced, at the last, to give honor
where all honor was due.

Through dreary hours that day Lad lay discon-
solate in his cell, nose between paws, while the
stream of visitors flowed sluggishly past him. His
memory of the Guest-Law prevented him from
showing his teeth when some of these passing
humans paused in front of the compartment to
pat him or to consult his number in their catalogues.

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 119

But he accorded not so much as one look^ to say
nothing of a handshake — to any of them.

A single drop of happiness was in his sorrow-
cup. He had, seemingly, done something that made
both the Master and the Mistress very, very proud
of him. He did not know just why they should
be for he had done nothing clever. In fact, he had
been at his dullest. But they were proud of him —
undeniably proud, and this made him glad, through
all his black despondency.

Even the collie man seemed to regard him with
more approval than before — not that Lad cared at
all; and two or three exhibitors came over for a
special look at him. From one of these exhibitors
the Mistress learned of a dog-show rule that was
wholly new to her.

She was told that the winning dog of each and
every class was obliged to return later to the ring
to compete in what was known as the Winners'
class — a contest whose entrants included every
class-victor from Novice to Open. Briefly, this
special competition was to determine which class-
winner was the best collie in the whole list of
winners and, as such, entitled to a certain number
of "points" toward a championship. There were
eight of these winners.

One or two such world-famed champions as
Grey Mist and Southport Sample were in the show
"for exhibition only." But the pick of the re-
maining leaders must compete in the winners' class

120 LAD: A DOG

— Sunnybank Lad among them. The Master's
heart sank at this news.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "You see, it's one thing
to win as a Novice against a bunch of untried dogs,
and quite another to compete against the best dogs
in the show. I wish we could get out of it."

"Never mind!" answered the Mistress. "Laddie
has won his ribbon. They can't take that away
from him. There's a silver cup for the Winners'
class, though. I wish there had been one for the
Novices."

The day wore on. At last came the call for
"Winners!" And for the second time poor Lad
plodded reluctantly into the ring with the Mistress.
But now, instead of novice dogs, he was confronted
by the cream of colliedom.

Lad's heartsick aspect showed the more intensely
in such company. It grieved the Mistress bitterly
to see his disconsolate air. She thought of the
three days and nights to come — the nights when
she and the Master could not be with him, when
he must lie listening to the babel of yells and barks
all around, with nobody to speak to him except
some neglectful and sleepy attendant. And for
the sake of a blue ribbon she had brought this upon
him!

The Mistress came to a sudden and highly un-
sportsmanlike resolution.

Again the dogs paraded the ring. Again the
judge studied them from between half -shut eyes.

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON

But this time he did not wave Lad to one side.
The Mistress had noted, during the day, that
McGilead had always made known his decisions by
first laying his hand on the victor's head. And
she watched breathless for such a gesture.

One by one the dogs were weeded out until only
two remained. Of these two, one was Lad — the
Mistress' heart banged crazily — and the other was
Champion Coldstream Guard. The Champion was
a grand dog, gold-and-white of hue, perfect of coat
and line, combining all that was best in the old and
new styles of collies. He carried his head nobly
aloft with no help from the choke-collar. His
"tulip" ears hung at precisely the right curve.

Lad and Coldstream Guard were placed shoulder
to shoulder on the platform. Even the Mistress
could not fail to contrast her pet's woe-begone
aspect with the Champion's alert beauty.

"Lad!" she said, very low, and speaking with
slow intentness as McGilead compared the two.
"Laddie, we're going home. Home ! Home, Lad !"

Home! At the word, a thrill went through the
great dog. His shoulders squared. Up went his
head and his ears. His dark eyes fairly glowed
with eagerness as he looked expectantly up at the
Mistress. Home!

Yet, despite the transformation, the other was
the finer dog — from a mere show viewpoint. The
Mistress could see he was. Even the new uptilt

LAD: A DOG

of Lad's cars could not make those ears so perfect
in shape and attitude as were the Champion's.

With almost a gesture of regret McGilead laid
his hand athwart Coldstream Guard's head. The
Mistress read the verdict, and she accepted it.

"Come, Laddie, dear," she said tenderly.
"You're second, anyway, Reserve-Winner* That's
something."

"Wait!" snapped McGilead.

The judge was seizing one of Champion Cold-
stream Guard's supershapely ears and turning it
backward. His sensitive fingers, falling on the
dog's head in token of victory, had encountered
an odd stiffness in the curve of the ear. Now he
began to examine that ear, and then the other, and
thereby he disclosed a most clever bit of surgical
bandaging.

Neatly crisscrossed, inside each of the Cham-
pion's ears, was a succession of adhesive-plaster
strips cut thin and running from tip to orifice.
The scientific applying of these strips had painfully
imparted to the prick-ears (the dog's one flaw)
the perfect tulip-shape so desirable as a show-
quality. Champion Coldstream Guard's silken ears
could not have had other than ideal shape and
posture if he had wanted them to — while that
crisscross of sticky strips held them in position!

Now, this was no new trick — the ruse that the
Champion's handlers had employed. Again and
again in bench-shows, it had been employed upon

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 123

bull-terriers. A year or two ago a woman was
ordered from the ring, at the Garden, when plaster
was found inside her terrier's ears, but seldom be-
fore had it been detected in a collie — in which a
prick-ear usually counts as a fatal blemish.

McGilead looked at the Champion. Long and
searchingly he looked at the man who held the
Champion's leash — and who fidgeted grinningly
under the judge's glare. Then McGilead laid both
hands on Lad's great honest head — almost as in
benediction.

"Your dog wins, Madam," he said, "and while
it is no part of a judge's duty to say so, I am
heartily glad. I won't insult you by asking if he

is for sale, but if ever you have to part with
•i • »>

He did not finish, but abruptly gave the Mistress
the "Winning Class" rosette.

And now, as Lad left the ring, hundreds of
hands were put out to pat him. All at once he
was a celebrity.

Without returning the dog to the bench, the Mis-
tress went directly to th'e collie man.

"When do they present the cups?" she asked.

"Not until Saturday night, I believe," said ths
man. "I congratulate you both on "

"In order to win his cup, Lad will have to staj
in this — this inferno — for three days and night*
longer?"
v "Of course. All the dogs "

124 LAD: A DOG

"If he doesn't stay, he won't get the cup?"

"No. It would go to the Reserve, I suppose,
or to "

"Good !" declared the Mistress in relief. "Then
he won't be defrauding anyone, and they can't rob
him of his two ribbons because I have those."

"What do you mean?" asked the puzzled collie
man.

But the Master understood — and approved.

"Good!" he said. "I wanted all day to suggest
it to you, but I didn't have the nerve. Come around
to the Exhibitors' Entrance. I'll go ahead and start
the car."

"But what's the idea?" queried the collie man
in bewilderment.

"The idea," replied the Mistress, "is that the
cup can go to any dog that wants it. Lad's com-
ing home. He knows it, too. Just look at him.
I promised him he should go home. We can get
there by dinner-time, and he has a day's fast to
make up for."

"But," expostulated the scandalized collie man,
"if you withdraw your dog like that, the Associa-
tion will never allow you to exhibit him at its
shows again."

"The Association can have a pretty silver cup,"
retorted the Mistress, "to console it for losing Lad.
As for exhibiting him again — well, I wouldn't lose
these two ribbons for a hundred dollars, but I
wouldn't put my worst enemy's dog to the torture

FOR A BIT OF RIBBON 125

of winning them over again — for a thousand.
Come along, Lad, we're going back home."

At the talisman-word, Lad broke silence for the
first time in all that vilely wretched day. He broke
it with a series of thunderously trumpeting barks
that quite put to shame the puny noise-making ef-
forts of every other dog in the show.

CHAPTER VI
LOST!

FOUR of us were discussing abstract themes,
idly, as men will, after a good dinner and
fn front of a country-house fire. Some-
one askrd:

"What is the saddest sight in everyday life? I
don't mean the most gloomily tragic, but the
saddest r

A fnvolous member of the fireside group cited
a helpless man between two quarreling women. A
sentimentalist said:

"A lost child in a city street."

The Dog-Master contradicted:

"A lost dog in a city street."

Nobody agreed with him of course; but that was
because none of the others chanced to know dogs —
to know their psychology — their souls, if you
prefer, The dog-man was right. A lost dog in a
city street is the very saddest and most hopeless
sight Tn all a city street's abounding everyday sad-
ness

Pi taan between two quarreling women is an

126

LOST! 127

object piteous enough, heaven knows. Yet his
plight verges too much on the grotesque to be
called sad.

A lost child ? — No. Let a child stand in the mid-
dle of a crowded sidewalk and begin to cry. In
one minute fifty amateur and professional rescuers
have flocked to the Lost One's aid. An hour, at
most, suffices to bring it in touch with its frenzied
guardians.

A lost dog? — Yes. No succoring cohort surges
to the relief. A gang of boys, perhaps, may give
chase, but assuredly not in kindness. A policeman
seeking a record for "mad dog" shooting — a pro-
fessional dog-catcher in quest of his dirty fee —
these will show marked attention to the wanderer.
But, again, not in kindness.

A dog, at some turn in the street, misses his
master — doubles back to where the human demigod
was last seen — darts ahead once more to find him,
through the press of other human folk — halts, hesi-
tates, begins the same maneuvers all over again;
then stands, shaking in panic at his utter aloneness.

Get the look in his eyes, then — you who do not
mind seeing such things — and answer, honestly: Is
there anything sadder on earth? All this, before
the pursuit of boys and the fever of thirst and the
final knowledge of desolation have turned him from
a handsome and prideful pet into a slinking outcast.

Yes, a lost dog is the saddest thing that can meet
the gaze of a man or woman who understands dogs.

128 LAD: A DOG

As perhaps my story may help to show — or per-
haps not.

******

Lad had been brushed and bathed, daily, for a
week, until his mahogany-and-snow coat shone.
All this, at The Place, far up in the North Jersey
hinterland and all to make him presentable for the
Westminster Kennel Show at New York's Madison
Square Garden. After which, his two gods, the
Mistress and the Master took him for a thirty-mile
ride in The Place's only car, one morning.

The drive began at The Place — the domain
where Lad had ruled as King among the lesser folk
for so many years. It ended at Madison Square
Garden, where the annual four-day dog show was
in progress.

You have read how Lad fared at that show —
how, at the close of the first day, when he had two
victories to his credit, the Mistress had taken pity
on his misery and had decreed that he should be
taken home, without waiting out the remaining
three days of torture-ordeal.

The Master went out first, to get the car and
bring it around to the side exit of the Garden.
The Mistress gathered up Lad's belongings — his
brush, his dog biscuits, etc., and followed, with Lad
himself.

Out of the huge building, with its reverberating
barks and yells from two thousand canine throats,
she went. Lad paced, happy and majestic, at hef

LOST! 129

side. He knew he was going home, and the un-
happiness of the hideous day dropped from him.

At the exit, the Mistress was forced to leave a
deposit of five dollars, "to insure the return of the
dog to his bench" (to which bench of agony she
vowed, secretly, Lad should never return). Then
she was told the law demands that all dogs in New
York City streets shall be muzzled.

In vain she explained that Lad would be in the
streets only for such brief time as the car would
require to journey to the One Hundred and Thir-
tieth Street ferry. The door attendant insisted that
the law was inexorable. So, lest a policeman hold
up the car for such disobedience to the city statutes,
the Mistress reluctantly bought a muzzle.

It was a big, awkward thing, made of steel, and
bound on with leather straps. It looked like a rat-
trap. And it fenced in the nose and mouth of its
owner with a wicked criss-cross of shiny metal
bars.

Never in all his years had Lad worn a muzzle.
Never, until to-day, had he been chained. The
splendid eighty-pound collie had been as free of
The Place and of the forests as any human; and
with no worse restrictions than his own soul and
conscience put upon him.

To him this muzzle was a horror. Not even the
loved touch of the Mistress' dear fingers, as she
adjusted the thing to his beautiful head, could
lessen the degradation. And the discomfort of it —

130 LAD: A DOG

a discomfort that amounted to actual pain — was
almost as bad as the humiliation.

With his absurdly tiny white forepaws, the huge
dog sought to dislodge the torture-implement. He
strove to rub it off against the Mistress' skirt. But
beyond shifting it so that the forehead strap
covered one of his eyes, he could not budge it.

Lad looked up at the Mistress in wretched appeal.
His look held no resentment, nothing but sad en-
treaty. She was his deity. All his life she had
given him of her gentleness, her affection, her sweet
understanding. Yet, to-day, she had brought him
to this abode of noisy torment, and had kept him
there from morning to dusk. And now — just as
the vigil seemed ended — she was tormenting him,
to nerve-rack, by this contraption she had fastened
over his nose. Lad did not rebel. But he besought.
And the Mistress understood.

"Laddie, dear!" she whispered, as she led him
across the sidewalk to the curb where the Master
waited for the car. "Laddie, old friend, I'm just
as sorry about it as you are. But it's only for a
few minutes. Just as soon as we get to the ferry,
we'll take it off and throw it into the river. And
we'll never bring you again where dogs have to
wear such things. I promise. It's only for a few
minutes."

The Mistress, for once, was mistaken. Lad was
to wear the accursed muzzle for much, much longer
than "a few minutes."

LOST! 131

"Give him the back seat to himself, and come in
front here with me," suggested the Master, as the
Mistress and Lad arrived alongside the car. 'The
poor old chap has been so cramped up and pestered
all day that he'll like to have a whole seat to stretch
out on."

Accordingly, the Mistress opened the door and
motioned Lad to the back seat. At a bound the
collie was on the cushion, and proceeded to curl up
thereon. The Mistress got into the front seat with
the Master. The car set forth on its six-mile run
to the ferry.

Now that his face was turned homeward, Lad
might have found vast interest in his new surround-
ings, had not the horrible muzzle absorbed all his
powers of emotion. The Milan Cathedral, the Taj
Mahal, the Valley of the Arno at sunset — these be
sights to dream of for years. But show them to a
man who has an ulcerated tooth, or whose tight,
new shoes pinch his soft corn, and he will probably
regard them as Lad just then viewed the twilight
New York streets.

He was a dog of forest and lake and hill, this
giant collie with his mighty shoulders and tiny white
feet and shaggy burnished coat and mournful eyes.
Never before had he been in a city. The myriad
blended noises confused and deafened him. The
myriad blended smells assailed his keen nostrils.
The swirl of countless multicolored lights stung and
blurred his vision. Noises, smells and lights were

132 LAD: A DOG

all jarringly new to him. So were the jostling
masses of people on the sidewalk and the tangle and
hustle of vehicular traffic through which the Master
was threading the car's way with such difficulty.

But, newest and most sickening of all the day's
novelties was the muzzle.

Lad was quite certain the Mistress did not realize
how the muzzle was hurting him nor how he de-
tested it. In all her dealings with him — or with
anyone or anything else — the Mistress had never
been unkind ; and most assuredly not cruel. It must
be she did not understand. At all events, she had
not scolded or forbidden, when he had tried to rub
the muzzle off. So the wearing of this new torture
was apparently no part of the law. And Lad felt
justified in striving again to remove it.

In vain he pawed the thing, first with one foot,
then with both. He could joggle it from side to side,
but that was all. And each shift of the steel bars
hurt his tender nose and tenderer sensibilities worse
than the one before. He tried to rub it off against
the seat cushion — with the same distressing result.

Lad looked up at the backs of his gods, and
whined very softly. The sound went unheard, in the
babel of noise all around him. Nor did the Mistress,
or the Master turn around, on general principles, to
speak a word of cheer to the sufferer. They were
in a mixup of cross ways traffic that called for every
atom of their attention, if they were to avoid col-

LOST! 133

lision. It was no time for conversation or for dog-
patting.

Lad got to his feet and stood, uncertainly, on the
slippery leather cushion, seeking to maintain his
balance, while he rubbed a corner of the muzzle
against one of the supports of the car's lowered top.
Working away with all his might, he sought to get
leverage that would pry loose the muzzle.

Just then there was a brief gap in the traffic. The
Master put on speed, and, darting ahead of a de-
livery truck, sharply rounded the corner into a side
street.

The car's sudden twist threw Lad clean off his
precarious balance on the seat, and hurled him
against one of the rear doors.

The door, insecurely shut, could not withstand the
eighty-pound impact. It burst open. And Lad was
flung out onto the greasy asphalt of the avenue.

He landed full on his side, in the muck of the
roadway, with a force that shook the breath clean
out of him. Directly above his head glared the twin
lights of the delivery truck the Master had just
shot past. The truck was going at a good twelve
miles an hour. And the dog had fallen within
six feet of its fat front wheels.

Now, a collie is like no other animal on earth.
He is, at worst, more wolf than dog. And, at best,
he has more of the wolf's lightning-swift instinct
than has any other breed of canine. For which
reason Lad was not, then and there, smashed, flat

134 LAD: A DOG

and dead, under the fore-wheels of a three-ton
truck.

Even as the tires grazed his fur, Lad gathered
himself compactly together, his feet well under him,
and sprang far to one side. The lumbering truck
missed him by less than six inches. But it missed
him.

His leap brought him scramblingly down on all
fours, out of the truck's way, but on the wrong side
of the thoroughfare. It brought him under the very
fender of a touring car that was going at a good
pace in the opposite direction. And again, a leap
that was inspired by quick instinct alone, lifted the
dog free of this newest death-menace.

He halted and stared piteously around in search
of his deities. But in that glare and swelter of
traffic, a trained human eye could not have recog-
nized any particular car. Moreover, the Mistress
and Master were a full half-block away, down the
less crowded side street, and were making up for
lost time by putting on all the speed they dared,
before turning into the next westward traffic-artery.
They did not look back, for there was a car directly
in front of them, whose driver seemed uncertain
as to his wheel control, and the Master was maneu-
vering to pass it in safety.

Not until they had reached the lower end of
Riverside Drive, nearly a mile to the north, did
either the Master or Mistress turn around for a
word with the dog they loved.

LOST! 135

Meantime, Lad was standing, irresolute and pant-
^ng, in the middle of Columbus Circle. Cars of a
million types, from flivver to trolley, seemed to be
whizzing directly at him from every direction at
once.

A bound, a dodge, or a deft shrinking back would
carry him out of one such peril — barely out of it —
when another, or fifty others, beset him.

And, all the time, even while he was trying to
duck out of danger, his frightened eyes and his
pulsing nostrils sought the Mistress and the Master.

His eyes, in that mixture of flare and dusk, told
him nothing except that a host of motors were
iikely to kill him. But his nose told him what it
had not been able to tell him since morning —
namely, that, through the reek of gasoline and horse-
flesh and countless human scents, there was a near-
ness of fields and woods and water. And, toward
that blessed mingling of familiar odors he dodged
his threatened way.

By a miracle of luck and skill he crossed Colum-
bus Circle, and came to a standstill on a sidewalk,
beside a low gray stone wall. Behind the wall, his
nose taught him, lay miles of meadow and wood and
lake — Central Park. But the smell of the Park
brought him no scent of the Mistress nor of the
Master. And it was they — infinitely more than his
beloved countryside — that he craved. He ran up
the street, on the sidewalk, for a few rods, hesitant,
alert, watching in every direction. Then, perhaps

136 LAD: A DOG

seeing a figure, in the other direction, that looked
familiar, he dashed at top speed, eastward, for half
a block. Then he made a peril-fraught sortie out
into the middle of the traffic-humming street, de-
ceived by the look of a passing car.

The car was traveling at twenty miles an hour.
But, in less than a block, Lad caught up with it.
And this, in spite of the many things he had to
dodge, and the greasy slipperiness of the unfamiliar
roadway. An upward glance, as he came alongside
the car, told him his chase was in vain. And he
made his precarious way to the sidewalk once more.

There he stood, bewildered, heartsick — lost!

Yes, he was lost. And he realized it — realized
it as fully as would a city-dweller snatched up by
magic and set down amid the trackless Himalayas.
He was lost. And Horror bit deep into his soul.

The average dog might have continued to waste
energy and risk life by galloping aimlessly back and
forth, running hopefully up to every stranger he
met ; then slinking off in scared disappointment and
searching afresh.

Lad was too wise for that. He was lost. His
adored Mistress had somehow left him ; as had the
Master; in this bedlam place — all alone. He stood
there, hopeless, head and tail adroop, his great heart
dead within him.

Presently he became aware once more that he was
still wearing his abominable muzzle. In the stress
of the past few minutes Lad had actually forgotten

LOST! 137

the pain and vexation of the thing. Now, the mem-
ory of it came back, to add to his despair.

And, as a sick animal will ever creep to the
woods and the waste places for solitude, so the
soul-sick Lad now turned from the clangor and
evil odors of the street to seek the stretch of coun-
try-land he had scented.

Over the gray wall he sprang, and came earth-
ward with a crash among the leafless shrubs that
edged the south boundary of Central Park.

Here in the Park there were people and lights
and motor-cars, too, but they were few, and they
were far off. Around the dog was a grateful
darkness and aloneness. He lay down on the dead
grass and panted.

The time was late February. The weather of
the past day or two had been mild. The brown-
gray earth and the black trees had a faint odor
of slow-coming spring, though no nostrils less
acute than a dog's could have noted it.

Through the misery at his heart and the carking
pain from his muzzle, Lad began to realize that
he was tired, also that he was hollow from lack of
food. The long day's ordeal of the dog show had
wearied him and had worn down his nerves more
than could a fifty-mile run. The nasty thrills of the
past half-hour had completed his fatigue. He had
eaten nothing all day. Like most high-strung dogs
at a show, he had drunk a great deal of water and
had refused to touch a morsel of food.

138 LAD: A DOG

He was not hungry even now for, in a dog,
hunger goes only with peace of mind, but he was
cruelly thirsty. He got up from his slushy couch
on the dead turf and trotted wearily toward the
nearest branch of the Central Park lake. At the
brink he stooped to drink.

Soggy ice still covered the lake, but the mild
weather had left a half-inch skim of water over
it. Lad tried to lap up enough of this water to
allay his craving thirst. He could not.

The muzzle protruded nearly an inch beyond his
nose. Either through faulty adjustment or from
his own futile efforts to scrape it off, the awkward
steel hinge had become jammed and would not open.
Lad could not get his teeth a half -inch apart.

After much effort he managed to protrude the
end of his pink tongue and to touch the water with
it, but it was a painful and drearily slow process
absorbing water drop by drop in this way. More<
through fatigue than because his thirst was slaked,
he stopped at last and turned away from the lake.

The next half -hour was spent in a diligent and
torturing and wholly useless attempt to rid himself
of his muzzle.

After which the dog lay panting and athirst
once more; his tender nose sore and bruised and
bleeding; the muzzle as firmly fixed in place as
ever. Another journey to the lake and another
Tantalus-effort to drink — and the pitifully harassed
dog's uncanny brain began to work.

LOST! 139

He no longer let himself heed the muzzle. Ex-
perience of the most painful sort had told him he
could not dislodge it nor, in that clamorous and ill-
smelling city beyond the park wall, could he hope
to find the Mistress and the Master. These things
being certain, his mind went on to the next step,
and the next step was — Home!

Home! The Place where his happy, beautiful
life had been spent, where his two gods abode,
where there were no clang and reek and peril as
here in New York. Home! — The House of
Peace !

Lad stood up. He drew in great breaths of the
muggy air, and he turned slowly about two or
three times, head up, nostrils aquiver. For a full
minute he stood thus. Then he lowered his head
and trotted westward. No longer he moved un-
certainly, but with as much sureness as if he were
traversing the forest behind The Place — the forest
that had been his roaming-ground since puppyhood.

(Now, this is not a fairy story, nor any other
type of fanciful yarn, so I do not pretend to ac-
count for Lad's heading unswervingly toward the
northwest in the exact direction of The Place, thirty
miles distant, any more than I can account for the
authenticated case of a collie who, in 1917, made
his way four hundred miles from the home of a
new owner in southern Georgia to the doorstep of
his former and better loved master in the moun-
tains of North Carolina; any more than I can ao

140 LAD: A DOG

count for the flight of a homing pigeon or for that
of the northbound duck in Spring. God gives to
certain animals a whole set of mystic traits which
He withholds utterly from humans. No dog-
student can doubt that, and no dog-student or deep-
delving psychologist can explain it.)

Northwestward jogged Lad, and in half a mile
he came to the low western wall of Central Park.
Without turning aside to seek a gateway, he cleared
the wall and found himself on Eighth Avenue in
the very middle of a block.

Keeping on the sidewalk and paying no heed to
the few pedestrians, he moved along to the next
westward street and turned down it toward the
Hudson River. So calmly and certainly did he
move that none would have taken him for a lost
dog.

Under the roaring elevated road at Columbus
Avenue, he trotted; his ears tormented by the
racket of a train that reverberated above him; his
sense so blurred by the sound that he all but for-
got to dodge a southbound trolley car.

Down the cross street to Amsterdam Avenue he
bore. A patrolman on his way to the West Sixty-
ninth Street police station to report for night duty,
was so taken up by his own lofty thoughts that
he quite forgot to glance at the big mud-spattered
dog that padded past him.

For this lack of observation the patrolman was
destined to lose a good opportunity for fattening
I

LOST! 141

his monthly pay. Because, on reaching the station,
he learned that a distressed man and woman had
just been there in a car to offer a fifty-dollar re-
ward for the finding of a big mahogany-and-white
collie, answering to the name of "Lad."

As the dog reached Amsterdam Avenue a high
little voice squealed delightedly at him. A three-
year-old baby — a mere fluff of gold and white and
pink — was crossing the avenue convoyed by a fat
woman in black. Lad was jogging by the mother
and child when the latter discovered the passing
dog.

With a shriek of joyous friendliness the baby
flung herself upon Lad and wrapped both arms
about his shaggy neck.

"Why doggieT she shrilled, ecstatically. "Why,
dear, dear doggie !"

Now Lad was in dire haste to get home, and
Lad was in dire misery of mind and body, but his
big heart went out in eagerly loving answer to the
impulsive caress. He worshipped children, and
would cheerfully endure from them any amount
of mauling.

At the baby embrace and the baby voice, he
stopped short in his progress. His plumy tail
wagged in glad friendliness; his muzzled nose
sought wistfully to kiss the pink little face on a
level with his own. The baby tightened her hug,
and laid her rose leaf cheek close to his own.

142 LAD: A DOG

"I love you, Miss Doggie!" she whispered in
Lad's ear.

Then the fat woman in black bore down upon
them. Fiercely, she yanked the baby away from
the dog. Then, seeing that the mud on Lad's
shoulder had soiled the child's white coat, she
whirled a string- fastened bundle aloft and brought
it down with a resounding thwack over the dog's
head.

Lad winched under the heavy blow, then hot
resentment blazed through his first instant of
grieved astonishment. This unpleasant fat creature
in black was not a man, wherefore Lad contented
himself by baring his white teeth, and with growl-
ing deep menace far down in his throat.

The woman shrank back scared, and she
screamed loudly. On the instant the station-bound
patrolman was beside her.

"What's wrong, ma'am?" asked the bluecoat.

The woman pointed a wobbly and fat forefinger
at Lad, who had taken up his westward journey
again and was halfway across the street.

"Mad dog!" she sputtered, hysterically. "He —
he bit me ! Bit at me, anyhow !"

Without waiting to hear the last qualifying sen-
tence, the patrolman gave chase. Here was a chance
for honorable blotter-mention at the very least. As
he ran he drew his pistol.

Lad had reached the westward pavement of
Amsterdam Avenue and was in the side street be-

LOST! 143

yond. He was not hurrying, but his short wolf-
trot ate up ground in deceptively quick time.

By the time the policeman had reached the west
corner of street and avenue the dog was nearly a
half-block ahead. The officer, still running, leveled
his pistol and fired.

Now, anyone (but a very newly-appointed patrol-
man or a movie-hero) knows that to fire a shot
when running is worse than fatal to any chance
of accuracy. No marksman — no one who has the
remotest knowledge of marksmanship — will do such
a thing. The very best pistol-expert cannot hope
to hit his target if he is joggling his own arm and
his whole body by the motion of running.

The bullet flew high and to the right, smashing
a second-story window and making the echoes re-
sound deafeningly through the narrow street.

* What's up?" excitedly asked a boy, who stood
beside a barrel bonfire with a group of chums.

"Mad dog !" puffed the policeman as he sped past.

At once the boys joined gleesomely in the chase,
outdistancing the officer, just as the latter fired a
second shot.

Lad felt a white-hot ridge of pain cut along his
left flank like a whip-lash. He wheeled to face
his invisible foe, and he found himself looking at
a half-dozen boys who charged whoopingly down
on him. Behind the boys clumped a man in blue
flourishing something bright.

Lad had no taste for this sort of attention.

144 LAD: A DOG

Always he had loathed strangers, and these new
strangers seemed bent on catching him — on barring
his homeward way.

He wheeled around again and continued his west-
ward journey at a faster pace. The hue-and-cry
broke into louder yells and three or four new re-
cruits joined the pursuers. The yap of "Mad dog!
Mad dog!" filled the air.

Not one of these people — not even the police-
man himself — had any evidence that the collie was
mad. There are not two really rabid dogs seen at
large in New York or in any other city in the
course of a year. Yet, at the back of the human
throat ever lurks that fool-cry of "Mad dog!" —
ever ready to leap forth into shouted words at the
faintest provocation.

One wonders, disgustedly, how many thousand
luckless and totally harmless pet dogs in the course
of a year are thus hunted down and shot or kicked
or stoned to death in the sacred name of Humanity,
just because some idiot mistakes a hanging tongue
or an uncertainty of direction for signs of that
semi-phantom malady known as "rabies."

A dog is lost. He wanders to and fro in be-
wilderment. Boys pelt or chase him. His tongue
lolls and his eyes glaze with fear. Then, ever, rises
the yell of "Mad Dog!" And a friendly, lovable
pet is joyfully done to death.

Lad crossed Broadway, threading his way
through the trolley-and-taxi procession, and gal-

LOST! 145

loped down the hill toward Riverside Park. Close
always at his heels followed the shouting crowd.
Twice, by sprinting, the patrolman gained the front
rank of the hunt, and twice he fired — both bullets
going wide. Across West End Avenue and across
Riverside Drive went Lad, hard-pressed and fleeing
at top speed. The cross-street ran directly down
to a pier that jutted a hundred feet out into the
Hudson River.

Along this pier flew Lad, not in panic terror,
but none the less resolved that these howling New
Yorkers should not catch him and prevent his going
home.

Onto the pier the clattering hue-and-cry fol-
lowed. A dock watchman, as Lad flashed by,
hurled a heavy joist of wood at the dog. It
whizzed past the flying hind legs, scoring the barest
of misses.

And now Lad was at the pier end. Behind him
the crowd raced; sure it had the dangerous brute
cornered at last.

On the string-piece the collie paused for the
briefest of moments glancing to north and to south.
Everywhere the wide river stretched away, un-
bridged. It must be crossed if he would continue
his homeward course, and there was but one way
for him to cross it.

The watchman, hard at his heels, swung upward
the club he carried. Down came the club with

146 LAD: A DOG

murderous force — upon the stringpiece where Lad
had been standing.

Lad was no longer there. One great bound had
carried him over the edge and into the black water
below.

Down he plunged into the river and far, far
under it, fighting his way gaspingly to the surface.
The water that gushed into his mouth and nostrils
was salty and foul, not at all like the water of the
lake at the edge of The Place. It sickened him.
And the February chill of the river cut into him
like a million ice-needles.

To the surface he came, and struck out valor-
ously for the opposite shore much more than a
mile away. As his beautiful head appeared, a yell
went up from the clustering riff-raff at the pier
end. Bits of wood and coal began to shower the
water all around him. A pistol shot plopped into
the river a bare six inches away from him.

But the light was bad and the stream was a toss-
ing mass of blackness and of light-blurs, and pres-
ently the dog swam, unscathed, beyond the range
of missiles.

Now a swim of a mile or of two miles was no
special exploit for Lad — even in ice-cold water, but
this water was not like any he had swum in. The
tide was at the turn for one thing, and while, in
a way, this helped him, yet the myriad eddies and
cross-currents engendered by it turned and jostled
and buffeted him in a most perplexing way. And

LOST! 147

there were spars and barrels and other obstacles
that were forever looming up just in front of him
or else banging" against his heaving sides.

Once a revenue cutter passed not thirty feet
ahead of him. Its wake caught the dog and sucked
him under and spun his body around and around
before he could fight clear of it.

His lungs were bursting. He was worn out. He
felt as sore as if he had been kicked for an hour.
The bullet-graze along his flank was hurting him
as the salt water bit into it, and the muzzle half-
blinded, half-smothered him.

But, because of his hero heart rather than
through his splendid strength and wisdom, he
kept on.

For an hour or more he swam until at last his
body and brain were numb, and only the mechan-
ical action of his wrenched muscles held him in
motion. Twice tugs narrowly escaped running him
down, and in the wake of each he waged a fearful
fight for life.

After a century of effort his groping forepaws
felt the impact of a submerged rock, then of
another, and with his last vestige of strength Lad
crawled feebly ashore on a narrow sandspit at the
base of the elephant-gray Palisades. There, he col-
lapsed and lay shivering, panting, struggling for
breath.

Long he lay there, letting Nature bring back

148 LAD: A DOG

some of his wind and his motive-power, his shaggy
body one huge pulsing ache.

When he was able to move, he took up his
journey. Sometimes swimming, sometimes on
ground, he skirted the Palisades- foot to northward,
until he found one of the several precipice-paths
that Sunday picnickers love to climb. Up this
he made his tottering way, slowly; conserving his
strength as best he could.

On the summit he lay down again to rest. Be-
hind him, across the stretch of black and lamp-
flecked water, rose the inky skyline of the city with
a lurid furnace-glow between its crevices that
smote the sky. Ahead was a plateau with a down-
ward slope beyond it.

Once more, getting to his feet, Lad stood and
sniffed, turning his head from side to side, muzzled
nose aloft. Then, his bearings taken, he set off
again, but this time his jog-trot was slower and
his light step was growing heavier. The terrible
strain of his swim was passing from his mighty
sinews, but it was passing slowly because he was
so tired and empty and in such pain of body and
mind. He saved his energies until he should have
more of them to save.

Across the plateau, down the slope, and then
across the interminable salt meadows to westward
he traveled; sometimes on road or path, sometimes
across field or hill, but always in an unswerving
straight line.

LOST: 149

It was a little before midnight that he breasted
the first rise of Jersey hills above Hackensack.
Through a lightless one-street village he went,
head low, stride lumbering, the muzzle weighing
a ton and composed of molten iron and hornet
stings.

It was the muzzle — now his first fatigue had
slackened — that galled him worst. Its torture was
beginning to do queer things to his nerves and
brain. Even a stolid, nerveless dog hates a muzzle.
More than one sensitive dog has been driven crazy
by it.

Thirst — intolerable thirst — was torturing Lad.
He could not drink at the pools and brooks he
crossed. So tight-jammed was the steel jaw-hinge
now that he could not even open his mouth to pant,
which is the crudest deprivation a dog can suffer.

Out of the shadows of a ramshackle hovel's front
yard dived a monstrous shape that hurled itself
ferociously on the passing collie.

A mongrel watchdog — part mastiff, part hound,
part anything you choose — had been dozing on his
squatter-owner's doorstep when the pad-pad-pad of
Lad's wearily- jogging feet had sounded on the road.

Other dogs, more than one of them, during the
journey had run out to yap or growl at the
wanderer, but as Lad had been big and had fol-
lowed an unhesitant course they had not gone to
the length of actual attack.

This mongrel, however, was less prudent. Or,

150 LAD: A DOG

perhaps, dog-fashion, he realized that the muzzle
rendered Lad powerless and therefore saw every
prospect of a safe and easy victory. At all events,
he gave no warning bark or growl as he shot for-
ward to the attack.

Lad — his eyes dim with fatigue and road dust,
his ears dulled by water and by noise — did not hear
nor see the foe. His first notice of the attack was
a flying weight of seventy-odd pounds that crashed
against his flank. A double set of fangs in the
same instant, sank into his shoulder.

Under the onslaught Lad fell sprawlingly into
the road on his left side, his enemy upon him.

As Lad went down the mongrel deftly shifted
his unprofitable shoulder grip to a far more prom-
isingly murderous hold on his fallen victim's throat.

A cat has five sets of deadly weapons — its
four feet and its jaws. So has every animal on
earth — human and otherwise — except a dog. A
dog is terrible by reason of its teeth. Encase the
mouth in a muzzle and a dog is as helpless for
offensive warfare as is a newborn baby.

And Lad was thus pitiably impotent to return
his foe's attack. Exhausted, flung prone to earth,
his mighty jaws muzzled, he seemed as good as
dead.

But a collie down is not a collie beaten. The
wolf-strain provides against that. Even as he fell
Lad instinctively gathered his legs under him as
he had done when he tumbled from the car.

LOST! 151

And, almost at once, he was on his feet again,
snarling horribly and lunging to break the mongrel's
throat-grip. His weariness was forgotten and his
wondrous reserve strength leaped into play. Which
was all the good it did him; for he knew as well
as the mongrel that he was powerless to use his
teeth.

The throat of a collie — except in one small vul-
nerable spot — is armored by a veritable mattress
of hair. Into this hair the mongrel had driven
his teeth. The hair filled his mouth, but his grind-
ing jaws encountered little else to close on.

A lurching jerk of Lad's strong frame tore loose
the savagely inefficient hold. The mongrel sprang
at him for a fresh grip. Lad reared to meet him,
opposing his mighty chest to the charge and snap-
ping powerlessly with his close-locked mouth.

The force of Lad's rearing leap sent the mongrel
spinning back by sheer weight, but at once he drove
in again to the assault. This time he did not give
his muzzled antagonist a chance to rear, but sprang
at Lad's flank. Lad wiieeled to meet the rush and,
opposing his shoulder to it, broke its force.

Seeing himself so helpless, this was of course the
time for Lad to take to his heels and try to out-
run the enemy he could not outfight. To stand
his ground was to be torn, eventually, to death.
Being anything but a fool Lad knew that; yet he
ignored the chance of safety and continued to fight
the worse-than-hopeless battle.

152 LAD: A DOG

Twice and thrice his wit and his uncanny swift-
ness enabled him to block the big mongrel's rushes.
The fourth time, as he sought to rear, his hind
foot slipped on a skim of puddle-ice.

Down went Lad in a heap, and the mongrel
struck.

Before the collie could regain his feet the
mongrel's teeth had found a hold on the side of
Lad's throat. Pinning down the muzzled dog, the
mongrel proceeded to improve his hold by grinding
his way toward the jugular. Now his teeth en-
countered something more solid than mere hair.
They met upon a thin leather strap.

Fiercely the mongrel gnawed at this solid ob-
stacle, his rage-hot brain possibly mistaking it for
flesh. Lad writhed to free himself and to regain
his feet, but seventy-five pounds of fighting weight
were holding his neck to the ground.

Of a sudden, the mongrel growled in savage
triumph. The strap was bitten through!

Clinging to the broken end of the leather the
victor gave one final tug. The pull drove the steel
bars excruciatingly deep into Lad's bruised nose
for a moment. Then, by magic, the torture-im-
plement was no longer on his head but was dan-
gling by one strap between the muzzled mongrel's
jaws.

With a motion so swift that the eye could not
follow it, Lad was on his feet and plunging de-
liriously into the fray. Through a miracle, his

LOST! 153

jaws were free; his torment was over. The joy
of deliverance sent a glow of Berserk vigor sweep-
ing through him.

The mongrel dropped the muzzle and came
eagerly to the battle. To his dismay he found him-
self fighting not a helpless dog, but a maniac wolf.
Lad sought no permanent hold. With dizzying
quickness his head and body moved — and kept
moving, and every motion meant a deep slash or
a ragged tear in his enemy's short-coated hide.

With ridiculous ease the collie eluded the mon-
grel's awkward counter-attacks, and ever kept bor-
ing in. To the quivering bone his short front
teeth sank. Deep and bloodily his curved tusks
slashed — as the wolf and the collie alone can slash.

The mongrel, swept off his feet, rolled howling
into the road; and Lad tore grimly at the exposed
under-body.

Up went a window in the hovel. A man's voice
shouted. A woman in a house across the way
screamed. Lad glanced up to note this new diver-
sion. The stricken mongrel yelping in terror and
agony seized the second respite to scamper back
to the doorstep, howling at every jump.

Lad did not pursue him, but jogged along on
his journey without one backward look.

At a rivulet, a mile beyond, he stopped to drink.
And he drank for ten minutes. Then he went on.
Unmuzzled and with his thirst slaked, he forgot
his pain, his fatigue, his muddy and blood-caked

154 LAD: A DOG

and abraded coat, and the memory of his night-
mare day.

He was going home!

At gray dawn the Mistress and the Master
turned in at the gateway of The Place. All night
they had sought Lad; from one end of Manhattan
Island to the other — from Police Headquarters to
dog pound — they had driven. And now the Master
was bringing his tired and heartsore wife home to
rest, while he himself should return to town and
to the search.

The car chugged dispiritedly down the driveway
to the house, but before it had traversed half the
distance the dawn-hush was shattered by a thun-
drous bark of challenge to the invaders.

Lad, from his post of guard on the veranda, ran
stiffly forward to bar the way. Then as he ran
his eyes and nose suddenly told him these mysteri-
ous newcomers were his gods.

The Mistress, with a gasp of rapturous unbelief,
was jumping down from the car before it came to
a halt. On her knees, she caught Lad's muddy and
bloody head tight in her arms.

"Oh, Lad;" she sobbed incoherently. "Laddie!
Laddie!"

Whereat, by another miracle, Lad's stiffness and
hurts and weariness were gone. He strove to lick
the dear face bending so tearfully above him.
Then, with an abandon of puppylike joy, he rolled
on the ground waving all four soiled little feet in

LOST! 155

the air and playfully pretending to snap at the
loving hands that caressed him.

Which was ridiculous conduct for a stately and
full-grown collie. But Lad didn't care, because it
made the Mistress stop crying and laugh. And that
was what Lad most wanted her to do.

CHAPTER VII
THE THROWBACK

THE Place was nine miles north of the county-
seat city of Paterson. And yearly, near
Paterson, was held the great North Jersey
Livestock Fair — a fair whose awards established
for the next twelve-month the local rank of pure-
bred cattle and sheep and pigs for thirty miles in
either direction.

From the Ramapo hill pastures, south of Suffern,
two days before the fair, descended a flock of
twenty prize sheep — the playthings of a man to
whom the title of Wall Street Farmer had a lure
of its own — a lure that cost him something like
$30,000 a year; and which made him a scourge to
all his few friends.

Among these luckless friends chanced to be the
Mistress and the Master of The Place. And the
Gentleman Farmer had decided to break his sheep's
fair- ward journey by a twenty-four-hour stop at
The Place.

The Master, duly apprised of the sorry honor
planned for his home, set aside a disused horse-
paddock for the woolly visitors' use. Into this their

156

THE THROWBACK 157

shepherd drove his dusty and bleating charges on
their arrival.

The shepherd was a somber Scot. Nature had
begun the work of somberness in his Highland
heart. The duty of working for the Wall Street
Farmer had added tenfold to the natural tendency.
His name was McGillicuddy, and he looked it.

Now, in northern New Jersey a live sheep is
well nigh as rare as a pterodactyl. This flock of
twenty had cost their owner their weight in merino
wool. A dog — especially a collie — that does not
know sheep, is prone to consider them his lawful
prey, in other words, the sight of a sheep has
turned many an otherwise law-abiding dog into
a killer.

To avoid so black a smirch on The Place's hos-
pitality, the Master had loaded all his collies, ex-
cept Lad, into the car, and had shipped them off,
that morning, for a three-day sojourn at the board-
ing kennels, ten miles away.

"Does the Old Dog go, too, sir?" asked The
Place's foreman, with a questioning nod at Lad,
after he had lifted the others into the tonneau.

Lad was viewing the procedings from the top of
the veranda steps. The Master looked at him, then
at the car, and answered:

"No. Lad has more right here than any measly
imported sheep. He won't bother them if I tell
him not to. Let him stay."

The sheep, convoyed by the misanthropic McGil-

158 LAD: A DOG

licuddy, filed down the drive, from the highroad, an
hour later, and were marshaled into the corral.

As the jostling procession, followed by its dour
shepherd, turned in at the gate of The Place, Lad
rose from his rug on the veranda. His nostrils
itching with the unfamiliar odor, his soft eyes out-
raged by the bizarre sight, he set forth to drive the
intruders out into the main road.

Head lowered, he ran, uttering no sound. This
seemed to him an emergency which called for
drastic measures rather than for monitory barking.
For all he knew, these twenty fat, woolly, white
things might be fighters who would attack him in
a body, and who might even menace the safety of
his gods; and the glum McGillicuddy did not im-
press him at all favorably. Hence the silent charge
at the foe — a charge launched with the speed and
terrible menace of a thunderbolt.

McGillicuddy sprang swiftly to the front of his
flock, staff upwhirled; but before the staff could
descend on the furry defender of The Place, a
sweet voice called imperiously to the dog.

The Mistress had come out upon the veranda
and, had seen Lad dash to the attack.

"Lad!" she cried. "Lad!"

The great dog halted midway in his rush.

"Down!" called the Mistress. "Leave them
alone! Do you hear, Lad? Leave them alone!
Come back here!"

Lad heard, and Lad obeyed. Lad always obeyed.

THE THROWBACK 159

If these twenty malodorous strangers and their
staff-brandishing guide were friends of the Mis-
tress he must not drive them away. The order
"Leave them alone!" was one that could not be dis-
regarded.

Trembling with anger, yet with no thought of
rebelling, Lad turned and trotted back to the
veranda. He thrust his cold nose into the Mistress'
warm little hand and looked up eagerly into her
face, seeking a repeal of the command to keep away
from the sheep and their driver.

But the Mistress only patted his silken head and
whispered:

"We don't like it any more than you do, Laddie ;
but we mustn't let anyone know we don't. Leave
them alone!"

Past the veranda filed the twenty priceless sheep,
and on to the paddock.

"I suppose they'll carry off all the prizes at the
fair, won't they?" asked the Mistress civilly, as
McGillicuddy plodded past her at the tail of the pro-
cession.

"Aiblins, aye," grunted McGillicuddy, with the
exquisite courtesy of a member of his race and
class who feels he is being patronized. "Aiblins,
aye. Aiblins, na'. Aiblins — ugh-uh."

Having thus safeguarded his statement against
assault from any side at all, the Scot moved on.
Lad strolled down toward the paddock to superin-
tend the task of locking up the sheep. The Mis-

160 LAD: A DOG

tress did not detain him. She felt calmly certain her
order of "Leave them alone!" had rendered the
twenty visitors inviolate from him.

Lad walked slowly around the paddock, his gaze
on the sheep. These were the first sheep he had
ever seen. Yet his ancestors, for a thousand years
or more, had herded and guarded flocks on the
moors.

Atavism is mysteriously powerful in dogs, and it
takes strange forms. A collie, too, has a queer
strain of wolf in him — not only in body but in
brain, and the wolf was the sheep's official mur-
derer, as far back as the days when a humpbacked
Greek slave, named y£sop, used to beguile his sleep-
less nights with writing fables.

Round and round the paddock prowled Lad; his
eyes alight with a myriad half-memories; his sensi-
tive nostrils quivering at the scents that enveloped
them.

McGillicudy, from time to time, eyed the dog
obliquely, and with a scowl. These sheep were not
the pride of his heart. His conscientious heart
possessed no pride — pride being one of the seven
deadly sins, and the sheep not being his own; but
the flock represented his livelihood — his com-
fortably overpaid job with the Wall Street Farmer.
He was responsible for their welfare.

And McGillicuddy did not at all like the way this
beautiful collie eyed the prize merinos, nor was the
Scot satisfied with the strength of the corral. Its

THE THROWBACK 161

wire fencing was rusty and sagging from long dis-
use, its gate hung crookedly and had a crazy hasp.

A sheep is one of the least intelligent creatures
on earth. Should the flock's leader decide at any
time during the night to press his heavy bulk
against the gate or against some of the rustier wire
strands, there would presently be a gap through
which the entire twenty could amble forth. Once
outside

Again McGillicuddy glowered dourly at Lad.
The collie returned the look with interest; a well-
bred dog being as skilled in reading human faces
as is any professional dead beat. Lad saw the dis-
like in McGillicuddy's heavy-thatched eyes ; cordially
he yearned to prove his own distaste for the shep-
herd, but the Mistress* command had immuned
this sour stranger.

So Lad merely turned his back on the man, sat
down, flattened his furry ears close against his
head, thrust his pointed nose skyward, and sniffed.
McGillicuddy was too much an animal man not to
read the insult in the dog's posture and action, and
the shepherd's fist tightened longingly round his
staff.

Half, an hour later the Wall Street Farmer him-
self arrived at The Place. He came in a runabout.
On the seat beside him sat his pasty-faced, four-
year-old son. At his feet was something which, at
first glance, might have been either a quadruped or
a rag bag.

162 LAD: A DOG

The Mistress and the Master, with dutiful hy-
pocrisy, came smilingly out on the veranda to wel-
come the guests. Lad, who had returned from the
impromptu sheep-fold, stood beside them. At sight
and scent of this new batch of visitors the collie
doubtless felt what old-fashioned novelists used to
describe AS "mingled emotions."

There was a child in the car. And though there
had been few children in Lad's life, yet he loved
them, loved them as a big-hearted and big-bodied
dog always loves the helpless. Wherefore, at sight
of the child, Lad rejoiced.

But the animal crouching at the Wall Street
Farmer's feet was quite a different form of guest.
Lad recognized the thing as a dog — yet no such
dog as ever he had seen. An unwholesome-looking
dog. Even as the little boy was an unwholesome-
looking child.

"Well!" sonorously proclaimed the Wall Street
Farmer as he scrambled out of the runabout and
bore down upon his hosts, "here I am ! The sheep
got here all safe? Good! I knew they would.
McGillicuddy's a genius; nothing he can't do with
sheep. You remember Mortimer?" lifting the
lanky youngster from the seat. "He teased so to
come along, his mother said I'd better bring him.
I knew you'd be glad. Shake hands with them,
Morty, darling."

"I wun't!" snarled Morty darling, hanging back.

Then he caught sight of Lad. The collie came

THE THROWBACK 163

straight up to the child, grinning from ear to ear,
and wrinkling his nose so delightedly that every
white front tooth showed. Morty flung himself
forward to greet the huge dog, but the Wall Street
Farmer, with a shout of warning, caught the boy
in his arms and bravely interposed his own fat
body between Mortimer and Lad.

"What does the beast mean by snarling at my
son?" fiercely demanded the Wall Street Farmer.
"You people have no right to leave such a savage
dog at large."

"He's not snarling," the Mistress indignantly de-
clared, "he's smiling. That's Lad's way. Why,
he'd let himself be cut up into squares sooner than
hurt a child."

Still doubtful, the Wall Street Farmer cautiously
set down his son on the veranda. Morty flung him-
self bodily upon Lad; hauling and mauling the
stately collie this way and that.

Had any grown person, save only the Mistress
or the Master, attempted such treatment, the curv-
ing white eyeteeth would have buried themselves
very promptly in the offender.

Indeed, the Master now gazed, with some nerv-
ousness, at the performance; but the Mistress was
not worried as to her adored pet's behavior ; and the
Mistress, as ever, was right.

For Lad endured the mauling — not patiently, but
blissfully. He fairly writhed with delight at the
painful tugging of hair and ears; and moistly he

164 LAD: A DOG

strove to kiss the wizened little face that was on a
level with his own. Morty repaid this attention by
slapping Lad across the mouth. Lad only wagged
his plumy tail the more ecstatically and snuggled
closer to the preposterous baby.

Meantime, the Wall Street Farmer, in clarion
tones, was calling attention to the second of the two
treasures he had brought along.

"Melisande!" he cried.

At the summons, the fuzzy monstrosity in the car
ceased peering snappishly over the doortop at Lad,
and condescended to turn toward its owner. It
looked like something between an Old English
sheep-dog and a dachshund; straw-colored fur en-
veloped the scrawny body; a miserable apology for
a bushy tail hung limpy between crooked hind legs ;
evil little eyes peered forth from beneath a scare-
crow stubble of head fringe; it was not a pretty
dog, this canine the Wall Street Farmer had just
addressed by the poetic title of "Melisande."

"What in blazes is he?" asked the Master.

"She is a Prussian sheep-dog," proudly replied
the Wall Street Farmer. "She is the first of her
breed ever imported to America. Cost me a clean
$1100 to buy her from a Chicago man who brought
her over. I'm going to exhibit her at the Garden
Show next winter. What do you think of her,
old man?"

"I'd hate to tell you," said the Master, "but I'll
gladly tell you what I think of that Chicago man.

THE THROWBACK 165

He's the original genius who sold all the land be-
tween New York and Jersey City for a thousand
dollars an acre and issued the series of ten-dollar
season admission tickets to Central Park."

Being the Wall Street Farmer's host the Master
said this in the recesses of his own heart. Aloud,
he blithered some complimentary lie and watched
the visitor lift the scraggy nondescript out of
the car.

The moment she was on the ground, Melisande
made a wild dash at Lad. Snarling, she snapped
ferociously at his throat. Lad merely turned his
shaggy shoulder to meet the onslaught. And
Melisande found herself gripping nothing but a
mouthful of his soft hair. He made no move to
resent the attack. And the Wall Street Farmer,
shouting unobeyed mandates to his pet, dragged
away the pugnacious Melisande by the scruff of the
neck.

The $1100 Prussian sheep-dog next caught a
glimpse of one of the half -grown peacock chicks —
the joy of the Mistress' summer — strutting across
the lawn. Melisande, with a yap of glee, rushed off
in pursuit.

The chick had no fear. The dogs of The Place
had always been trained to give the fowls a wide
berth; so the pretty little peacock fell a pitifully
easy prey to the first snap of Melisande's jaws.

Lad growled, deep down in his throat, at this
gross lawlessness. The Mistress bit her lip to keep

166 LAD: A DOG

her self-control at the slaughter of her pet. The
Master hastily said something that was lost in "the
louder volume of the Wall Street Farmer's bellow
as he sought to call back his $1100 treasure from
further slaying.

"Well, well, well I" the guest exclaimed as at last
he returned to the veranda, dragging Melisande
along in his wake. "I'm sorry this happened, but
you must overlook it. You see, Melisande is so
high spirited she is hard to control. That's the way
with thoroughbred dogs. Don't you find it so?"

The Master, thus appealed to, glanced at his wife.
She was momentarily out of ear-shot, having gone
to pick up the killed peacock and stroke its rumpled
plumage. So the Master allowed himself the lux-
ury of plainer speech than if she had been there to
be grieved over the breach of hospitality.

"A thoroughbred dog," he said oracularly, "is
either the best dog on earth, or else he is the worst.
If he is the best he learns to mind, and to behave
himself in every way like a thoroughbred. He
learns it without being beaten or sworn at. If he is
the worst — then it's wisest for his owner to hunt up
some Easy Mark and sell the cur to him for $1100.
You'll notice I said his 'owner' — not his 'master.'
There's all the difference in the world between
those two terms. Any body, with price to buy a
dog, can be an 'owner,' but all the cash coined won't
make a man a dog's 'master' — unless he's that sort
of man. Think it over."

THE THROWBACK 167

The Wall Street Farmer glared apoplectically at
his host, who was already sorry that the sneer at
Lad and the killing of his wife's pet had made him
speak so to a guest — even to a self-invited and un-
desired guest. Then the Wall Street Man, with a
grunt, put a leash on Melisande and gruffly asked
that she be fastened to one of the vacant kennels.

The Mistress came back to the group as the
$1100 beast was led away, kennel ward, by the
gardener. Recovering her self-possession, the Mis-
tress said to her guest:

"I never heard of a Prussian sheep-dog before.
Is she trained to herd your sheep?"

"No," replied the Wall Street Farmer, his rancor
forgotten in the prospect of exploiting his won-
drous dog, "not yet. In fact, she hates the sheep.
She's young, so we haven't tried to train her for
shepherding. Two or three times we have taken
her into the pasture — always on leash — but she
flies at the sheep and goes almost crazy with anger.
McGillicuddy says it's bad for the sheep to be scared
by her. So we keep her away from them. But by
next season "

He got no further. 'A sound of lamentation —
prolonged and leather-lunged lamentation — smote
upon the air.

"Morty!" ejaculated the visitor in panic. "It's
Morty! Quick!"

Following the easily traceable direction of the
squalling, he ran up the veranda steps and into the

168 LAD: A DOG

house — closely followed by the Mistress and the
Master.

The engaging Mortimer was of the stuff whereof
explorers are made. No pent-up Utica — nor ve-
randa— contracted his powers. Bored by the stupid
talk of grown folk, wearying of Lad's friendly ad-
vances, he had slipped through the open house door
into the living-room.

There, for the day was cool, a jolly wood fire
blazed on the hearth. In front of the fireplace was
an enormous and cavernous couch. In the precise
center of the couch was curled something that
looked like a ball of the grayish fluff a maid sweeps
under the bed.

As Mortimer came into the room the infatuated
Lad at his heels, the fluffy ball lazily uncurled and
stretched — thereby revealing itself as no ball, but a
super furry gray kitten — the Mistress' tempera-
mental new Persian kitten rejoicing in the dreamily
Oriental name of Tipperary.

With a squeal of glad discovery, Mortimer
grabbed Tipperary with both hands, essaying to
pull her fox-brush tail. Now, no sane person needs
to be told the basic difference between the heart of
a cat and the heart of a dog. Nor will any student
of Persian kittens be surprised to hear that Tip-
perary 's reception of the ruffianly baby's advances
was totally different from Lad's.

A lightning stroke of one of her shapeless fore-
paws, and Tipperary was free. Morty stood blink-

THE THROWBACK 169

Ing in amaze at four geometrically regular red
marks on the back of his own pudgy hand. Tip-
perary had not done her persecutor the honor to
run away. She merely moved to the far end of
the couch and lay down there to renew her nap.

A mad fury fired the brain of Mortimer ; a fury
goaded by the pain of his scratches. Screaming in
rage he seized the cat by the nape of the neck — to
be safe from teeth and whizzing claws — and
stamped across toward the high-burning fire with
her. His arm was drawn back to fling the squirm-
ing and offending kitten into the scarlet heart of
the flames. And then Lad intervened.

Now Lad was not in the very least interested in
Tipperary; treating the temperamental Persian
always with marked coldness. It is even doubtful
if he realized Morty's intent.

But one thing he did realize — that a silly baby
was toddling straight toward the fire. As many
another wise dog has gone, before and since, Lad
quietly stepped between Morty and the hearth. He
stood, broadside to the fire and to the child —
a shaggy wall between the peril and the baby.

But so quickly had anger carried Mortimer to-
ward the hearth that the dog had not been able
to block his progress until only a bare eighteen
inches separated the youngster from the blaze.

Thus Lad found the heat from the burning logs
all but intolerable. It bit through his thick coat and

170 LAD: A DOG

into the tender flesh beneath. Like a rock he stood
there.

Mortimer, his gentle plan of kitten killing foiled,
redoubled his screeches. Lad's back was higher
than the child's eyes. Yet Morty sought to hurl
the kitten over this stolid barrier into the fire.

Tipperary fell short; landing on the dog's
shoulders, digging her needle claws viciously
therein, and thence leaping to the floor, from which
she sprang to the top of the bookshelves, spitting
back blasphemously at her tormentor.

Morty's interest in the fire had been purely as a
piece of immolation for the cat, but finding his
path to it barred, he straightway resolved to go
thither himself.

He started to move round to it, in front of Lad.
The dog took a forward step that again barred the
way. Morty went insane with wrath at this new
interference with his sweet plans. His howls
swelled to a sustained roar, that reached the ears
of the grown-ups on the lawn.

He flew at Lad, beating the dog with all the
puny force of his fists, sinking his milk teeth into
the collie's back, wrenching and tearing at the thicK
fur, stamping with his booted heels upon the ab-
surdly tiny white forepaws, kicking the short ribs
and the tender stomach.

Never for an instant did the child slacken his
howls as he punished the dog that was saving him
from death. Rather, he increased their volume

THE THROWBACK 171

from moment to moment. Lad did not stir. The
kicking and beating and gouging and hair-pulling
were not pleasant, but they were wholly bearable.
The heat was not. The smell of singed hair began
to fill the room, but Lad stood firm.

And then in rushed the relief expedition, the
Wall Street Farmer at its head.

At once concluding that Lad had bitten his son's
bleeding hand, the irate father swung aloft a chair
and strode to the rescue.

Lad saw him coming.

With the lightning swiftness of his kind he
whirled to one side as the mass of wood descended.
The chair missed him by a fraction of an inch
and splintered into pieces. It was a Chippendale,
and had belonged to the Mistress* great grand-
parents.

For the first time in all his blameless life Lad
broke the sacred Guest Law by growling at a
vouched-for visitor. But surely this fat bellower
was no guest! Lad looked at his gods for infor-
mation.

"Down, Lad!" said the Master very gently, his
voice not quite steady.

Lad, perplexed but obedient, dropped to the floor.

"The brute tried to kill my boy!" stormed the
Wall Street Farmer right dramatically as he caught
the howling Morty up in his arms to study the ex-
tent of the wound.

"He's my guest! He's my guest! HE'S MY

178 LAD: A DOG

GUEST!'* the Master was saying over and over
to himself. "Lord, help me to keep on remember-
ing he's my GUEST!"

The Mistress came forward.

"Lad would sooner die than hurt a child," she
declared, trying not to think of the wrecked heir-
loom chair. "He loves children. Here, let me see
Morty's hand. Why, those are claw-marks! Cat
scratches !"

"Ve nassy cat scwatched me!" bawled Morty.
"Kill her, daddy ! I twied to. I twied to f row her
in ve fire. But ve mizz'ble dog wouldn't let me!
Kill her, daddy ! Kill ve dog too !"

The Master's mouth flew wide open.

"Won't you go down to the paddock, dear,"
hastily interposed the Mistress, "and see if the sheep
are all right? Take Lad along with you."

Lad, alone of all The Place's dogs, had the run
of the house, night and day, of the sacred dining-
room. During the rest of that day he did not
avail himself of his high privilege. He kept out
of the way — perplexed, woe-begone, his burns still
paining him despite the Master's ministrations.

After talking long and loudly all evening of his
sheep's peerless quality and of their certain victory
over all comers in the fair the Wall Street Farmer
consented at last to go to bed. And silence set-
tled over The Place.

In the black hour before dawn, that same silence
was split in a score of places — split into a most

THE THROWBACK 173

horrible cacophony of sound that sent sleep scam-
pering to the winds.

It was the mingling of yells and bleats and barks
and the scurry of many feet. It burst out all at
once in full force, lasting for some seconds with
increasing clangor; then died to stillness.

By that time every human on The Place was out
of bed. In more or less rudimentary attire the
house's inhabitants trooped down into the lower
hall. There the Wall Street Farmer was raving
noisily and was yanking at a door bolt whose secret
he could not fathom .

"It's my sheep!" he shouted. "That accursed
dog of yours has gotten at them. He's slaughter-
ing \hern. I heard the poor things bleating and I

heard him snarling among them. They cost
,__ »

"If you're speaking of Lad," blazed the Master,
HI » »

"Here are the flashlights," interposed the Mis-
tress. "Let me open that door for you. I under-
stand the bolt."

Out into the dark they went, all but colliding
with McGillicuddy. The Scot, awakened like the
rest, had gone to the paddock. He had now come
back to report the paddock empty and all the sheep
gone.

"It's the collie tike!" sputtered McGillicuddy.
"I'll tak' oath to it. I ken it's him. I suspeecioned

174 LAD: A DOG

him a' long, from how he garred at oor sheep the
day. He "

"I said so !" roared the Wall Street Farmer. "The
murderous brute! First, he tries to kill Morty.
And now he slaughters my sheep. You "

The Master started to speak. But a white little
hand, in the darkness, was laid gently across his
mouth.

"You told me he always slept under the piano
in your music room !" accused the guest as the four
made their way paddock- ward, lighting a path with
the electric flashlights. "Well, I looked there just
now. He isn't under the piano. He He "

"Lad!" called the Master; then at the top of his
lungs. "Lad!"

A distant growl, a snarl, a yelp, a scramble —
and presently Lad appeared in the farthest radius of
the flashlight flare.

For only a moment he stood there. Then he
wheeled about and vanished in the dark. Nor had
the Master the voice to call him back. The mo-
mentary glimpse of the great collie, in the merciless
gleam of the lights, had stricken the whole party
fnto an instant's speechlessness.

Vividly distinct against the darkness they had
seen Lad. His well-groomed coat was rumpled.
His eyes were fire-balls. And — his jaws were red
with blood. Then he had vanished.

A groan from the Master — a groan of heartbreak

THE THROWBACK 175

—was the first sound from the four. The dog he
loved was a killer.

"It isn't true! It isn't true!" stoutly declared
the Mistress.

The Wall Street Farmer and McGullicuddy had
already broken into a run. The shepherd had found
the tracks of many little hoofs on the dewy ground.
And he was following the trail. The guest, swear-
ing and panting, was behind him. The Mistress and
the Master brought up the rear.

At every step they peered fearfully around them
for what they dreaded to see — the mangled body of
some slain sheep. But they saw none. And they
followed the trail.

In a quarter mile they came to its end.

All four flashlights played simultaneously upon
a tiny hillock that rose from the meadow at the
forest edge. The hillock was usually green. Now
it was white.

Around its short slopes was huddled a flock of
sheep, as close-ringed as though by a fence. At
the hillock's summit sat Lad. He was sitting there
in a queer attitude, one .of his snowy forepaws pin-
ning something to the ground — something that
could not be clearly distinguished through the
huddle, but which, evidently, was no sheep.

The Wall Street Farmer broke the tense silence
with a gobbled exclamation.

"Whisht!" half reverently interrupted the shep-
herd, who had been circling the hillock on census

176 LAD: A DOG

duty. "There's na a sheep gone, nor — so f ar's I can
see — a sheep hurted. The fu' twenty is there."

The Master's flashlight found a gap through
which its rays could reach the hillock crest. The
light revealed, under Lad's gently pinioning fore-
paw, the crouching and badly scared Melisande —
the $1100 Prussian sheep dog.

McGullicuddy, with a grunt, was off on another
and longer tour of inspection. Presently he came
back. He was breathing hard.

Even before McGillicuddy made his report the
Master had guessed at the main points of the mys-
tery's solution.

Melisande, weary of captivity, had gnawed
through her leash. Seeking sport, she had gone to
the paddock. There she had easily worried loose
the crazy gate latch. Just as she was wriggling
through, Lad appeared from the veranda.

He had tried to drive back the would-be killer
from her prey. Lad was a veteran of several bat-
tles. But, apart from her sex, Melisande was no
opponent for him. And he had treated her accord-
ingly. Melisande had snapped at him, cutting him
deeply in the under jaw. During the scrimmage the
panic-urged sheep had bolted out of the paddock
and had scattered.

Remember, please, that Lad, ten hours earlier,
had never in his life seen a sheep. But remember,
too, that a million of his ancestors had won their
right to a livelihood by their almost supernatural

THE THROWBACK 177

skill at herding flocks. Let this explain what
actually happened — the throwback of a great collie's
instinct.

Driving the scared and subdued Melisande before
him— and ever hampered by her unwelcome pres-
ence— Lad proceeded to round up the scattered
sheep. He was in the midst of the process when
the Master called him. Merely galloping back for?
an instant, and finding the summons was not re-
peated, he returned to his atavistic task.

In less than five minutes the twenty scampering
runaways were "ringed" on the hillock. And, still
keeping the Prussian sheep dog out of mischief, Lad
established himself in the ring's center.

Further than that, and the keeping of the ring
intact, his primal instincts did not serve him. Hav-
ing rounded up his flock Lad had not the remotest
idea what to do with them. So he merely held
them there until the noisily gabbling humans
should decide to take the matter out of his care.

McGillicuddy examined every sheep separately
and found not a scratch or a stain on any of them.
Then he told in effect what has here been set down
as to Lad's exploit.

As he finished his recital McGillicuddy looked
shamefacedly around him as though gathering
courage for an irksome task. !A3 sickly yellow
dawn was crawling over the eastern mountains,
throwing a ghostly glow on the shepherd's dour
and craggy visage. Drawing a long breath of re-

178 LAD: A DOG

solve he advanced upon Lad. Dropping on one
knee, his eyes on a level with the unconcernedly
observant collie's, McGillicuddy intoned:

"Laddie, ye're a braw, braw dog. Ou, a canny
dog! A sonsie dog, Laddie! I hae na met yer
match this side o' Kirkcaldy Brae. Gin ye'll tak'
an auld fule's apology for wrangin' ye, an* an auld
fule's hand in gude fellowship, 'twill pleasure me,
Laddie. Winna ye let bygones be bygones, an'
shake?"

Yes, the speech was ridiculous, but no one felt
like laughing, not even the Wall Street Farmer.
The shepherd was gravely sincere and he knew that
Lad would understand his burring words.

And Lad did understand. Solemnly he sat up.
Solemnly he laid one white forepaw in the gnarled
palm the kneeling shepherd outstretched to him.
His eyes glinted in wise friendliness as they met
the admiring gaze of the old man. Two born
shepherds were face to face. Deep was calling unto
deep.

Presently McGillicuddy broke the spell by rising
abruptly to his feet. Gruffly he turned to the
Master.

"There's na wit, sir," he growled, "in speirin'
will ye sell him. But — but I compliment ye on him,
nanetheless."

"That's right; McGillicuddy's right!" boomed
the Wall Street Farmer, catching but part of his
shepherd's mumbled words. "Good idea ! He is a

THE THROWBACK 179

fine dog. I see that now. I was prejudiced. I
freely admit it. A remarkable dog. What'll you
take for him? Or — better yet, how would you like
to swap, even, for Melisande?"

The Master's mouth again flew ajar, and many
sizzling words jostled each other in his throat.
Before any of these could shame his hospitality by
escaping, the Mistress hurriedly interposed:

"Dear, we left all the house doors wide open.
Would you mind hurrying back ahead of us and
seeing that everything is safe ? And — will you take
Lad with you?"

CHAPTER VIII
THE GOLD HAT

THE Place was in the North Jersey hinterland,
backed by miles of hill and forest, facing
the lake that divided it from the village and
the railroad and the other new-made smears which
had been daubed upon Mother Nature's smiling face
in the holy name of Civilization. The lonely situa-
tion of The Place made Lad's self-appointed guard-
ianship of its acres no sinecure at all. The dread
of his name spread far — carried by hobo and by
less harmless intruder.

Ten miles to northward of The Place, among the
mountains of this same North Jersey hinterland, a
man named Glure had bought a rambling old wil-
derness farm. By dint of much money, more zeal
and most dearth of taste, he had caused the wilder-
ness to blossom like the Fifth Proposition of Euclid.
He had turned bosky wildwood into chaste picnic-
grove plaisaunces, lush meadows into sunken gar-
dens, a roomy colonial farmstead into something
between a feudal castle and a roadhouse. And,
looking on his work, he had seen that it was good

180

THE GOLD HAT 181

This Beautifier of the Wilderness was a financial
giantlet, who had lately chosen to amuse himself,
after work-hours, by what he called "farming."
Hence the purchase and renovation of the five hun-
dred-acre tract, the building of model farms, the
acquisition of priceless livestock, and the hiring of
a battalion of skilled employees. Hence, too, his
dearly loved and self-given title of "Wall Street
Farmer." His name, I repeat, was Glure.

Having established himself in the region, the
Wall Street Farmer undertook most earnestly to
reproduce the story-book glories of the life sup-
posedly led by mid- Victorian country gentlemen.
Not only in respect to keeping open-house and in
alternately patronizing and bullying the peasantry,
but in filling his gun-room shelves with cups and
other trophies won by his livestock.

To his "open house" few of the neighboring fam-
ilies came. The local peasantry — Jersey mountain-
eers of Revolutionary stock, who had not the faint-
est idea they were "peasantry" and who, indeed, had
never heard of the word — alternately grinned and
swore at the Wall Street Farmer's treatment of
them, and mulcted him of huge sums for small
services. But Glure's keenest disappointment — a
disappointment that crept gradually up toward the
monomania point — was the annoyingly continual
emptiness of his trophy-shelves.

When, for instance, he sent to the Paterson Live-
stock Show a score of his pricelessly imported me-

182 LAD: A DOG

rino sheep, under his more pricelessly imported
Scotch shepherd, Mr. McGillicuddy — the sheep came
ambling back to Glure Towers Farm bearing no
worthier guerdon than a single third-prize yellow
silk rosette and a "Commended" ribbon. First and
second prizes, as well as the challenge cup had gone
to flocks owned by vastly inferior folk — small farm-
ers who had no money wherewith to import the pick
of the Scottish moors — farmers who had bred and
developed their own sheep, with no better aid than
personal care and personal judgment.

At the Hohokus Fair, too, the Country Gentle-
man's imported Holstein bull, Tenebris, had had to
content himself with a measly red rosette in token
of second prize, while the silver cup went to a bull
owned by an elderly North Jerseyman of low man-
ners, who had bred his own entry and had bred
the latter's ancestors for forty years back.

It was discouraging, it was mystifying. There
actually seemed to be a vulgar conspiracy among
the down-at-heel rural judges — a conspiracy to
boost second-rate stock and to turn a blind eye
to the virtues of overpriced transatlantic importa-
tions.

It was the same in the poultry shows and in hog
exhibits. It was the same at the County Fair horse-
trots. At one of these trots the Wall Street Farmer,
in person, drove his $9000 English colt. And a
rangy Hackensack gelding won all three heats. In
none of the three did Glure's colt get within hailing

THE GOLD HAT 183

distance of the wire before at least two other trotters
had clattered under it.

(Glure's English head-groom was called on the
carpet to explain why a colt that could do a neat
2.13 in training was beaten out in a 2.17 trot The
groom lost his temper and his place. For he
grunted, in reply, "The colt was all there. It was
the driving did it.")

The gun-room's glassed shelves in time were gay
with ribbon. But only two of the three primary
colors were represented there — blue being conspicu-
ously absent. As for cups — the burglar who should
break into Glure Towers in search of such booty
would find himself the worse off by a wageless
night' s work.

Then it was that the Wall Street Farmer had his
Inspiration. Which brings us by easy degrees to
the Hampton Dog Show.

Even as the Fiery Cross among the Highland
crags once flashed signal of War, so, when the
World War swirl sucked nation after nation into its
eddy, the Red Cross flamed from one end of
America to the other, as the common rallying point
for those who, for a time, must do their fighting
on the hither side of the gray seas. The country
bristled with a thousand money-getting functions
of a thousand different kinds ; with one objective —
the Red Cross.

So it happened at last that North Jersey was
posted, on state road and byway, with flaring pla-

184 LAD: A DOG

cards announcing a Mammoth Outdoor Specialty
Dog show, to be held under the auspices of the
Hampton Branch of the American National Red
Cross, on Labor Day.

Mr. Hamilcar Q. Glure, the announcement con-
tinued, had kindly donated the use of his beautiful
grounds for the Event, and had subscribed three
hundred dollars towards its running expenses and
prizes.

Not only were the usual dog classes to be judged,
but an added interest was to be supplied by the
awarding of no less than fifteen Specialty
Trophies.

Mr. Glure, having offered his grounds and the
initial three hundred dollars, graciously turned over
the details of the Show to a committee, whose duty
it was to suggest popular Specialties and to solicit
money for the cups.

Thus, one morning, an official letter was received
at The Place, asking the Master to enter all his
available dogs for the Show — at one dollar apiece
for each class — and to contribute, if he should so de-
sire, the sum of fifteen dollars, besides, for the pur-
chase of a Specialty Cup.

The Mistress was far more excited over the com-
ing event than was the Master. And it was she who
suggested the nature of the Specialty for which the
fifteen-dollar cup should be offered.

The next outgoing mail bore the Master's check

THE GOLD HAT 185

for a cup. "To be awarded to the oldest and best-
cared-for dog, of any breed, in the Show."

It was like the Mistress to think of that, and to
reward the dog-owner whose pet's old age had been
made happiest. Hers was destined to be the most
popular Specialty of the entire Show.

The Master, at first, was disposed to refuse the
invitation to take any of his collies to Hampton.
The dogs were, for the most part, out of coat. The
weather was warm. At these amateur shows — as
at too many professional exhibits — there was always
danger of some sick dog spreading epidemic. More-
over, the living-room trophy-shelf at The Place was
already comfortably filled with cups ; won at similar
contests. Then, too, the Master had somehow
acquired a most causeless and cordial dislike for
the Wall Street Farmer.

"I believe I'll send an extra ten dollars," he told
the Mistress, "and save the dogs a day of torment.
What do you think?"

By way of answer, the Mistress sat down on the
floor where Lad was sprawled, asleep. She ran her
fingers through his forest .of ruff. The great dog's
brush pounded drowsily against the floor at the
loved touch; and he raised his head for further
caress.

"Laddie's winter coat is coming in beautifully,"
she said at last. "I don't suppose there'll be another
dog there with such a coat. Besides, it's to be out-
doors, you see. So he won't catch any sickness.

186 LAD: A DOG

If it were a four-day show — if it were anything
longer than a one-day show — he shouldn't go a step.
But, you see, I'd be right there with him all the
time. And I'd take him into the ring myself, as
I did at Madison Square Garden. And he won't be
unhappy or lonely or — or anything. And I always
love to have people see how splendid he is. And
those Specialty Trophies are pretty, sometimes. So
— so we'll do just whatever you say about it."

Which, naturally, settled the matter, once and
for all.

When a printed copy of the Specialty Lists ar-
rived, a week later, the Mistress and the Master
scanned eagerly its pages.

There were cups offered for the best tri-color
collie, for the best mother-and-litter, for the collie
with the finest under-and-outer coat, for the best
collie exhibited by a woman, for the collie whose
get had won most prizes in other shows. At the
very bottom of the section, and in type six points
larger than any other announcement on the whole
schedule, were the words :

"Presented by the Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of
New York City—i8-KARAT GOLD SPE-
CIALTY CUP, FOR COLLIES (conditions an-
nounced later)."

"A gold cup!" sighed the Mistress, yielding to
Delusions of Grandeur, "A gold cup! I never
heard of such a thing, at a dog show. And — and
won't it look perfectly gorgeous in the very center

THE GOLD HAT 187

of our Trophy Shelf, there — with the other cups

radiating from it on each side? And "

"Hold on!" laughed the Master, trying to mask
his own thrill, man-fashion, by wetblanketing his
wife's enthusiasm. "Hold on! We haven't got it,
yet. I'll enter Lad for it, of course. But so will
every other collie-owner who reads that. Besides,
even if Lad should win it, we'd have to buy a
microscope to see the thing. It will probably be
about half the size of a thimble. Gold cups cost
gold money, you know. And I don't suppose this
'Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of New York City' is
squandering more than ten or fifteen dollars at
most on a country dog show. Even for the Red
Cross. I suppose he's some Wall Street chum that
Glure has wheedled into giving a Specialty. He's
a novelty to me. I never heard of him before. Did
you?"

"No," admitted the Mistress. "But I feel I'm
beginning to love him. Oh. Laddie," she confided
to the dog, "I'm going to give you a bath in naphtha
soap every day till then; and brush you, two hours
every morning ; and feed you on liver and "

' 'Conditions announced later,' " quoted the Mas-
ter, studying the big-type offer once more. "I won-
der what that means. Of course, in a Specialty
Show, anything goes. But "

"I don't care what the conditions are," inter-
rupted the Mistress, refusing to be disheartened.
"Lad can come up to them. Why, there isn't a

188 LAD: A DOG

greater dog in America than Lad. And you
know it."

"I know it," assented the pessimistic Master.
"But will the Judge? You might tell him so."

"Lad will tell him," promised the Mistress.

"Don't worry."

* # * * * *

On Labor Day morning a thousand cars, from a
radius of fifty miles, were converging upon the
much-advertised village of Hampton; whence, by
climbing a tortuous first-speed hill, they presently
chugged into the still-more-advertised estate of
Hamilcar Q. Glure, Wall Street Farmer.

There, the sylvan stillness was shattered by barks
in every key, from Pekingese falsetto to St. Ber-
nard bass-thunder. An open stretch of shaded
sward — backed by a stable that looked more like a
dissolute cathedral — had been given over to ten
double rows of "benches," for the anchorage of
the Show's three hundred exhibits. Above the cen-
tral show-ring a banner was strung between two
tree tops. It bore a blazing red cross at either end.
In its center was the legend:

"WELCOME TO GLURE TOWERS!"

The Wall Street Farmer, as I have hinted, was
a man of much taste — of a sort.

Lad had enjoyed the ten^mile spin through the
morning air, in the tonneau of The Place's

THE GOLD HAT 189

only car — albeit the course of baths and combings
of the past week had long since made him morbidly
aware that a detested dog show was somewhere at
hand. Now, even before the car entered the fear-
some feudal gateway of Glure Towers, the collie's
ears and nose told him the hour of ordeal was at
hand.

His zest in the ride vanished. He looked re-
proachfully at the Mistress and tried to bury his
head under her circling arm. Lad loathed dog
shows; as does every dog of high-strung nerves
and higher intelligence. The Mistress, after one ex-
perience, had refrained from breaking his heart by
taking him to those horrors known as "two-or-
mo re-day Shows." But, as she herself took such
childish delight in the local one-day contests, she had
schooled herself to believe Lad must enjoy them,
too.

Lad, as a matter of fact, preferred these milder
ordeals, merely as a man might prefer one day
of jail or toothache to two or more days of the
same misery. But — even as he knew many lesser
things — he knew the adored Mistress and Master
reveled in such atrocities as dog shows ; and that he,
for some reason, was part of his two gods' pleas-
ure in them. Therefore, he made the best of the
nuisance. Which led his owners to a certainty
that he had grown to like it.

Parking the car, the Mistress and Master led
the unhappy dog to the clerk's desk; received his

190 LAD: A DOG

number tag and card, and were shown where to
bench him. They made Lad as nearly comfortable
as possible, on a straw-littered raised stall ; between
a supercilious Merle and a fluffily disconsolate sable-
and-white six-month puppy that howled ceaselessly
in an agony of fright.

The Master paused for a moment in his quest of
water for Lad, and stared open-mouthed at the
Merle.

"Good Lord!" he mumbled, touching the Mis-
tress* arm and pointing to the gray dog. "That's
the most magnificent collie I ever set eyes on. It's
farewell to poor old Laddie's hopes, if he is in any
of the same classes with that marvel. Say goodby,
right now, to your hopes of the Gold Cup; and to
'Winners' in the regular collie division."

"I won't say goodby to it," refused the Mistress.
"I won't do anything of the sort. Lad's every bit
as beautiful as that dog. Every single bit."

"But not from the show-judge's view," said the
Master. "This Merle's a gem. Where in blazes did
he drop from, I wonder? These 'no-point' out-of-
town Specialty Shows don't attract the stars of the
Kennel Club circuits. Yet, this is as perfect a dog
as ever Grey Mist was. It's a pleasure to see such
an animal. Or," he corrected himself, "it would
be, if he wasn't pitted against dear old Lad. I'd
rather be kicked than take Lad to a show to be
beaten. Not for my sake or even for yours. But
for his. Lad will be sure to know. He knows

THE GOLD HAT 191

everything. Laddie, old friend, I'm sorry. Dead-
sorry"

He stooped down and patted Lad's satin head.
Both Master and Mistress had always carried their
fondness for Lad to an extent that perhaps was
absurd. Certainly absurd to the man or woman
who has never owned such a super-dog as Lad.
As not one man or woman in a thousand has.

Together, the Mistress and the Master made
their way along the collie section, trying to be in-
terested in the line of barking or yelling entries.

"Twenty-one collies in all," summed up the Mas-
ter, as they reached the end. "Some quality dogs
among them, too. But not one of the lot, except
the Merle, that I'd be afraid to have Lad judged
against. The Merle's our Waterloo. Lad is due
for his first defeat. Well, it'll be a fair one. That's
one comfort."

"It doesn't comfort me, in the very least," re-
turned the Mistress, adding:

"Look ! There is the trophy table. Let's go over.
Perhaps the Gold Cup is there. If it isn't too
precious to leave out in the open."

The Gold Cup was there. It was plainly — or,
rather, flamingly — visible. Indeed, it smote the eye
from afar. It made the surrounding array of pretty
silver cups and engraved medals look tawdrily in-
significant. Its presence had, already, drawn a
goodly number of admirers — folk at whom the

192 LAD: A DOG

guardian village constable, behind the table, stared
with sour distrust.

The Gold Cup was a huge bowl of unchased
metal, its softly glowing surface marred only by the
script words:

"Maury Specialty Gold Cup. Awarded to "

There could be no shadow of doubt as to the gen-
uineness of the claim that the trophy was of eight-
een-karat gold. Its value spoke for itself. The ves-
sel was like a half melon in contour and was sup-
ported by four severely plain claws. Its rim flared
outward in a wide curve.

"It's — it's all the world like an inverted derby
hat!" exclaimed the Mistress, after one long dumb
look at it. "And it's every bit as big as a derby
hat. Did you ever see anything so ugly — and so
Croesus f ul ? Why, it must have cost — it must have
cost "

"Just sixteen hundred dollars, Ma'am," supple-
mented the constable, beginning to take pride in his
office of guardian to such a treasure. "Sixteen hun-
dred dollars, flat. I heard Mr. Glure say in* so my-
self. Don't go handlin' it, please."

"Handling it?" repeated The Mistress. "I'd as
soon think of handling the National Debt !"

The Superintendent of the Show strolled up and
greeted the Mistress and the Master. The latter
scarce heard the neighborly greeting. He was
scowling at the precious trophy as at a personal
foe.

THE GOLD HAT 193

"I see you've entered Lad for the Gold Cup/' said
the Superintendent. "Sixteen collies, in all, are en-
tered for it. The conditions for the Gold Cup con-
test weren't printed till too late to mail them. So
I'm handing out the slips this morning. Mr. Glure
took charge of their printing. They didn't get here
from the job shop till half an hour ago. And I
don't mind telling you they're causing a lot of kicks.
Here's one of the copies. Look it over, and see
what Lad's up against."

"Who's the Hon. Hugh Lester Maury, of New
York?" suddenly demanded the Master, rousing
himself from his glum inspection of the Cup. "I
mean the man who donated that — that Gold Hat?"

"Gold Hat!" echoed the Superintendent, with a
chuckle of joy. "Gold Hat! Now you say so, I
can't make it look like anything else. A derby,
upside down, with four "

"Who's Maury?" insisted the Master.

"He's the original Man of Mystery," returned
the Superintendent, dropping his voice to exclude
the constable. "I wanted to get in touch with him
about the delayed set of conditions. I looked him
up. That is, I tried to. He is advertised in the
premium list, as a New Yorker. You'll remember
that, but his name isn't in the New York City
Directory or in the New York City telephone book
or in the suburban telephone book. He can afford
to give a sixteen hundred dollar-cup for charity,
but it seems he isn't important enough to get his

194 LAD: A DOG

name in any directory. Funny, isn't it? I asked
Glure about him. That's all the good it did me."

"You don't mean ?" began the Mistress, ex-
citedly.

"I don't mean anything," the Superintendent hur-
ried to forestall her. "I'm paid to take charge of
this Show. It's no affair of mine if "

"If Mr. Glure chooses to invent Hugh Lester
Maury and make him give a Gold Hat for a collie
prize?" suggested the Mistress. "But "

"I didn't say so," denied the superintendent.
"And it's none of my business, anyhow.
Here's-

"But why should Mr. Glure do such a thing?"
asked the Mistress, in wonder. "I never heard of
his shrinking coyly behind another name when he
wanted to spend money. I don't understand why
he-

"Here is the conditions-list for the Maury Spe-
cialty Cup," interposed the superintendent with
extreme irrelevance, as he handed her a pink slip
of paper. "Glance over it."

The Mistress took the slip and read aloud for
the benefit of the Master who was still glowering
at the Gold Hat :

"Conditions of Contest for Hugh Lester Maury
Gold Cup:

" 'First. — No collie shall be eligible that has not
already taken at least one blue ribbon at a licensed
American or British Kennel Club Show.' "

THE GOLD HAT 195

"That single clause has barred out eleven of the
sixteen entrants," commented the Superintendent.
"You see, most of the dogs at these local Shows
are pets, and hardly any of them have been to
Madison Square Garden or to any of the other
A. K. C. shows. The few that have been to them
seldom got a Blue."

"Lad did!" exclaimed the Mistress joyfully.
"He took two Blues at the Garden last year; and
then, you remember, it was so horrible for him
there we broke the rules and brought him home
without waiting for "

"I know," said the Superintendent, "but read the
rest."

"'Second,'" read the Mistress. " 'Each con-
testant must have a certified five-generation pedi-
gree, containing the names of at least ten cham-
pions.' Lad had twelve in his pedigree," she added,
"and it's certified."

"Two more entrants were killed out by that
clause," remarked the Superintendent, "leaving only
three out of the original sixteen. Now go ahead
with the clause that puts poor old Lad and one
other out of the running. I'm sorry."

" 'Third' the Mistress read, her brows crinkling
and her voice trailing as she proceeded. ' 'Each
contestant must go successfully through the pre-
liminary maneuvers prescribed by the Ktrkaldie
Association, Inc., of Great Britain, for its Working
Sheepdog Trials.'— But," she protested, "Lad isn't

196 LAD: A DOG

a 'working* sheepdog! Why, this is some kind of
a joke! I never heard of such a thing — even in a
Specialty Show/'

"No," agreed the Superintendent, "nor anybody
else. Naturally, Lad isn't a 'working' sheepdog.
There probably haven't been three 'working' sheep-
dogs born within a hundred miles of here, and it's
a mighty safe bet that no 'working* sheepdog has
ever taken a 'Blue' at an A. K. C. Show. A 'work-
ing' dog is almost never a show dog. I know of
only one either here or in England ; and he's a freak
— a miracle. So much so, that he's famous all over
the dog-world."

"Do you mean Champion Lochinvar III ?" asked
the Mistress. "The dog the Duke of Hereford used
to own?"

"That's the dog. The only "

"We read about him in the Collie Folio," said
the Mistress. "His picture was there, too. He was
sent to Scotland when he was a puppy, the Folio
said, and trained to herd sheep before ever he was
shown. His owner was trying to induce other
collie- fanciers to make their dogs useful and not
just Show-exhibits. Lochinvar is an international
champion, too, isn't he?"

The Superintendent nodded.

"If the Duke of Hereford lived in New Jersey,"
pursued the Mistress, trying to talk down her keen
chagrin over Lad's mishap, "Lochinvar might have
a chance to win a nice Gold Hat."

THE GOLD HAT 197

"He has," replied the superintendent "He has
every chance, and the only chance."

"Who has?" queried the puzzled Mistress.

"Champion Lochinvar III," was the answer.
"Glure bought him by cable. Paid $7000 for him.
That eclipses Untermeyer's record price of $6500
for old Squire of Tytton. The dog arrived last
week. He's here. A big Blue Merle. You ought
to look him over. He's a wonder. He "

"Oh!" exploded the Mistress. "You can't mean
it. You can't! Why, it's the most — the most
hideously unsportsmanlike thing I ever heard of
in my life! Do you mean to tell me Mr. Glure
put up this sixteen hundred-dollar cup and then sent
for the only dog that could fulfill the Trophy's
conditions? It's unbelievable!"

"It's Glure," tersely replied the Superintendent.
"Which perhaps comes to the same thing."

"Yes !" spoke up the Master harshly, entering the
talk for the first time, and tearing his disgusted
attention from the Gold Hat. "Yes, it's Glure,
and it's unbelievable! And it's worse than either
of those, if anything can be. Don't you see the
full rottenness of it all? Half the world is starv-
ing or sick or wounded. The other half is working
its fingers off to help the Red Cross make Europe
a little less like hell; and, when every cent counts
in the work, this — this Wall Street Farmer spends
sixteen hundred precious dollars to buy himself a
Gold Hat; and he does it under the auspices of

198 LAD: A DOG

the Red Cross, in the holy name of charity. The
unsportsmanlikeness of it is nothing to that. It's
— it's an Unpardonable Sin, and I don't want to
endorse it by staying here. Let's get Lad and go
home."

"I wish to heaven we could!" flamed the Mis-
tress, as angry as he. "I'd do it in a minute if we
were able to. I feel we're insulting loyal old Lad
by making him a party to it all. But we can't go.
Don't you see? Mr. Glure is unsportsmanlike, but
that's no reason we should be. You've told me,
again and again, that no true sportsman will back
out of a contest just because he finds he has no
chance of winning it."

"She's right," chimed in the Superintendent.
"You've entered the dog for the contest, and by
all the rules he'll have to stay in it. Lad doesn't
know the first thing about 'working.' Neither does
the only other local entrant that the first two rules
have left in the competition. And Lochinvar is per-
fect at every detail of sheep-work. Lad and the
other can't do anything but swell his victory. It's
rank bad luck, but "

"All right! All right!" growled the Master.
"We'll go through with it. Does anyone know the
terms of a 'Kirkaldie Association's Preliminaries,'
for 'Working Sheepdog Trials?' My own early
education was neglected."

"Glure's education wasn't," said the Superin-
tendent. "He has the full set of rules in his brand

THE GOLD HAT

new Sportsman Library. That's, no doubt, where
he got the idea. I went to him for them this morn-
ing, and he let me copy the laws governing the
preliminaries. They're absurdly simple for a
'working* dog and absurdly impossible for a non-
worker. Here, I'll read them over to you."

He fished out a folded sheet of paper and read
aloud a few lines of pencil-scribblings :

"Four posts shall be set up, at ninety yards apart,
at the corners of a square enclosure. A fifth post
shall be set in the center. At this fifth post the
owner or handler of the contestant shall stand with
his dog. Nor shall such owner or handler move
more than three feet from the post until his dog*
shall have completed the trial.

"Guided only by voice and by signs, the dog
shall go alone from the center-post to the post
numbered 'i.' He shall go thence, in the order
named, to Posts 2, 3 and 4, without returning to
within fifteen feet of the central post until he shall
have reached Post 4.

"Speed and form shall count as seventy points in
these evolutions. Thirty points shall be added to
the score of the dog or dogs which shall make the
prescribed tour of the posts directed wholly by
signs and without the guidance of voice."

"There," finished the superintendent, "you see it
is as simple as a kindergarten game. But a child
who had never been taught could not play Tuss-
m-the-Corner.' I was talking to the English

200 LAD: A DOG

trainer that Glure bought along with the dog. The
trainer tells me Lochinvar can go through those
maneuvers and a hundred harder ones without a
word being spoken. He works entirely by gestures.
He watches the trainer's hand. Where the hand
points he goes. A' snap of the fingers halts him.
Then he looks back for the next gesture. The
trainer says it's a delight to watch him."

"The delight is all his," grumbled the Master.
"Poor, poor Lad! He'll get bewildered and un-
happy. He'll want to do whatever we tell him to,
but he can't understand. It was different the time
he rounded up Glure's flock of sheep — when he'd
never seen a sheep before. That was ancestral
instinct. A throwback. But ancestral instinct
won't teach him to go to Post I and 2 and 3 and
4. He "

"Hello, people!" boomed a jarringly cordial
voice. "Welcome to the Towers!"

Bearing down upon the trio was a large person,
round and yellow of face and clad elaborately in
a morning costume that suggested a stud-groom
with ministerial tendencies. He was dressed for
the Occasion. Mr. Glure was always dressed for
the Occasion.

"Hello, people!" repeated the Wall Street
Farmer, alternately pump-handling the totally un-
responsive Mistress and Master. "I see you've been
admiring the Maury Trophy. Magnificent, eh?
Oh, Maury's a prince, I tell you! A prince! A

THE GOLD HAT 201

bit eccentric, perhaps — as you'll have guessed by
the conditions he's put up for the cup. But a prince.
A prince! We think everything of him on the
Street. Have you seen my new dog? Oh, you
must go and take a look at Lochinvar ! I'm enter-
ing him for the Maury Trophy, you know."

"Yes," assented the Master dully, as Mr. Glure
paused to breathe. "I know."

He left his exultant host with some abruptness,
and piloted the Mistress back to the Collie Section.
There they came upon a scene of dire wrath. Dis-
gruntled owners were loudly denouncing the Maury
conditions-list, and they redoubled their plaint at
sight of the two new victims of the trick.

Folk who had bathed and brushed and burnished
their pets for days, in eager anticipation of a
neighborhood contest, gargled in positive hatred at
the glorious Merle. They read the pink slips over
and over with more rage at each perusal.

One pretty girl had sat down on the edge of a
bench, gathering her beloved gold-and-white collie's
head in her lap, and was crying unashamed. The
Master glanced at her. Then he swore softly, and
set to work helping the Mistress in the task of
fluffing Lad's glossy coat to a final soft shagginess.

Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to
say; but Lad realized more keenly than could a
human that both his gods were wretchedly un-
happy, and his great heart yearned pathetically to
comfort them.

202 LAD: A DOG

"There's one consolation," said a woman at work
on a dog in the opposite bench, "Lochinvar's not
entered for anything except the Maury Cup. The
clerk told me so."

"Little good that will do any of us!" retorted
her bench-neighbor. "In an all-specialty show, the
winner of the Maury Trophy will go up for the
'Winners Class," and that means Lochinvar will
get the cup for the 'Best Collie/ as well as the
Maury Cup and probably the cup for 'Best Dog of
any Breed/ too. And "

"The Maury Cup is the first collie event on the
programme," lamented the other. "It's slated to be
called before even the Puppy and the Novice classes.
Mr. Glure has "

"Contestants for the Maury Trophy — all out!"
bawled an attendant at the end of the section.

The Master unclasped the chain from Lad's
collar, snapped the light show-ring leash in its place
and handed the leash to the Mistress.

"Unless you'd rather have me take him in?" he
whispered. "I hate to think of your handling a
loser."

"I'd rather take Lad to defeat than any other
dog to — a Gold Hat," she answered, sturdily.
"Come along, Laddie!"

The Maury contest, naturally, could not be de-
cided in the regular show-ring. Mr. Glure had
thoughtfully set aside a quadrangle of greensward
for the Event — a quadrangle bounded by four white

THE GOLD HAT 203

and numbered posts, and bearing a larger white
post in its center.

A throng of people was already banked deep
on all four sides of the enclosure when the Mis-
tress arrived. The collie judge standing by the
central post declaimed loudly the conditions of the
contest. Then he asked for the first entrant.

This courtier of failure chanced to be the only
other local dog besides Lad that had survived the
first two clauses of the conditions. He chanced
also to be the dog over which the pretty girl had
been crying.

The girl's eyes were still red through a haze of
powder as she led her slender little gold-and-snow
collie into the ring. She had put on a filmy white
muslin dress with gold ribbons that morning with
the idea of matching her dog's coloring. She looked
very sweet and dainty — and heartsore.

At the central post she glanced up hopelessly at
the judge who stood beside her. The judge indi-
cated Post No. I with a nod. The girl blinked
at the distant post, then at her collie, after which
she pointed to the post.

"Run on over there, Mac !" she pleaded. "That's
a good boy!"

The little collie wagged his tail, peered expect-
antly at her, and barked. But he did not stir. He
had not the faintest idea what she wanted him to
do, although he would have been glad to do it.
Wherefore, the bark.

204 LAD: A DOG

Presently (after several more fruitless entreaties
which reduced the dog to a paroxysm of barking)
she led her collie out of the enclosure, strangling
her sobs as she went. And again the Master swore
softly, but with much venomous ardor.

And now, at the judge's command, the Mistress
led Lad into the quadrangle and up to the central
post. She was very pale, but her thoroughbred
nerves were rocklike in their steadiness. She, like
Lad, was of the breed that goes down fighting.
Lad walked majestically beside her, his eyes dark
with sorrow over his goddess* unhappiness, which
he could not at all understand and which he so
longed to lighten. Hitherto, at dog shows, Lad had
been the only representative of The Place to grieve.

He thrust his nose lovingly into the Mistress'
hand, as he moved along with her to the post; and
he whined, under his breath.

Ranging up beside the judge, the Mistress took
off Lad's leash and collar. Stroking the dog's up-
raised head, she pointed to the No. I Post.

"Over there," she bade him.

Lad looked in momentary doubt at her, and then
at the post. He did not see the connection, nor
know what he was expected to do. So, again he
looked at the sorrowing face bent over him.

"Lad!" said the Mistress gently, pointing once
more to the Post. "Go !"

Now, there was not one dog at The Place that
had not known from puppy-hood the meaning of

THE GOLD HAT 205

the word "Go!" coupled with the pointing of a
finger. Fingers had pointed, hundreds of times,
to kennels or to the open doorways or to canoe-
bottoms or to car tonneaus or to whatsoever spot
the dog in question was desired to betake himself.
And the word "Go!" had always accompanied the
motion.

Lad still did not see why he was to go where the
steady finger indicated. There was nothing of in-
terest over there; no one to attack at command.
But he went.

He walked for perhaps fifty feet ; then he turned
and looked back.

"Go on!" called the voice that was his loved Law.

And he went on. Unquestionably, as uncompre-
hendingly, he went, because the Mistress told him
to ! Since she had brought him out before this an-
noying concourse of humans to show off his obedi-
ence all he could do was to obey. The knowledge
of her mysterious sadness made him the more
anxious to please her.

So on he went. Presently, as his progress
brought him alongside a white post, he heard the
Mistress call again. He wheeled and started to-
ward her at a run. Then he halted again, almost
in mid-air.

For her hand was up in front of her, palm for-
ward, in a gesture that had meant "Stop!" from
the time he had been wont to run into the house
with muddy feet, as a puppy.

206 LAD: A DOG

Lad stood, uncertain. And now the Mistress was
pointing another way and calling:

"Go on! Lad! Goon!"

Confused, the dog started in the new direction.
He went slowly. Once or twice he stopped and
looked back in perplexity at her ; but, as often, came
the steady-voiced order:

"Go on! Lad! Go on!"

On plodded Lad. Vaguely, he was beginning to
hate this new game played without known rules
and in the presence of a crowd. Lad abominated a
crowd.

But it was the Mistress' bidding, and in her
dear voice his quick hearing could read what no
human could read — a hard- fought longing to cry.
It thrilled the big dog, this subtle note of grief.
And all he could do to ease her sorrow, apparently,
was to obey this queer new whim of hers as best
he might.

He had continued his unwilling march as far as
another post when the welcome word of recall came
— the recall that would bring him close again to
his sorrowing deity. With a bound he started back
to her.

But, for the second time, came that palm-forward
gesture and the cry of "Stop! Go back!"

Lad paused reluctantly and stood panting. This
thing was getting on his fine-strung nerves. And
nervousness ever made him pant.

THE GOLD HAT 207

The Mistress pointed in still another direction,
and she was calling almost beseechingly:

"Go on, Lad! Go on!"

Her pointing hand waved him ahead and, as be-
fore, he followed its guidance. Walking heavily,
his brain more and more befogged, Lad obeyed.
This time he did not stop to look to her for in-
structions. From the new vehemence of the Mis-
tress' gesture she had apparently been ordering him
off the field in disgrace, as he had seen puppies
ordered from the house. Head and tail down, he
went.

But, as he passed by the third of those silly posts,
she recalled him. Gleeful to know he was no longer
in disgrace he galloped toward the Mistress; only
to be halted again by that sharp gesture and sharper
command before he had covered a fifth of the
distance from the post to herself.

The Mistress was actually pointing again — more
urgently than ever — and in still another direction.
Now her voice had in it a quiver that even the
humans could detect; a quiver that made its sweet-
ness all but sharp.

"Goon, Lad! Goon!"

Utterly bewildered at his usually moodless Mis-
tress* crazy mood and spurred by the sharp repri-
mand in her voice Lad moved away at a crestfallen
walk. Four times he stopped and looked back at
her, in piteous appeal, asking forgiveness of the
unknown fault for which she was ordering him

208 LAD: A DOQ

away; but always he was met by the same fierce
"Go on!'9

And he went.

Of a sudden, from along the tight-crowded edges
of the quadrangle, went up a prodigious handclap-
ping punctuated by such foolish and ear-grating
yells as "Good boy!" "Good old Laddie!" "He
did it!"

And through the looser volume of sound came
the Mistress' call of:

"Laddie! Here, La d!"

In doubt, Lad turned to face her. Hesitatingly
he went toward her expecting at every step that
hateful command of "Go back!"

But she did not send him back. Instead, she was
running forward to meet him. And out of her face
the sorrow — but not the desire to cry — had been
swept away by a tremulous smile.

Down on her knees beside Lad the Mistress
flung herself, and gathered his head in her arms
and told him what a splendid, dear dog he was and
how proud she was of him.

All Lad had done was to obey orders, as any dog
of his brain and heart and home training might
have obeyed them. Yet, for some unexplained rea-
son, he had made the Mistress wildly happy. And
that was enough for Lad.

Forgetful of the crowd, he licked at her caress-
ing hands in puppylike ecstasy; then he rolled in
front of her ; growling ferociously and catching one

THE GOLD HAT 209

of her little feet in his mighty jaws, as though to
crush it. This foot-seizing game was Lad's favor-
ite romp with the Mistress. With no one else
would he condescend to play it, and the terrible
white teeth never exerted the pressure of a tenth
of an ounce on the slipper they gripped.

"Laddie!" the Mistress was whispering to him,
"Laddie! You did it, old friend. You did it ter-
ribly badly I suppose, and of course we'll lose. But
we'll 'lose right.' We've made the contest. You
did it!"

And now a lot of noisy and bothersome humans
had invaded the quadrangle and wanted to paw
him and pat him and praise him. Wherefore Lad
at once got to his feet and stood aloofly disdainful
of everything and everybody. He detested paw-
ing; and, indeed, any outsider's handling.

Through the congratulating knot of folk the
Wall Street Farmer elbowed his way to the Mis-
tress.

"Well, well!" he boomed. "I must compliment
you on Lad ! A really intelligent dog. I was sur-
prised. I didn't think any dog could make the
round unless he'd been trained to it. Quite a dog!
But, of course, you had to call to him a good many
times. And you were signaling pretty steadily
every second. Those things count heavily against
you, you know. In fact, they goose-egg your
chances if another entrant can go the round with-
out so much coaching. Now my dog Lochinvar

210 LAD: A DOG

never needs the voice at all and he needs only one
slight gesture for each manceuver. Still, Lad did
very nicely. He — why does the sulky brute pull
away when I try to pat him?"

"Perhaps," ventured the Mistress, "perhaps he
didn't catch your name."

Then she and the Master led Lad back to his
bench where the local contingent made much of
him, and where — after the manner of a high-bred
dog at a Show — he drank much water and would
eat nothing.

When the Mistress went again to the quadrangle,
the crowd was banked thicker than ever, for Loch-
invar III was about to compete for the Maury
Trophy.

The Wall Street Farmer and the English trainer
had delayed the Event for several minutes while
they went through a strenuous dispute. As the
Mistress came up she heard Glure end the argument
by booming:

"I tell you that's all rot. Why shouldn't he
'work' for me just as well as he'd 'work' for you?
I'm his Master, ain't I?"

"No, sir," replied the trainer, glumly. "Only his

owner."

"I've had him a whole week," declared the Wall
Street Farmer, "and I've put him through those
rounds a dozen times. He knows me and he goes
through it all like clockwork for me. Here ! Give
me his leash !"

THE GOLD HAT

He snatched the leather cord from the protest-
ing trainer and, with a yank at it, started with
Lochinvar toward the central post. The aristo-
cratic Merle resented the uncalled-for tug by a
flash of teeth. Then he thought better of the
matter, swallowed his resentment and paced along
beside his visibly proud owner.

A murmur of admiration went through the
crowd at sight of Lochinvar as he moved forward.
The dog was a joy to look on. Such a dog as one
sees perhaps thrice in a lifetime. Such a dog for
perfect beauty, as were Southport Sample, Grey
Mist, Howgill Rival, Sunnybank Goldsmith or
Squire of Tytton. A dog, for looks, that was the
despair of all competing dogdom.

Proudly perfect in carriage, in mist-gray coat, in
a hundred points — from the noble pale-eyed head
to the long massy brush — Lochinvar III made
people catch their breath and stare. Even the Mis-
tress' heart went out — though with a tinge of
shame for disloyalty to Lad — at his beauty.

Arrived at the central post, the Wall Street
Farmer unsnapped th3 leash. Then, one hand on
the Merle's head and the other holding a half-
smoked cigar between two pudgy fingers, he smiled
upon the tense onlookers.

This was his Moment. This was the supreme
moment which had cost him nearly ten thousand
dollars in all. He was due, at last, to win a trophy
that would be the talk of all the sporting universe.

LAD: A DOG

These country-folk who had won lesser prizes from
under his very nose — how they would stare, after
this, at his gun-room treasures !

"Ready, Mr. Glure?" asked the Judge.

"All ready !" graciously returned the Wall Street
Farmer.

Taking a pull at his thick cigar, and replacing
it between the first two fingers of his right hand,
he pointed majestically with the same hand to the
first post.

No word of command was given; yet Lochinvar
moved off at a sweeping run directly in the line
laid out by his owner's gesture.

As the Merle came alongside the post the Wall
Street Farmer snapped his fingers. Instantly
Lochinvar dropped to a halt and stood moveless,
looking back for the next gesture.

This "next gesture" was wholly impromptu. In
snapping his fingers the Wall Street Farmer had
not taken sufficient account of the cigar stub he
held. The snapping motion had brought the fire-
end of the stub directly between his first and second
fingers, close to the palm. The red coal bit deep
into those two tenderest spots of all the hand.

With a reverberating snort the Wall Street
Farmer dropped the cigar-butt and shook his
anguished hand rapidly up and down, in the first
sting of pain. The loose fingers slapped together
like the strands of an obese cat-of-nine-tails.

And this was the gesture which Lochinvar beheld,

THE GOLD HAT 213

as he turned to catch the signal for his next move.

Now, the frantic St. Vitus shaking of the hand
and arm, accompanied by a clumsy step-dance and
a mouthful of rich oaths, forms no signal known to
the very cleverest of "working" collies. Neither
does the inserting of two burned fingers into the
signaler's mouth — which was the second motion the
Merle noted.

Ignorant as to the meaning of either of these
unique signals the dog stood, puzzled. The Wall
Street Farmer recovered at once from his fit of
babyish emotion, and motioned his dog to go on to
the next post.

The Merle did not move. Here, at last, was a
signal he understood perfectly well. Yet, after the
manner of the best-taught "working" dogs, he had
been most rigidly trained from earliest days to finish
the carrying out of one order before giving heed
to another.

He had received the signal to go in one direc-
tion. He had obeyed. He had then received the
familiar signal to halt and to await instructions.
Again he had obeyed. Next, he had received a
wildly emphatic series of signals whose meaning
he could not read. A long course of training told
him he must wait to have these gestures explained
to him before undertaking to obey the simple signal
that had followed.

This, in his training kennel, had been the rule.
When a pupil did not understand an order he must

LAD: A DOG

stay where he was until he could be made to under-
stand. He must not dash away to carry out a
later order that might perhaps be intended for some
other pupil.

Wherefore, the Merle stood stock still. The Wall
Street Farmer repeated the gesture of pointing
toward the next post. Inquiringly, Lochinvar
watched him. The Wall Street Farmer made the
gesture a third time — to no purpose other than to
deepen the dog's look of inquiry. Lochinvar was
abiding, steadfastly, by his hard-learned lessons of
the Scottish moorland days.

Someone in the crowd tittered. Someone else
sang out delightedly:

"Lad wins!"

The Wall Street Farmer heard. And he pro-
ceeded to mislay his easily-losable self control.
Again, these inferior country folk seemed about to
wrest from him a prize he had deemed all his own,
and to rejoice in the prospect.

"You mongrel cur!" he bellowed. "Get along
there!"

This diction meant nothing to Lochinvar, except
that his owner's temper was gone — and with it his
scanty authority.

Glure saw red — or he came as near to seeing it
as can anyone outside a novel. He made a plunge
across the quadrangle, seized the beautiful Merle by
the scruff of the neck and kicked him.

THE GOLD HAT 215

Now, here was something the dog could under-
stand with entire ease. This loud-mouthed vulga-
rian giant, whom he had disliked from the first,
was daring to lay violent hands on him — on Cham-
pion Lochinvar III, the dog-aristocrat that had
always been handled with deference and whose ugly
temper had never been trained out of him.

As a growl of hot resentment went up from the
onlookers, a far more murderously resentful growl
went up from the depths of Lochinvar's furry
throat.

In a flash, the Merle had wrenched free from his
owner's neck-grip. And, in practically the same
moment, his curved eye-teeth were burying them-
selves deep in the calf of the Wall Street Farmer's
leg.

Then the trainer and the judge seized on the
snarlingly floundering pair. What the outraged
trainer said, as he ran up, -would have brought a
blush to the cheek of a waterside bartender. What
the judge said (in a tone of no regret, whatever)
was:

"Mr. Glure, you have forfeited the match by mov-
ing more than three feet from the central post.
But your dog had already lost it by refusing to
'work' at your command. Lad wins the Maury
Trophy."

******

So it was that the Gold Hat, as well as the

216 LAD: A DOG

modest little silver "Best Collie" cup, went to The
Place that night. Setting the golden monstrosity on
the trophy shelf, the Master surveyed it for a mo-
ment; then said:

"That Gold Hat is even bigger than it looks.
It is big enough to hold a thousand yards of sur- '
gical dressings ; and gallons of medicine and broth,
besides. And that's what it is going to hold. To-
morrow I'll send it to Vanderslice, at the Red Cross
Headquarters."

"Good!" applauded the Mistress. "Oh, good!
send it in Lad's name."

"I shall. I'll tell Vanderslice how it was won;
and I'll ask him to have it melted down to buy hos-
pital supplies. If that doesn't take off its curse
of unsportsmanliness, nothing will. I'll get you
something to take its place, as a trophy."

But there was no need to redeem that promise. A
week later, from Headquarters, came a tiny scarlet
enamel cross, whose silver back bore the inscrip-
tion:

"To SUNNYBANK LAD; in memory of a
generous gift to Humanity"

"Its face-value is probably fifty cents, Lad,
dear/' commented the Mistress, as she strung the
bit of scarlet on the dog's shaggy throat. "But its
heart value is at least a billion dollars. Besides —
you can wear it. And nobody, outside a nightmare,

THE GOLD HAT 217

could possibly have worn kind, good Mr. Hugh Les-
ter Maury's Gold Hat. I must write to Mr. Glure
and tell him all about it. How tickled he'll be I
Won't he, Laddie?"

**$«&*

CHAPTER IX
SPEAKING OF UTILITY

THE man huddled frowzily in the tree crotch,
like a rumpled and sick raccoon. At times
he would crane his thin neck and peer about
him, but more as if he feared rescue than as though
he hoped for it.

Then, before slumping back to his sick-raccoon
pose, he would look murderously earthward and
swear with lurid fervor.

At the tree foot the big dog wasted neither time
nor energy in frantic barking or in capering ex-
citedly about. Instead, he lay at majestic ease, gaz-
ing up toward the treed man with grave attentive-
ness.

Thus, for a full half -hour, the two had re-
mained— the treer and the treed. Thus, from pres-
ent signs, they would continue to remain until
Christmas.

There is, by tradition, something intensely comic
in the picture of a man treed by a dog. The man,
in the present case, supplied the only element of
comedy in the scene. The dog was anything but
comic, either in looks or in posture.

218

SPEAKING OF UTILITY

He was a collie, huge of bulk, massive of
shoulder, deep and shaggy of chest. His forepaws
were snowy and absurdly small. His eyes were seal-
dark and sorrowful — eyes that proclaimed not only
an uncannily wise brain, but a soul as well. In
brief, he was Lad; official guard of The Place's
safety.

It was in this role of guard that he was now
serving as jailer to the man he had seen slouching
through the undergrowth of the forest which grew
close up to The Place's outbuildings.

From his two worshipped deities — the Mistress
and the Master — Lad had learned in puppyhood the
simple provisions of the Guest Law. He knew, for
example, that no one openly approaching the house
along the driveway from the furlong-distant high-
road was to be molested. Such a visitor's advent —
especially at night — might lawfully be greeted by a
salvo of barks. But the barks were a mere an-
nouncement, not a threat.

On the other hand, the Law demanded the instant
halting of all prowlers, or of anyone seeking to
get to the house from road or lake by circuitous
and stealthy means. Such roundabout methods
spell Trespass. Every good watchdog knows that.
But wholly good watchdogs are far fewer than most
people — even their owners — realize. Lad was one
of the few.

To-day's trespasser had struck into The Place's
grounds from an adjoining bit of woodland. He

220 LAD: A DOG

had moved softly and obliquely and had made little
furtive dashes from one bit of cover to another,
as he advanced toward the outbuildings a hundred
yards north of the house.

He had moved cleverly and quietly. No human
had seen or heard him. Even Lad, sprawling half-
asleep on the veranda, had not seen him. For, in
spite of theory, a dog's eye by daylight is not so
keen or so far-seeing as is a human's. But the
wind had brought news of a foreign presence on
The Place — a presence which Lad's hasty glance at
driveway and lake edge did not verify.

So the dog had risen to his feet, stretched him-
self, collie-fashion, fore and aft, and trotted quickly
away to investigate. Scent, and then sound, taught
him which way to go.

Two minutes later he changed his wolf trot to
a slow and unwontedly stiff-legged walk, advancing
with head lowered, and growling softly far down
in his throat. He was making straight for a patch
of sumac, ten feet in front of him and a hundred
feet behind the stables.

Now, when a dog bounds toward a man, bark-
ing and with head up, there is nothing at all to be
feared from his approach. But when the pace
slackens to a stiff walk and his head sinks low, that
is a very good time, indeed, for the object of his
attentions to think seriously of escape or of defense.

Instinct or experience must have imparted this
useful truth to the lurker in the sumac patch, for

SPEAKING OF UTILITY

as the great dog drew near the man incontinently
wheeled and broke cover. At the same instant Lad
charged.

The man had a ten-foot start. This vantage he
utilized by flinging himself bodily at a low-forked
hickory tree directly in his path.

Up the rough trunk to the crotch he shinned with
the speed of a chased cat. Lad arrived at the tree
bole barely in time to collect a mouthful of cloth
from the climber's left trouser ankle.

After which, since he was not of the sort to
clamor noisily for what lurked beyond his reach,
the dog yawned and lay down to keep guard on
his arboreal prisoner. For half an hour he lay
thus, varying his vigil once or twice by sniffing
thoughtfully at a ragged scrap of trouser cloth be-
tween his little white forepaws. He sniffed the
thing as though trying to commit its scent tP»
memory.

The man did not seek help by shouting. Instead,
he seemed oddly willing that no other human
should intrude on his sorry plight. A single loud
yell would have brought aid from the stables or
from the house or even from the lodge up by the
gate. Yet, though the man must have guessed this,
he did not yell. Instead, he cursed whisperingly at
intervals and snarled at his captor.

At last, his nerve going, the prisoner drew out
a jackknife, opened a blade at each end of it and
hurled the ugly missile with all his force at the dog.

LAD: A DOG

As the man had shifted his position to get at the
knife, Lad had risen expectantly to his feet with
some hope that his captive might be going to
descend.

It was lucky for Lad that he was standing when
the knife was thrown for the aim was not bad, and
a dog lying down cannot easily dodge. A dog
standing on all fours is different, especially if he
is a collie.

Lad sprang to one side instinctively as the
thrower's arm went back. The knife whizzed,
harmless, into the sumac patch. Lad's teeth bared
themselves in something that looked like a smile
and was not. Then he lay down again on guard.

A minute later he was up with a jump. From
the direction of the house came a shrill whistle
followed by a shout of "Lad! La-ad!"

It was the Master calling him. The summons
could not be ignored. Usually it was obeyed with
eager gladness, but now — Lad looked worriedly
up into the tree. Then, coming to a decision, he
galloped away at top speed.

In ten seconds he was at the veranda where the
Master stood talking with a newly arrived guest.
Before the Master could speak to the dog, Lad
rushed up to him, whimpering in stark appeal, then
ran a few steps toward the stables, paused, looked
back and whimpered again.

"What's the matter with him?" loudly demanded

SPEAKING OF UTILITY

the guest — an obese and elderly man, right sportily
attired. "What ails the silly dog?'*

"He's found something," said the Master.
"Something he wants me to come and see — and he
wants me to come in a hurry."

"How do you know?" asked the guest.

"Because I know his language as well as he knows
mine," retorted the Master.

He set off in the wake of the excited dog. The
guest followed in more leisurely fashion complain-
ing:

"Of all the idiocy! To let a measly dog drag
you out of the shade on a red-hot day like this
just to look at some dead chipmunk he's found !"

"Perhaps," stiffly agreed the Master, not slack-
ening his pace. "But if Lad behaves like that,
unless it's pretty well worth while, he's changed a
lot in the past hour. A man can do worse some-
times than follow a tip his dog gives him."

"Have it your own way," grinned the guest.
"Perhaps he may lead us to a treasure cave or to
a damsel in distress. I'm with you."

"Guy me if it amuses you," said the Master.

"It does," his guest informed him. "It amuses
me to see any grown man think so much of a dog
as you people think of Lad. It's maudlin."

"My house is the only one within a mile on this
side of the lake that has never been robbed," was
the Master's reply. "My stable is the only one in
the same radius that hasn't been rifled by harness-

224 LAD: A DOG

and-tire thieves. Thieves who seem to do their
work in broad daylight, too, when the stables
won't be locked. I have Lad to thank for all that.
He "

The dog had darted far ahead. Now he was
standing beneath a low- forked hickory tree staring
up into it.

"He's treed a cat !" guffawed the guest, his laugh
as irritating as a kick. "Extra ! Come out and get
a nice sunstroke, folks ! Come and see the cat Lad
has treed!"

The Master did not answer. There was no cat
in the tree. There was nothing visible in the tree.
Lad's aspect shrank from hope to depression. He
looked apologetically at the Master. Then he be-
gan to sniff once more at a scrap of cloth on the
ground.

The Master picked up the cloth and presently
walked over to the tree. From a jut of bark
dangled a shred of the same cloth. The Master's
hand went to Lad's head in approving caress.

"It was not a cat," he said. "It was a man.
See the rags of "

"Oh, piffle !" snorted the guest. "Next you'll be
reconstructing the man's middle name and favorite
perfume from the color of the bark on the tree.
You people are always telling about wonderful
stunts of Lad's. And that's all the evidence there
generally is to it."

"No, Mr. Glure," denied th« Master, taking a

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 225

strangle hold on his temper. "No. That's not
quite all the evidence that we have for our brag
about Lad. For instance, we had the evidence of
your own eyes when he herded that flock of
stampeded prize sheep for you last spring, and of
your own eyes again when he won the 'Gold Hat'
cup at the Labor Day Dog Show. No, there's
plenty of evidence that Lad is worth his salt. Let
it go at that. Shall we get back to the house? It's
fairly cool on the veranda. By the way, what was
it you wanted me to call Lad for? You asked to
see him. And "

"Why, here's the idea," explained Glure, as they
made their way through the heat back to the shade
of the porch. "It's what I drove over here to talk,
with you about. I'm making the rounds of all this
region. And, say, I didn't ask to see Lad. I asked
if you still had him. I asked because "

"Oh," apologized the Master. "I thought you
wanted to see him. Most people ask to if he
doesn't happen to be round when they call.
We "

"I asked you if you still had him," expounded
Mr. Glure, "because I hoped you hadn't. I hoped
you were more of a patriot."

"Patriot?" echoed the Master, puzzled.

"Yes. That's why I'm making this tour of the
country: to rouse dog owners to a sense of their
duty. I've just formed a local branch of the Food
Conservation League and "

226 LAD: A DOG

"It's a splendid organization," warmly approved
the Master, "but what have dog owners to "

"To do with it?" supplemented Glure. "They
have nothing to do with it, more's the pity. But
they ought to. That's why I volunteered to make
this canvass. It was my own idea. Some of the
others were foolish enough to object, but as I had
founded and financed this Hampton branch of the
League "

"What 'canvass' are you talking about?" asked
the Master, who was far too familiar with Glure's
ways to let the man become fairly launched on a
paean of self-adulation. "You say it's 'to rouse
dog owners to a sense of their duty.' Along what
line? We dog men have raised a good many
thousand dollars this past year by our Red Cross
shows and by our subscriptions to all sorts of war
funds. The Blue Cross, too, and the Collie Am-
bulance Fund have "

"This is something better than the mere giving
of surplus coin," broke in Glure. "It is something
that involves sacrifice. A needful sacrifice for our
country. A sacrifice that may win the war."

"Count me in on it, then!" cordially approved
the Master. "Count in all real dog men. What
is the 'sacrifice'?"

"It's my own idea," modestly boasted Glure,
adding: "That is, of course, it's been agitated by
other people in letters to newspapers and all that,

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 227

but I'm the first to go out and put it into actual
effect."

"Shoot!" suggested the weary Master.

"That's the very word!" exclaimed Glure.
"That's the very thing I want dog owners to com-
bine in doing. To shoot!"

"To— what?"

"To shoot — or poison — or asphyxiate," ex-
pounded Glure, warming to his theme. "In short,
to get rid of every dog."

The Master's jaw swung ajar and his eyes bulged.
His face began to assume an unbecoming bricky
hue. Glure went on:

"You see, neighbor, our nation is up against it.
When war was declared last month it found us
unprepared. We've got to pitch in and economize.
Every mouthful of food wasted here is a new lease
of life to the Kaiser. We're cutting down on sugar
and meat and fat, but for every cent we save that
way we're throwing away a dollar in feeding our
dogs. Our dogs that are a useless, senseless, costly
luxury! They serve no utilitarian end. They eat
food that belongs to soldiers. I'm trying to
brighten the corner where I am by persuading my
neighbors to get rid of their dogs. When I've
proved what a blessing it is I'm going to inaugurate
a nation-wide campaign from California to New
York, from "

"Hold on!" snapped the Master, finding some of
his voice and, in the same effort, mislaying much

228 LAD: A DOG

of his temper. "What wall-eyed idiocy do you
think you're trying to talk? How many dog men
do you expect to convert to such a crazy doctrine?
Have you tried any others? Or am I the first
mark?"

"I'm sorry you take it this way/' reproved Glure.
"I had hoped you were more broad-minded, but
you are as pig-headed as the rest."

"The 'rest/ hey?" the Master caught him up.
'The 'rest?' Then I'm not the first? I'm glad
they had sense enough to send you packing."

"They were blind animal worshipers, both of
them/' said Glure aggrievedly, "just as you are.
One of them yelled something after me that I sin-
cerely hope I didn't hear aright. If I did, I have
a strong action for slander against him. The other
chucklehead so far forgot himself as to threaten
t© take a shotgun to me if I didn't get off his land."

"I'm sorry!" sighed the Master. "For both of
them seem to have covered the ground so com-
pletely that there isn't anything unique for me to
say — or do. Now listen to me for two minutes.
I've read a few of those anti-dog letters in the
newspapers, but you're the first person I've met in
real life who backs such rot. And I'm going "

"It is not a matter for argument," loftily began
Glure.

"Yes it is," asserted the Master. "Everything
is, except religion and love and toothache. You
say dogs ought to be destroyed as a patriotic duty

SPEAKING OF UTILITY

because they aren't utilitarian. There's where
you're wrong at the very beginning. Dead wrong.
I'm not talking about the big kennels where one
man keeps a hundred dogs as he'd herd so many
prize hogs. Though look what the owners of such
kennels did for the country at the last New York
show at Madison Square Garden! Every penny
of the thousands and thousands of dollars in profits
from the show went to the Red Cross. I'm speak-
ing of the man who keeps one dog or two or even
three dogs, and keeps them as pets. I'm speaking
of myself, if you like. Do you know what it costs
me per week to feed my dogs?"

"I'm not looking for statistics in "

"No, I suppose not. Few fanatics are. Well, I
figured it out a few weeks ago, after I read one
of those anti-dog letters. The total upkeep of all
my dogs averages just under a dollar a week. A
bare fifty dollars a year. That's true. And "

"And that fifty dollars," interposed Glure
eagerly, "would pay for a soldier's "

"It would not!" contradicted the Master, trying
to keep some slight grip on his sliding temper.
"But I can tell you what it would do: Part of it
would go for burglar insurance, which I don't need
now, because no stranger dares to sneak up to my
house at night. Part of it would go to make up
for things stolen around The Place. For instance,
in the harness room of my stable there are five sets
of good harness and two or three extra automobile

230 LAD: A DOG

tires. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the best
of those would be gone now if Lad hadn't just
treed the man who was after them."

"Pshaw!" exploded Glure in fine scorn. "We
saw no man there. There was no proof of "

"There was proof enough for me," continued
the Master. "And if Lad hadn't scented the
fellow one of the other dogs would. As I told
you, mine is the only house — and mine is the only
stable — on this side of the lake that has never
been looted. Mine is the only orchard — and mine
is the only garden — that is never robbed. And
this is the only place, on our side of the lake, where
dogs are kept at large for twelve months of the
year. My dogs' entry fees at Red Cross shows
have more than paid for their keep, and those fees
went straight to charity."

"But—5"

"The women of my family are as safe here, day
and night, as if I had a machine-gun company
on guard. That assurance counts for more than
a little, in peace of mind, back here in the North
Jersey hinterland. I'm not taking into account
the several other ways the dogs bring in cash in-
come to us. Not even the cash Lad turned over
to the Red Cross when we sent that $1600 'Gold
Hat' cup he won, to be melted down. And I'm
not speaking of our dogs' comradeship, and what
that means to us. Our dogs are an asset in every
way — not a liability. They aren't deadheads either.

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 231

For I pay the state tax on them every year.
They're true, loyal, companionable chums, and
they* re an ornament to The Place as well as its
best safeguard. All in return for table scraps and
skim milk and less than a weekly dollar's worth
of stale bread and cast-off butcher-shop bones.
Where do you figure out the 'saving* for the war
chest if I got rid of them?"

"As I said," repeated Glure with cold austerity,
"it's not a matter for argument. I came here hop-
ing to "

"I'm not given to mawkish sentiment," went on
the Master shamefacedly, "but on the day your
fool law for dog exterminating goes into effect
there'll be a piteous crying of little children all
over the whole world — of little children mourning
for the gentle protecting playmates they loved.
And there'll be a million men and women whose
lives have all at once become lonely and empty and
miserable. Isn't this war causing enough crying
and loneliness and' misery without your adding to
it by killing our dogs? For the matter of that,
haven't the army dogs over in Europe been doing
enough for mankind to warrant a square deal for
their stay-at-home brothers? Haven't they?"

"That's a mass of sentimental bosh," declared
Glure. "All of it."

"It is," willingly confessed the Master. "So are
most of the worth-while things in life, if you re-
duce them to their lowest terms."

232 LAD: A DOG

"You know what a fine group of dogs I had,"
said Glure, starting off on a new tack. "I had a
group that cost me, dog for dog, more than any
other kennel in the state. Grand dogs too. You
remember my wonderful Merle, for instance,
and "

"And your rare 'Prussian sheep dog' — or was it
a prune-hound? — that a Chicago man sold to you
for $1100," supplemented the Master, swallowing
a grin. "I remember. I remember them all.
What then?"

"Well," resumed Glure, "no one can accuse me
of not practicing what I preach. I began this
splendid campaign by getting rid of every dog I
owned. So I "

"Yes," agreed the Master. "I read all about
that last month in your local paper. Distemper had
run through your kennel, and you tried doctoring
the dogs on a theory of your own instead of send-
ing for a vet. So they all died. Tough luck f Or
perhaps you got rid of them that way on purpose?
For the good of the Cause? I'm sorry about the
Merle. He was "

"I see there's no use talking to you," sighed
Glure in disgust, ponderously rising and waddling
toward his car. "I'm disappointed ; because I hoped
you were less bone-brained and more patriotic than
these yokels round here."

"I'm not," cheerily conceded the Master. "I'm
not, I'm glad to say. Not a bit."

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 233

"Then," pursued Glure, climbing into the car,
''since you feel that way about it, I suppose there's
no use asking you to come to the little cattle show
I'm organizing for week after next, because that's
for the Food Conservation League too. And since
you're so out of sympathy with "

"I'm not out of sympathy with the League," as-
serted the Master. "Its card is in our kitchen
window. We've signed its pledge and we're boost-
ing it in every way we know how, except by killing
our dogs; and that's no part of the League's pro-
gramme, as you know very well. Tell me more
about the cattle show."

"It's a neighborhood affair," said Glure sulkily,
yet eager to secure any possible entrants. "Just
a bunch of home-raised cattle. Cup and rosette
for best of each recognized breed, and the usual
ribbons for second and third. Three dollars an
entry. Only one class for each breed. Every en-
trant must have been raised by the exhibitor.
Gate admission fifty cents. Red Cross to get the
gross proceeds. I've offered the use of my south
meadow at Glure Towers — just as I did for the
specialty dog show. I've put up a hundred dollars
toward the running expenses too. Micklesen's to
judge."

"I don't go in for stock raising," said the Master.
"My little Alderney heifer is the only head of
quality stock I ever bred. I doubt if she is worth
taking up there, but I'll be glad to take her if only

234 LAD: A DOG

to swell the competition list. Send me a blank,
please."

Lad trotted dejectedly back to the house as
Glure's car chugged away up the drive. Lad was
glumly unhappy. He had had no trouble at all in
catching the scent of the man he had treed. He
had followed the crashingly made trail through
undergrowth and woodland until it had emerged
into the highroad.

And there, perforce, Lad had paused. For,
taught from puppyhood, he knew the boundaries
of The Place as well as did the Mistress or the
Master, and he knew equally well that his own
jurisdiction ended at those boundaries. Beyond
them he might not chase even the most loathed in-
truder. The highroad was sanctuary.

Wherefore at the road edge he stopped and
turned slowly back. His pursuit was ended, but
not his anger, nor his memory of the marauder's
scent. The man had trespassed slyly on The Place.
He had gotten away unpunished. These things
rankled in the big dog's mind. . . .

It was a pretty little cattle show and staged in
a pretty setting withal — at Glure Towers, two
weeks later. The big sunken meadow on the verge
of the Ramapo River was lined on two sides with
impromptu sheds. The third side was blocked by
something between a grand stand and a marquee.
The tree-hung river bordered the fourth side. In the

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 235

field's center was the roped-off judging inclosure
into which the cattle, class by class, were to be led.

Above the pastoral scene brooded the archi-
tectural crime, known as The Towers — homestead
and stronghold of Hamilcar Q. Glure, Esquire.

Glure had made much money in Wall Street —
a crooked little street that begins with a grave-
yard and ends in a river. Having waxed inde-
cently rich, he had erected for himself a hideously
expensive estate among the Ramapo Mountains
and had settled down to the task of patronizing
his rural neighbors. There he elected to be known
as the "Wall Street Farmer," a title that delighted
not only himself but everyone else in the region.

There was, in this hinterland stretch, a friendly
and constant rivalry among the natives and other
old residents in the matter of stock raising. Horses,
cattle, pigs, chickens, even a very few sheep were
bred for generations along lines which their divers
owners had laid out — lines which those owners
fervently believed must some day produce per-
fection.

Each owner or group of owners had his own
special ideas as to the best way to produce this
super-stock result. The local stock shows formed
the only means of proving or disproving the ex-
cellence of the varied theories. Hence these shows
were looked upon as barnyard supreme courts.

Mr. Glure had begun his career in the neighbor-
hood with a laudable aim of excelling everybody

236 LAD: A DOG

else in everything. He had gone, heart and soul,
into stock producing and as he had no breeding
theories of his own he proceeded to acquire a set.
As it would necessarily take years to work out
these beliefs, he bridged the gap neatly by pur-
chasing and importing prize livestock and by enter-
ing it against the home-raised products of his
neighbors.

Strangely enough, this did not add to the popu-
larity which he did not possess. Still more
strangely, it did not add materially to his prestige
as an exhibitor, for the judges had an exasper-
ating way of handing him a second or third prize
ribbon and then of awarding the coveted blue
rosette to the owner and breeder of some local
exhibit.

After a long time it began to dawn upon Glure
that narrow neighborhood prejudice deemed it un-
sportsmanlike to buy prize stock and exhibit it as
one's own. At approximately the same time three
calves were born to newly imported prize cows in
the two-acre model barns of Glure Towers, and
with them was born Glure's newest idea.

No one could deny he had bred these calves him-
self. They were born on his own place and of
his own high-pedigreed cattle. Three breeds were
represented among the trio of specimens. By
points and by lineage they were well-nigh peerless.
Wherefore the plan for a show of neighborhood

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 237

"home-raised" cattle. At length Glure felt he was
coming into his own.

The hinterland folk had fought shy of Glure
since the dog show wherein he had sought to win
the capital prize by formulating a set of conditions
that could be filled by no entrant except a newly
imported champion Merle of his own.

But the phrase "home-raised" now proved a bait
that few of the region's stock lovers could resist;
and on the morning of the show no fewer than
fifty-two cattle of standard breeds were shuffling
or lowing in the big impromptu sheds.

A farm hand, the day before, had led to the
show ground The Place's sole entrant — the pretty
little Alderney heifer of which the Master had
spoken to Glure and which, by the way, was des-
tined to win nothing higher than a third-prize
ribbon.

For that matter, to end the suspense, the best
of the three Glure calves won only a second prize,
all the first for their three breeds going to two
nonplutocratic North Jerseymen who had bred the
ancestors of their entrants for six generations.

The Mistress and the Master motored over to
Glure Towers on the morning of the show in their
one car. Lad went with them. He always went
with them.

Not that any dog could hope to find interest in
a cattle show, but a dog would rather go anywhere
with his Master than to stay at home without him.

238 LAD: A DOG

Witness the glad alacrity wherewith the weariest
dog deserts a snug fireside in the vilest weather for
the joy of a master-accompanying walk.

A tire puncture delayed the trip. The show was
about to begin when the car was at last parked
behind the sunken meadow. The Mistress and the
Master, with Lad at their heels, started across the
meadow afoot toward the well-filled grand-stand.

Several acquaintances in the stand waved to them
as they advanced. Also, before they had traversed
more than half the meadow's area their host bore
down upon them.

Mr. Glure (dressed, as usual, for the Occasion)
looked like a blend of Landseer's "Edinburgh
Drover" and a theater-program picture of "What
the Man Will Wear."

He had been walking beside a garishly liveried
groom who was leading an enormous Holstein
bull toward the judging enclosure. The bull was
steered by a five- foot bar, the end snapped to a
ring in his nose.

"Hello, good people !" Mr. Glure boomed, pump-
handling the unenthusiastic Mistress' right hand
and bestowing a jarringly annoying slap upon the
Master's shoulder. "Glad to see you ! You're late.
Almost too late for the best part of the show.
Before judging begins, I'm having some of my
choicest European stock paraded in the ring. Just
for exhibition, you know. Not for a contest. I

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 239

like to give a treat to some of these farmers who
think they know how to breed cattle."

"Yes?" queried the Master, who could think of
nothing cleverer to say.

"Take that bull, Tenebris, of mine, for instance,"
proclaimed Glure, with a wave toward the ap-
proaching Holstein and his guide. "Best ton of

livestock that ever stood on four legs. Look how

I »

Glure paused in his lecture for he saw that both
the Mistress and the Master were staring, not at
the bull, but at the beast's leader. The spectacle
of a groom in gaudy livery, on duty at a cattle
show, was all but too much for their gravity.

"You're looking at that boy of mine, hey?
Fine, well-set-up chap, isn't he? A faithful boy.
Devoted to me. Slavishly devoted. Not like most
of these grumpy, independent Jersey rustics. Not
much. He's a treasure, Winston is. Used to be
chief handler for some of the biggest cattle breed-
ers in the East he tells me. I got hold of him by
chance, and just by the sheerest good luck, a week
or so ago. Met him on the road and he asked for
a lift. He "

It was then that Lad disgraced himself and his
deities, and proved himself all unworthy to appear
in so refined an assembly. The man in livery had
convoyed the bull to within a few feet of the
proudly exhorting Glure. Now, without growl or

240 LAD: A DOG

other sign of warning, the hitherto peaceable dog
changed into a murder machine.

In a single mighty bound he cleared the narrow-
ing distance between himself and the advancing
groom.

The leap sent him hurtling through the air, an
eighty-pound furry catapult, straight for the man's
throat.

Over and beyond the myriad cattle odors, Lad
had suddenly recognized a scent that spelt deathless
hatred. The scent had been verified by a single
glance at the brilliantly clad man in livery. Where-
fore the mad charge.

The slashing jaws missed their mark in the man's
throat by a bare half inch. That they missed it
at all was because the man also recognized Lad,
and shrank back in mortal terror.

Even before the eighty-pound weight, smashing
against his chest, sent the groom sprawling back-
ward to the ground, Lad's slashing jaws had found
a hold in place of the one they had missed.

This grip was on the liveried shoulder, into which
the fangs sank to their depth. Down went the man,
screaming, the dog atop of him.

"Lad!" cried the Mistress, aghast. "Lad!"

Through the avenging rage that misted his brain
the great dog heard. With a choking sound that
was almost a sob he relinquished his hold and turned
slowly from his prey.

The Master and Glure instinctively took a step

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 241

toward the approaching dog and the writhingly
prostrate man. Then, still more instinctively, and
without even coming to a standstill before going
into reverse, they both sprang back. They would
have sprung further had not the roped walls of the
show ring checked them.

For Tenebris had taken a sudden and active part
in the scene.

The gigantic Holstein during his career in
Europe had trebly won his title to champion. And
during the three years before his exportation to
America he had gored to death no fewer than three
over-confident stable attendants. The bull's homi-
cidal temper, no less than the dazzling price offered
by Glure, had caused his owner to sell him to the
transatlantic bidder.

A bull's nose is the tenderest spot of his anatomy.
Next to his eyes, he guards its safety most zealously.
Thus, with a stout leading-bar between him and his
conductor, Tenebris was harmless enough.

But the conductor just now had let go of that
bar, as Lad's weight had smitten him. Freed, Tene-
bris had stood for an instant in perplexity.

Fiercely he flung his gnarled head to one side
to see the cause of the commotion. The gesture
swung the heavy leading-bar, digging the nose ring
cruelly into his sensitive nostrils. The pain mad-
dened Tenebris. A final plunging twist of the head
— and the bar's weight tore the nose ring free from
the nostrils.

LAD:^A DOG*

Tenebris bellowed thunderously at the climax of
pain. Then he realized he had shaken off the only
thing that gave humans a control over him. A sec-
ond bellow — a furious pawing of the earth — and
the bull lowered his head. His evil eyes glared
about him in search of something to kill.

It was the sight of this motion which sent the
Master and Glure recoiling against the show-ring
ropes.

In almost the same move the Master caught up
his wife and swung her over the top rope, into the
ring. He followed her into that refuge's fragile
safety with a speed that held no dignity whatever.
Glure, seeing the action, wasted no time in wriggling
through the ropes after him.

Tenebris did not follow them.

One thing and only one his red eyes saw: On the
ground, not six feet away, rolled and moaned a
man. The man was down. He was helpless. Tene-
bris charged.

A bull plunging at a near-by object shuts both
eyes. A cow does not. Which may — or may not
— explain the Spanish theory that bullfights are
safer than cow-fights. To this eye-closing trait
many a hard-pressed matador has owed his life.

Tenebris, both eyes screwed shut, hurled his
2OOO-pound bulk at the prostrate groom. Head
down, nose in, short horns on a level with the
earth and barely clearing it, he made his rush.

But at the very first step he became aware that

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 243

something was amiss with his pleasantly antici-
pated charge. It did not follow specifications or
precedent.

All because a heavy something had flung its
weight against the side of his lowered head, and a
new and unbearable pain was torturing his blood-
filled nostrils.

Tenebris swerved. He veered to one side,
throwing up his head to clear it of this unseen tor-
ment.

As a result, the half -lifted horns grazed the
fallen man. The pointed hoofs missed him alto-
gether. At the same moment the weight was gone
from against the bull's head, and the throbbing stab
from his nostrils.

Pausing uncertainly, Tenebris opened his eyes
and glared about him. A yard or two away a
shaggy dog was rising from the tumble caused by
the jerky uptossing of the bull's head.

Now, were this a fiction yarn, it would be inter-
esting to devise reasons why Lad should have flown
to the rescue of a human whom he loathed, and
arrayed himself against a fellow-beast toward
which he felt no hatred at all.

To dogs all men are gods. And perhaps Lad
felt the urge of saving even a detested god from
the onslaught of a beast. Or perhaps not. One can
go only by the facts. And the- facts were that the
collie had checked himself in the reluctant journey

£44 LAD: A DOG

toward the Mistress and had gone to his foe's
defense.

With a flash of speed astonishing in so large and
sedate a dog, he had flown at the bull in time —
in the barest time — to grip the torn nostrils and
turn the whirlwind charge.

And now Tenebris shifted his baleful glare from
the advancing dog to the howling man. The dog
could wait. The bull's immediate pleasure and pur-
pose were to kill the man.

He lowered his head again. But before he could
launch his enormous bulk into full motion — before
he could shut his eyes — the dog was between him
and his quarry.

In one spring Lad was at the bull's nose. And
again his white eye teeth slashed the ragged nostrils.
Tenebris halted his own incipient rush and strove
to pin the collie to the ground. It would have been
as easy to pin a whizzing hornet.

Tenebris thrust at the clinging dog, once more
seeking to smash Lad against the sod with his bat-
tering-ram forehead and his short horns. But Lad
was not there. Instead, he was to the left, his
body clean out of danger, his teeth in the bull's left
ear.

A lunge of the tortured head sent Lad rolling
over and over. But by the time he stopped rolling
he was on his feet again. Not only on his feet,
but back to the assault. Back, before his unwieldy
foe could gauge the distance for another rush at the

SPEAKING OF UTILITY £45

man. And a keen nip in the bleeding nostrils balked
still one more charge.

The bull, snorting with rage, suddenly changed
his plan of campaign. Apparently his first ideas
had been wrong. It was the man who could wait,
and the dog that must be gotten out of the way.

Tenebris wheeled and made an express-train rush
at Lad. The collie turned and fled. He did not flee
with tail down, as befits a beaten dog. Brush wav-
ingly aloft, he gamboled along at top speed, just
a stride or two ahead of the pursuing bull. He
even looked back encouragingly over his shoulder
as he went.

Lad was having a beautiful time. Seldom had
he been so riotously happy. All the pent-up mis-
chief in his soul was having a glorious airing.

The bull's blind charge was short, as a bull's
charge always is. When Tenebris opened his eyes
he saw the dog, not ten feet in front of him, scam-
pering for dear life toward the river. And again
Tenebris charged.

Three such charges, one after another, brought
pursuer and pursued to within a hundred feet of
the water.

Tenebris was not used to running. He was get-
ting winded. He came to a wavering standstill,
snorting loudly and pawing up great lumps of sod.

But he had not stood thus longer than a second
before Lad was at him. Burnished shaggy coat
a-bristle, tail delightedly wagging, the dog bounded

246 LAD: A DOG

forward. He set up an ear-splitting fanfare of
barking.

Round and round the bull he whirled, never let-
ting up on that deafening volley of barks; nipping
now at ears, now at nose, now at heels; dodging
in and out under the giant's clumsy body; easily
avoiding the bewilderingly awkward kicks and
lunges of his enemy. Then, forefeet crouching and
muzzle close to the ground, like a playful puppy,
he waved his plumed tail violently and, in a new
succession of barks, wooed his adversary to the
attack.

It was a pretty sight. And it set Tenebris into
active motion at once.

The bull doubtless thought he himself was doing
the driving, by means of his panting rushes, and
by his lurches to one side or another to keep away
from the dog's sharp bites. But he was not. It
was Lad who chose the direction in which they
went. And he chose it deliberately.

Presently the two were but fifteen feet away
from the river, at a point where the bank shelved,
cliff -like, for two or three yards, down to a wide
pool.

Feinting for the nose, Lad induced Tenebris to
lower his tired head. Then he sprang lightly over
the threatening horns, and landed, a-scramble, with
all four feet, on the bull's broad shoulders.

Scurrying along the heaving back, the dog nipped
Tenebris on the hip, and dropped to earth again.

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 247

The insult, the fresh pain, the astonishment com-
bined to make Tenebris forget his weariness. Beside
himself with maniac wrath, he shut both eyes and
launched himself forward. Lad slipped, eel-like,
to one side. Carried by his own blind momentum,,
Tenebris shot over the bank edge.

Too late the bull looked. Half sliding, half
scrambling, he crashed down the steep sides of the
bank and into the river.

Lad, tongue out, jogged over to the top of the
bank, where, with head to one side and ears cocked,
he gazed interestedly down into the wildly churned
pool.

Tenebris had gotten to his feet after the ducking ;
and he was floundering pastern-deep in stickily soft
mud. So tightly bogged down that it later took
the efforts of six farm-hands to extricate him, the
bull continued to flounder and to bellow.

A. stream of people were running down the
meadow toward the river. Lad hated crowds. He
made a loping detour of the nearest runners and
sought to regain the spot where last he had seen
the Mistress and Master. Also, if his luck held
good, he might have still another bout with the man
he had once treed. Which would be an ideal climax
to a perfect day.

He found all the objects of his quest together.
The groom, hysterical, was swaying on his feet, sup-
ported by Glure.

rAt sight of the advancing collie the bitten man

248 LAD: A DOG

cried aloud in fear and clutched his employer for
protection.

'Take him away, sir!" he babbled in mortal
terror. "He'll kill me! He hates me, the ugly
hairy devil! He hates me. He tried to kill me
once before! He "

"H'm!" mused the Master. "So he tried to kill
you once before, eh? Aren't you mistaken?"

"No, I ain't!" wept the man. "I'd know him in
a million ! That's why he went for me again to-day.
He remembered me. I seen he did. That's no dog.
It's a devil!"

"Mr. Glure," asked the Master, a light dawning,
"when this chap applied to you for work, did he
wear grayish tweed trousers? And were they in
bad shape?"

"His trousers were in rags," said Glure. "I re-
member that. He said a savage dog had jumped
into the road from a farmhouse somewhere and
gone for him. Why?"

"Those trousers," answered the Master, "weren't
entire strangers to you. You'd seen the missing
parts of them — on a tree and on the ground near it,
at The Place. Your 'treasure* is the harness thief
Lad treed the day you came to see me. So "

"Nonsense!" fumed Glure. "Why, how absurd!
He "

"I hadn't stolen nothing !" blubbered the man. "I
was coming cross-lots to a stable to ask for work.

SPEAKING OF UTILITY 249

And the brute went for me. I had to run up a
tree and "

"And it didn't occur to you to shout for help?"
sweetly urged the Master. "I was within call. So
was Mr. Glure. So was at least one of my men.
An honest seeker for work needn't have been afraid
to halloo. A thief would have been afraid to. In
fact, a thief was!'3

"Get out of here, you!" roared Glure, convinced
at last. "You measly sneak thief! Get out or I'll
have you jailed! You're an imposter! A pan-
handler! A "

The thief waited to hear no more. With an ap-
prehensive glance to see that Lad was firmly held,
he bolted for the road.

"Thanks for telling me," said Glure. "He might
have stolen everything at Glure Towers if I hadn't
found out. He "

"Yes. He might even have stolen more than
the cost of our non-utilitarian Lad's keep," unkindly
suggested the Master. "For that matter, if it hadn't
been for a non-utilitarian dog, that mad bull's horns,
instead of his nostrils, would be red by this time.
At least one man would have been killed. Perhaps
more. So, after all "

He stopped. The Mistress was tugging surrep-
titiously at his sleeve. The Master, in obedience to
his wife's signal, stepped aside, to light a cigar.

"I wouldn't say any more, dear, if I were you,"
the Mistress was whispering. "You see, if it hadn't

250 LAD: A DOG

been for Lad, the bull would never have broken
loose in the first place. By another half -hour that
fact may dawn on Mr. Glure, if you keep rubbing
it in. Let's go over to the grand stand. Come,
Lad!"

CHAPTER X
THE KILLER

ONE of the jolliest minutes in Lad's daily
cross-country tramp with the Mistress and
the Master was his dash up Mount Pisgah.
This "mount" was little more than a foothill. It
was treeless, and covered with short grass and mul-
lein; a slope where no crop but buckwheat could
be expected to thrive. It rose out of the adjoining
mountain forests in a long and sweeping ascent.

Here, with no trees or undergrowth to impede
him, Lad, from puppyhood, had ordained a race-
course of his own. As he neared the hill he would
always dash forward at top speed; flying up the
rise like a tawny whirlwind, at unabated pace, until
he stopped, panting and gloriously excited, on the
summit ; to await his slower-moving human escorts.
One morning in early summer, Lad, as usual,
bounded ahead of the Mistress and the Master, as
they drew near to the treeless "mount." And, as
ever, he rushed gleefully forward for his daily
breather, up the long slope. But, before he had
gone fifty yards, he came to a scurrying halt, and
stood at gaze. His back was bristling and his lips

251

252 LAD: A DOG

curled back from his white teeth in sudden annoy-
ance.

His keen nostrils, even before his eyes, told him
something was amiss with his cherished race-track.
The eddying shift of the breeze, from west to north,
had brought to his nose the odor which had checked
his onrush; an odor that wakened all sorts of
vaguely formless memories far back in Lad's brain ;
and which he did not at all care for.

Scent is ten times stronger, to a dog, than is
sight. The best dog is near sighted. And the
worst dog has a magic sense of smell. Wherefore,
a dog almost always uses his nose first and his eyes
last. Which Lad now proceeded to do.

Above him was the pale green hillside, up which
he loved to gallop. But its surface was no longer
smoothly unencumbered. Instead, it was dotted
and starred — singly or in groups — with fluffy gray-
ish-white creatures.

Lad was almost abreast of the lowest group of
sheep when he paused. Several of the feeding
animals lifted their heads, snortingly, from the short
herbage, at sight of him ; and fled up the hill. The
rest of the flock joined them in the silly stampede.

The dog made no move to follow. Instead, his
forehead creased and his eyes troubled, he stared
after the gray-white surge that swept upward to-
ward the summit of his favored coursing ground.
The Mistress and the Master, too, at sight of the
woolly avalanche, stopped and staredl

THE KILLER 253

From over the brow of Mount Pisgah appeared
the non-picturesque figure of a man in blue denim
overalls — one Titus Romaine, owner of the sparse-
grassed hill. Drawn by the noisy multiple patter
of his flock's hoofs, he emerged from under a hill-
top boulder's shade; to learn the cause of their
flight.

Now, in all his life, Lad had seen sheep just once
before. That one exception had been when Hamil-
car Q. Glure, "the Wall Street Farmer," had cor-
ralled a little herd of his prize Merinos, overnight,
at The Place, on the way to the Paterson Livestock
Show. On that occasion, the sheep had broken from
the corral, and Lad, acting on ancestral instinct,
had rounded them up, without injuring or scaring
one of them.

The memory was not pleasing to Lad, and he
wanted nothing more to do with such stupid crea-
tures. Indeed, as he looked now upon the sheep
that were obstructing his run, he felt a distinct aver-
sion to them. Whining a little, he trotted back to
where stood the Mistress and the Master. And, as
they waited, Titus Romaine bore wrath fully down
upon them.

"I've been expectin* something like that!" an-
nounced the land-owner. "Ever since I turned
these critters out here, this mornin'. I ain't sur-
prised a bit. I "

"What is it you've been expecting, Romaine?"
asked the Master. "And how long have you been

254 LAD: A DOG

a sheep-raiser? A sheep, here in the North Jersey
hinterland, is as rare as "

"I been expectin' some savage dog would be
runnin' 'em," retorted the farmer. "Just like I've
read they do. An' now I've caught him at it !"

"Caught whom? — at what?" queried the per-
plexed Mistress; failing to note the man's baleful
glower at the contemptuous Lad.

"That big ugly brute of your'n, of course," de-
clared Romaine. "I caught him, red-handed, run-
nin' my sheep. He "

"Lad did nothing of the kind," denied the Mis-
tress. "The instant he caught sight of them he
stopped running. Lad wouldn't hurt anything that
is weak and helpless. Your sheep saw him and they
ran away. He didn't follow them an inch."

"I seen what I seen," cryptically answered the
man. "An' I give you fair warnin', if any of my
sheep is killed, I'll know right where to come to look
for the killer."

"If you mean Lad " began the Master, hotly.

But the Mistress intervened.

"I am glad you have decided to raise sheep, Mr.
Romaine," she said. "Everyone ought to, who can.
I read, only the other day, that America is using
up more sheep than it can breed ; and that the price
of fodder and the scarcity of pasture were doing
terrible things to the mutton-and-wool supply. I
hope you'll have all sorts of good luck. And you
are wise to watch your sheep so closely. But don't

THE KILLER 255

be afraid of Lad harming any of them. He
wouldn't, for worlds, I know. Because I know
Lad. Come along, Laddie!" she finished, as she
turned to go away.

But Titus Romaine stopped her.

"I've put a sight of money into this flock of
sheep," he declared. "More'n I could reely afford.
An' I've been readin' up on sheep, too. I've been
readin' that the worst en' my to sheep is 'pred'tory
dogs.' An' if that big dog of your'n ain't 'pred-
'tory,' then .1 never seen one that was. So I'm
warnin' you, fair •"

"If your sheep come to any harm, Mr. Romaine/*
returned the Mistress, again forestalling an untact-
f ul outbreak from her husband, "I'll guarantee Lad
will have nothing to do with it."

"An' I'll guarantee to have him shot an* have
you folks up in court, if he does," chivalrously
retorted Mr. Titus Romaine.

With which exchange of goodfellowship, the
two groups parted, Romaine returning to his scat-
tered sheep, while the Mistress, Lad at her heels,
lured the Master away from the field of encounter.
The Master was fuming.

"Here's where good old Mr. Trouble drops in on
us for a nice long visit!" he grumbled, as they
moved homeward. "I can see how it is going to
turn out. Because a few stray curs have chased
or killed sheep, now and then, every decent dog
is under suspicion as a sheep-killer. If one of

£56 LAD: A DOG

Romaine's wethers gets a scratch on its leg, from
a bramble, Lad will be blamed. If one of the mon-
grels from over in the village should chase his
sheep, Lad will be accused. And we'll be in the
first 'neighborhood squabble' of our lives."

The Master spoke with a pessimism his wife
did not share, and which he, himself, did not really
believe. The folk at The Place had always lived
in goodfellowship and peace with their few rural
neighbors, as well as with the several hundred in-
habitants of the mile-distant village, across the
lake. And, though livestock is the foundation of
ninety rustic feuds out of ninety-one, the dogs of
The Place had never involved their owners in any
such row.

Yet, barely three days later, Titus Romaine bore
down upon The Place, before breakfast, breathing
threatenings and complaining of slaughter.

He was waiting on the veranda in blasphemous
converse with The Place's foreman, when the Mas-
ter came out. At Titus's heels stood his "hired
man" — a huge and sullen person named Schwartz,
who possessed a scarce-conquered accent that fitted
the name.

"Well !" orated Romaine, in glum greeting, as he
sighted the Master. "Well, I guessed right! He
done it, after all ! He done it. We all but caught
him, red-handed. Got away with four of my best
sheep ! Four of 'em. The cur !"

"What are you talking about?" demanded the

THE KILLER 257

Master, as the Mistress, drawn by the visitor's plan-
gent tones, joined the veranda-group. ' 'Bout that
ugly big dog of your'n!" answered Romaine. "I
knew what he'd do, if he got the chance. I knew
it, when I saw him runnin' my poor sheep, last
week. I warned you then. The two of you. An'
now he's done it!"

"Done what?" insisted the Master, impatient of
the man's noise and fury.

"What dog?" asked the Mistress, at the same
time.

"Are you talking about Lad? If you are "

"I'm talkin' about your big brown collie cur!"
snorted Titus. "He's gone an' killed four of my
best sheep. Did it in the night an' early this morn-
in'. My man here caught him at the last of 'em,
an' drove him off, just as he was finishin' the poor
critter. He got away with the rest of 'em."

"Nonsense!" denied the Master. "You're talk-
ing rot. Lad wouldn't touch a sheep. And "

"That's what all folks say when their dogs or
their children is charged with doin' wrong !" scoffed
Romaine. "But this time it won't do no good

"You say this happened last night?" interposed
the Mistress.

"Yes, it did. Last night an' early in the mornin',
too. Schwartz, here "

"But Lad sleeps in the house, every night," ob-
jected the Mistress. "He sleeps under the piano*

258 LAD: A DOG

in the music room. He has slept there every night
since he was a puppy. The maid who dusts the
downstairs rooms before breakfast lets him out,
when she begins work. So he "

"Bolster it up any way you like!" broke in Ro-
maine. "He was out last night, all right. An* early;
this morning, too."

"How early ?" questioned the Master.

"Five o'clock," volunteered Schwartz, speaking
up, from behind his employer. " I know, because
that's the time I get up. I went out, first thing,
to open the barnyard gate and drive the sheep to
the pasture. First thing I saw was that big dog
growling over a sheep he'd just killed. He saw
me, and he wiggled out through the barnyard bars
— same way he had got in. Then I counted the
sheep. One was dead, — the one he had just killed —
and three were gone. We've been looking for their
bodies ever since, and we can't find them."

"I suppose Lad swallowed them," ironically put
in The Place's foreman. "That makes about as
much sense as the rest of the yarn. The Old Dog
would no sooner "

"Do you really mean to say you saw Lad — saw
and recognised him — in Mr. Titus's barnyard,
growling over a sheep he had just killed?" de-
manded the Mistress.

"I sure do," affirmed Schwartz. "And I "

"An' he's ready to go on th' stand an* take oath
to it !" supplemented Titus. "Unless you'll pay me

THE KILLER 259

the damages out of court. Them sheep cost me
exac'ly $12.10 a head, in the Pat'son market, one
week ago. An' sheep on the hoof has gone up a
full forty cents more since then. You owe me for
them four sheep exac'ly "

"I owe you not one red cent !" denied the Master.
"I hate law worse than I hate measles. But I'll
fight that idiotic claim all the way up to the Appel-
late Division before I'll "

The Mistress lifted a little silver whistle that
hung at her belt and blew it. An instant later
Lad came galloping gaily up the lawn from the lake,
adrip with water from his morning swim. Straight,
at the Mistress' summons, he came, and stood, ex-
pectant, in front of her, oblivious of others.

The great dog's mahogany-and-snow coat shone
wetly in the sunshine. Every line of his splendid
body was tense. His eyes looked up into the face
of the loved Mistress in eager anticipation. For
a whistle-call usually involved some matter of more
than common interest.

"That's the dog !" cried Schwartz, his thick voice
betraying a shade more of its half-lost German
accent, in the excitement of the minute. "That's the
one. He has washed off the blood. But that is
the one. I could know him anywhere at all. And
I knew him, already. And Mr. Romaine told me
to be looking out for him, about the sheep, too.
So I "

The Master had bent over Lad. examining the

260 LAD: A DOG

dog's mouth. "Not a trace of blood or of wool!*'
he announced. "And look how he faces us! If
he had anything to be ashamed of "

"I got a witness to prove he killed my sheep,"
cut in Romaine. "Since you won't be honest
enough to square the case out of court, then the
law'll take a tuck in your wallet for you. The law
will look after a poor man's int'rest. I don't won-
der there's folks who want all dogs done 'way with.
Pesky curs ! Here, the papers say we are short on
sheep, an' they beg us to raise 'em, because mutton
is worth double what it used to be, in open market.
Then, when I buy sheep, on that sayso, your dog
gets four of 'em the very first week. Think what
them four sheep would 'a meant to "

"I'm sorry you lost them," the Master inter-
rupted. "Mighty sorry. And I'm still sorrier if
there is a sheep-killing dog at large anywhere in
this region. But Lad never "

"I tell ye, he did!" stormed Titus. "I got proof
of it. Proof good enough for any court. An' the
court is goin' to see me righted. It's goin' to do
more. It's goin' to make you shoot that killer,
there, too. I know the law. I looked it up. An'
the law says if a sheep-killin' dog "

"Lad is not a sheep-killing dog !" flashed the Mis-
tress.

"That's what he is!" snarled Romaine. "An',
by law, he'll be shot as sech. He "

"Take your case to law, then !" retorted the Mas-

THE KILLER 261

ter, whose last shred of patience went by the board,
at the threat. "And take it and yourself off my
Place! Lad doesn't 'run' sheep. But, at the word
from me, he'll ask nothing better than to 'run' you
and your German every step of the way to your own
woodshed. Clear out!"

He and the Mistress watched the two irately
mumbling intruders plod out of sight up the drive.
Lad, at the Master's side, viewed the accusers' de-
parture with sharp interest. Schooled in reading
the human voice, he had listened alertly to the
Master's speech of dismissal. And, as the dog
listened, his teeth had come slowly into view from
beneath a menacingly upcurled lip. His eyes, half
shut, had been fixed on Titus with an expression
that was not pretty.

"Oh, dear!" sighed the Mistress miserably, as
she and her husband turned indoors and made their
way toward the breakfast room. "You were right
about 'good old Mr. Trouble dropping in on us/
Isn't it horrible? But it makes my blood boil to
think of Laddie being accused of such a thing.
It is crazily absurd, of course. But "

"Absurd?" the Master caught her up. "It's the
most absurd thing I ever heard of. If it was
about any other dog than Lad, it would be good
for a laugh. I mean, Romaine's charge of the
dog's doing away with no less than four sheep
and not leaving a trace of more than one of them.
That, alone, would get his case laughed out of

LAD: A DOG

court. I remember, once in Scotland, I was stop-
ping with some people whose shepherd complained
that three of the sheep had fallen victim to a
'killer/ We all went up to the moor-pasture to
look at them. They weren't a pretty sight, but
they were all there. A dog doesn't devour a sheep
he kills. He doesn't even lug it away. Instead, he
just "

"Perhaps you'd rather describe it after break-
fast," suggested the Mistress, hurriedly. "This
wretched business has taken away all of my ap-
petite that I can comfortably spare."

At about mid-morning of the next day, the
Master was summoned to the telephone.

"This is Maclay," said the voice at the far end.

"Why, hello, Mac!" responded the Master,
mildly wondering why his old fishing-crony, the
village's local Peace Justice, should be calling him
up at such an hour. "If you're going to tell me
this is a good day for small-mouth bass to bite I'm
going to tell you it isn't. It isn't because I'm up
to my neck in work. Besides, it's too late for the
morning fishing, and too early for the bass to get
up their afternoon appetites. So don't try to tempt
me into "

"Hold on!" broke in Maclay. "I'm not calling
you up for that. I'm calling up on business ; rotten
unpleasant business, too."

"What's wrong?" asked the Master.

"I'm hoping Titus Romaine is," said the Justice.

THE KILLER 263

"He's just been here — with his North Prussian
hired man as witness — to make a complaint about
your dog, Lad. Yes, and to get a court order to
have the old fellow shot, too."

"What!" sputtered the Master. "He hasn't
actually "

"That's just what he's done," said Maclay. "He
claims Lad killed four of his new sheep night be-
fore last, and four more of them this morning or
last night. Schwartz swears he caught Lad at the
last of the killed sheep both times. It's hard luck,
old man, and I feel as bad about it as if it were
my own dog. You know how strong I am for
Lad. He's the greatest collie I've known, but the
law is clear in such "

"You speak as if you thought Lad was guilty!"
flamed the Master. "You ought to know better
than that. He "

"Schwartz tells a straight story," answered
Maclay, sadly, "and he tells it under oath. He
swears he recognized Lad first time. He says he
volunteered to watch in the barnyard last night.
He had had a hard day's work and he fell asleep
while he was on watch. He says he woke up in
gray dawn to find the whole flock in a turmoil, and
Lad pinning one of the sheep to the ground. He
had already killed three. Schwartz drove him
away. Three of the sheep were missing. One Lad
had just downed was dying. Romaine swears he
saw Lad 'running' his sheep last week. It "

264 LAD: A DOG

"What did you do about the case?*' asked the
dazed Master.

"I told them to be at the courtroom at three this
afternoon with the bodies of the two dead sheep
that aren't missing, and that I'd notify you to be
there, too."

"Oh, I'll be there!" snapped the Master. "Don't
worry. And it was decent of you to make them
wait. The whole thing is ridiculous! It "

"Of course," went on Maclay, "either side can
easily appeal from any decision I make. That is
.as regards damages. But, by the township's new
sheep-laws, I'm sorry to say there isn't any appeal
from the local Justice's decree that a sheep-killing
dog must be shot at once. The law leaves me no
option if I consider a dog guilty of sheep-killing.
I have to order such a dog put to death at once.
That's what's making me so blue. I'd rather lose
a year's pay than have to order old Lad killed."

"You won't have to," declared the Master,
stoutly; albeit he was beginning to feel a nasty
sinking in the vicinity of his stomach.

"We'll manage to prove him innocent. I'll stake
anything you like on that."

"Talk the case over with Dick Col fax or any
other good lawyer before three o'clock," suggested
Maclay. "There may be a legal loophole out of
the muddle. I hope to the Lord there is."

"We're not going to crawl out through any
'loopholes/ Lad and I," returned the Master.

THE KILLER 265

"We're going to come through, dean. See if we
don't !"

Leaving the telephone, he went in search of the
Mistress, and more and more disheartened told her
the story.

"The worst of it is," he finished, "Romaine and
Schwartz seem to have made Maclay believe their
fool yarn."

"That is because they believe it, themselves," said
the Mistress, "and because, just as soon as even
the most sensible man is made a Judge, he seems
to lose all his common sense and intuition and be-
come nothing but a walking statute-book. But
you — you think for a moment, do you, that they
can persuade Judge Maclay to have Lad shot?'

She spoke with a little quiver in her sweet voice
that roused all the Master's fighting spirit.

"Thte Place is going to be in a state of siege
against the entire law and militia of New Jersey,"
he announced, "before one bullet goes into Lad.
You can put your mind to rest on that. But that
isn't enough. I want to clear him. In these days
of 'conservation* and scarcity, it is a grave offense
to destroy any meat-animal. And the loss of eight
sheep in two days — in a district where there has
been such an effort made to revive sheep rais-
ing "

"Didn't you say they claim the second lot of
sheep were killed in the night and at dawn, just

266 LAD: A DOG

as they said the first were ?" interposed the Mistress.

"Why, yes. But "

"Then/* said the Mistress, much more comfort-
ably, "we can prove Lad's alibi just as I said yes-
terday we could. Marie always lets him out in
the morning when she comes downstairs to dust these
lower rooms. She's never down before six o'clock;
and the sun, nowadays, rises long before that.
Schwartz says he saw Lad both times in the early
dawn. We can prove, by Marie, that Lad was safe
here in the house till long after sunrise."

Her worried frown gave way to a smile of posi-
tive inspiration. The Master's own darkling face
cleared.

"Good!" he approved. "I think that cinches it.
Marie's been with us for years. Her word is cer-
tainly as good as a Boche farmhand's. Even
Maclay's 'judicial temperament' will have to admit
that. Send her in here, won't you?"

When the maid appeared at the door of the
study a minute later, the Master opened the ex-
amination with the solemn air of a legal veteran.

"You are the first person down here in the morn-
ings, aren't you, Marie?" he began.

"Why, yes, sir," replied the wondering maid.
"Yes, always, except when you get up early to go
fishing or when "

"What time do you get down here in the morn-
ings," pursued the Master.

"Along about six o'clock, sir, mostly," said the

THE KILLER 267

maid, bridling a bit as if scenting a criticism of
her work-hours.

"Not earlier than six?" asked the Master.

"No, sir," said Marie, uncomfortably. "Of
course, if that's not early enough, I suppose I
could "

"It's quite early enough/* vouchsafed the Master.
"There is no complaint about your hours. You al-
ways let Lad out as soon as you come into the
music room?"

"Yes, sir," she answered, "as soon as I get down-
stairs. Those were the orders, you remember."

The Master breathed a silent sigh of relief. The
maid did not get downstairs until six. The dog,
then, could not get out of the house until that
hour. If Schwartz had seen any dog in the Ro-
maine barnyard at daybreak, it assuredly was not
Lad. Yet, racking his brain, the Master could not
recall any other dog in the vicinity that bore even
the faintest semblance to his giant collie. And
he fell to recalling — from his happy memories of
"Bob, Son of Battle"— that "Killers" often travel
many miles from home to sate their mania for
sheep-slaying.

In any event, it was no concern of his if some
distant collie, drawn to the slaughter by the queer
"sixth" collie-sense, was killing Romaine's new
flock of sheep. Lad was cleared. The maid's very
evidently true testimony settled that point.

"Yes, sir," rambled on Marie, beginning to take

268 LAD: A DOG

a faint interest in the examination now that it
turned upon Lad whom she loved. "Yes, sir,
Laddie always comes out from under his piano the
minute he hears my step in the hall outside. And
he always comes right up to me and wags that big
plume of a tail of his, and falls into step alongside
of me and walks over to the front door, right be-
side me all the way. He knows as much as many
a human, that dog does, sir."

Encouraged by the Master's approving nod, the
maid ventured to enlarge still further upon the
theme.

"It always seems as if he was welcoming me
downstairs, like," she resumed, "and glad to see
me. I've really missed him quite bad this past few
mornings." The approving look on the Master's
face gave way to a glare of utter blankness.

"This past few mornings?" he repeated, blither-
ingly. "What do you mean?"

"Why," she returned, flustered afresh by the
quick change in her interlocutor's manner. "Ever
since those French windows are left open for the
night — same as they always are when the hot
weather starts in, you know, sir. Since then,
Laddie don't wait for me to let him out. When
he wakes up he just goes out himself. He used
to do that last year, too, sir. He "

"Thanks," muttered the Master, dizzily. "That's
all. Thanks,"

Left alone, he sat slumped low in his chair, try-

THE KILLER 269

ing to think. He was as calmly convinced as ever
of his dog's innocence, but he had staked every-
thing on Marie's court testimony. And, now, that
testimony was rendered worse than worthless.

Crankily he cursed his own fresh-air mania
which had decreed that the long windows on the
ground floor be left open on summer nights. With
Lad on duty, the house was as safe from success-
ful burglary in spite of these open windows, as if
guarded by a squad of special policemen. And the
night-air, sweeping through, kept it pleasantly cool
against the next day's heat. For this same cool-
ness, a heavy price was now due.

Presently the daze of disappointment passed
leaving the Master pulsing with a wholesome fight-
ing-anger. Rapidly he revised his defense and,
with the Mistress* far cleverer aid, made ready for
the afternoon's ordeal. He scouted Maclay's sug-
gestion of hiring counsel and vowed to handle the
defense himself. Carefully he and his wife went
over their proposed line of action.

Peace Justice Maclay's court was held daily in
a rambling room on an upper floor of the village's
Odd Fellows' Hall. The proceedings there were
generally marked by shrewd sanity rather than by
any effort at formalism. Maclay, himself, sat at
a battered little desk at the room's far end; his
clerk using a corner of the same desk for the
scribbling of his sketchy notes.

In front of the desk was a rather long deal table

£70 LAD: A DOG

with kitchen chairs around it. Here, plaintiffs and
defendants and prisoners and witnesses and law-
yers were wont to sit, with no order of precedent
or of other formality. Several other chairs were
ranged irregularly along the wall to accommodate
any overflow of the table's occupants.

Promptly at three o'clock that afternoon, the
Mistress and the Master entered the courtroom.
Close at the Mistress' side — though held by no
leash — paced Lad. Maclay and Romaine and
Schwartz were already on hand. So were the clerk
and the constable and one or two idle spectators.
At a corner of the room, wrapped in burlap, were
huddled the bodies of the two slain sheep.

Lad caught the scent of the victims the instant
he set foot in the room, and he sniffed vibrantly
once or twice. Titus Romaine, his eyes fixed
scowlingly on the dog, noted this, and he nudged
Schwartz in the ribs to call the German's attention
to it.

Lad turned aside in fastidious disgust from the
bumpy burlap bundle. Seeing the Judge and recog-
nizing him as an old acquaintance, the collie wagged
his plumed tail in gravely friendly greeting and
stepped forward for a pat on the head.

"Lad!" called the Mistress, softly.

At the word the dog paused midway to the em-
barrassed Maclay's desk and obediently turned
back. The constable was drawing up a chair at
the deal table for the Mistress. Lad curled down

THE KILLER 271

beside her, resting one snowy little forepaw pro-
tectingly on her slippered foot. And the hearing
began.

Romaine repeated his account of the collie's
alleged depredations, starting with Lad's first view
of the sheep. Schwartz methodically retold his
own story of twice witnessing the killing of sheep
by the dog.

The Master did not interrupt either narrative,
though, on later questioning he forced the sulkily
truthful Romaine to admit he had not actually seen
Lad chase the sheep-flock that morning on Mount
Pisgah, but had merely seen the sheep running, and
the dog standing at the hill- foot looking upward
at their scattering flight. Both the Mistress and
the Master swore that the dog on that occasion, had
made no move to pursue or otherwise harass the
sheep.

Thus did Lad win one point in the case. But,
in view of the after-crimes wherewith he was
charged, the point was of decidedly trivial value.
Even if he had not attacked the flock on his first
view of them he was accused of killing no less than
eight of their number on two later encounters.
And Schwartz was an eye-witeness to this —
Schwartz, whose testimony was as clear and as
simple as daylight.

With a glance of apology at the Mistress, Judge
Maclay ordered the sheep-carcasses taken from

LAD: A DOG

their burlap cerements and laid on the table for
court-inspection.

While he and Schwartz arranged the grisly ex-
hibits for the judge's view, Titus Romaine ex-
patiated loudly on the value of the murdered sheep
and on the brutally useless wastage in their slay-
ing. The Master said nothing, but he bent over
each of the sheep, carefully studying the throat-
wounds. At last he straightened himself up from
his task and broke in on Romaine's Antony-like
funeral-oration by saying quietly :

"Your honor, these sheep's throats were not cut
by a dog. Neither by Lad nor by any 'killer/ Look
for yourself. I've seen dog-killed sheep. The
wounds were not at all like these." ^

"Not killed by a dog, hey?" loudly sdoffed
Romaine. "I s'pose they was chewed by lightnin',
then? Or, maybe they was bit by a skeeter?
Huh!"

"They were not bitten at ?.ll," countered the
Master. "Still less, were they chewed. Look!
Those gashes are ragged enough, but they are as
straight as if they were made by a machine. If
ever you have seen a dog worry a piece of
meat "

"Rubbish!" grunted Titus. "You talk like a
fool! The sheeps' throats is torn. Schwartz seen
your cur tear 'em. That's all there is to it.
Whether he tore 'em straight or whether he tore

THE KILLER 273

'em crooked don't count in Law. He tore 'em.
An' I got a reli'ble witness to prove it."

"Your Honor," said the Master, suddenly. "May
I interrogate the witness?"

Maclay nodded. The Master turned to Schwartz,
who faced him in stolid composure.

"Schwartz," began the Master, "you say it was
light enough for you to recognize the sheep-killing
dog both mornings in Romaine's barnyard. How
near to him did you get?"

Schwartz pondered for a second, then made care-
ful answer:

"First time, I ran into the barnyard from the
house side and your dog cut and run out of it from
the far side when he saw me making for him.
That time, I don't think I got within thirty feet
of him. But I was near enough to see him plain,
and I'd seen him often enough before on the road
or in your car; so I knew him all right. The next
time — this morning, Judge — I was within five feet
of him, or even nearer. For I was near enough to
hit him with the stick I'd just picked up and to
land a kick on his ribs as he started away. I saw
him then as plain as I see you. And nearer than
I am to you. And the light was 'most good enough
to read by, too."

"Yes?" queried the Master. "If I remember
rightly you told Judge Maclay that you were on
watch last night in the cowshed, just alongside the

274 LAD: A DOG

barnyard where the sheep were; and you fell
asleep; and woke just in time to see a dog "

"To see your dog " corrected Schwartz.

"To see a dog growling over a squirming and
bleating sheep he had pulled down. How far away
from you was he when you awoke?"

"Just outside the cowshed door. Not six feet
from me. I ups with the stick I had with me and
ran out at him and "

"Were he and the sheep making much noise?"

"Between 'em they was making enough racket
to wake a dead man," replied Schwartz. "What
with your dog's snarling and growling, and the
poor sheep's bl'ats. And all the other sheep "

"Yet, you say he had killed three sheep while
you slept there — had killed them and carried or
dragged their bodies away and come back again;
and, presumably started a noisy panic in the flock
every time. And none of that racket waked you
until the fourth sheep was killed?"

"I was dog-tired," declared Schwartz. "I'd been
at work in our south-mowing for ten hours the
day before, and up since five. Mr. Romaine can
tell you I'm a hard man to wake at best. I sleep
like the dead."

"That's right!" assented Titus. "Time an'
again, I have to bang at his door an' holler myself
hoarse, before I can get him to open his eyes. My
wife says he's the sleepin'est sleeper "

"You ran out of the shed with your stick," re-

THE KILLER 275

sumed the Master, "and struck the dog before he
could get away? And as he turned to run you
kicked him?"

"Yes, sir. That's what I did."

"How hard did you hit him?"

"A pretty good lick," answered Schwartz, with
reminiscent satisfaction. "Then I "

"And when you hit him he slunk away like a
whipped cur? He made no move to resent it? I
mean, he did not try to attack you?"

"Not him!" asserted Schwartz, "I guess he was
glad enough to get out of reach. He slunk away
so fast, I hardly had a chance to land fair on him,
when I kicked."

"Here is my riding-crop," said the Master.
"Take it, please, and strike Lad with it just as you
struck him — or the sheep-killing dog — with your
stick. Just as hard. Lad has never been struck
except once, unjustly, by me, years ago. He has
never needed it. But if he would slink away like
a whipped mongrel when a stranger hits him, the
sooner he is beaten to death the better. Hit him
exactly as you hit him this morning."

Judge Maclay half -opened his lips to protest.
He knew the love of the people of The Place for
Lad, and he wondered at this invitation to a farm-
hand to thrash the dog publicly. He glanced at
the Mistress. Her face was calm, even a little
amused. Evidently the Master's request did not
horrify or surprise her.

276 LAD: A DOG

Schwartz's stubby fingers gripped the crop the
Master forced into his hand.

With true Teutonic relish for pain-inflicting, he
swung the weapon aloft and took a step toward
the lazily recumbent collie, striking with all his
strength.

Then, with much-increased speed, Schwartz took
three steps backward. For, at the menace, Lad had
leaped to his feet with the speed of a fighting
wolf, eluding the descending crop as it swished
past him and launching himself straight for the
wielder's throat. He did not growl; he did not
pause. He merely sprang for his assailant with a
deadly ferocity that brought a cry from Maclay.

The Master caught the huge dog midway in his
throatward flight.

"Down, Lad !" he ordered, gently.

The collie, obedient to the word, stretched him-
self on the floor at the Mistress' feet. But he kept
a watchful and right unloving eye on the man who
had struck at him.

"It's a bit odd, isn't it," suggested the Master,
"that he went for you, like that, just now; when,
this morning, he slunk away from your blow, in
cringing fear?"

"Why wouldn't he?" growled Schwartz, his
stolid nerve shaken by the unexpected onslaught.
"His folks are here to back him up, and every-
thing. Why wouldn't he go for me! He was
slinky enough when I whaled him, this morning."

THE KILLER 277

"H'm!" mused the Master. "You hit a strong
blow, Schwartz. I'll say that, for you. You
missed Lad, with my crop. But you've split the
crop. And you scored a visible mark on the
wooden floor with it Did you hit as hard as that
when you struck the sheep-killer, this morning?"

"A sight harder, responded Schwartz. "My
mad was up. I "

"A dog's skin is softer than a pine floor/' said
the Master. "Your Honor, such a blow would
have raised a weal on Lad's flesh, an inch high.
Would your Honor mind passing your hand ove,r
his body and trying to locate such a weal?"

"This is all outside the p'int !" raged the annoyed
Titus Romaine. "You're a-dodgin' the issue, I tell
ye. I "

"If your Honor please!" insisted the Master.

The judge left his desk and whistled Lad across
to him. The dog looked at his Master, doubtfully.
The Master nodded. The collie arose and walked
in leisurely fashion over to the waiting judge.
Maclay ran an exploring hand through the magnifi-
cent tawny coat, from head to haunch; then along
the dog's furry sides. Lad hated to be handled
by anyone but the Mistress or the Master. But at
a soft word from the Mistress, he stood stock still
and submitted to the inspection.

"I find no weal or any other mark on him,"
presently reported the Judge.

The Mistress smiled happily. The whole investi-

278 LAD: A DOG

gation, up to this point, and further, was along
eccentric lines she herself had thought out and had
suggested to her husband. Lines suggested by her
knowledge of Lad.

"Schwartz," went on the Master, interrupting
another fuming outbreak from Romaine, "I'm
afraid you didn't hit quite as hard as you thought
you did, this morning; or else some other dog is
carrying around a big welt on his flesh, to-day.

Now for the kick you say you gave the collie.
j »

"I won't copy that, on your bloodthirsty dog!"
vociferated Schwartz. "Not even if the Judge
jails me for contempt, I won't. He'd likely kill
me!"

"And yet he ran from you, this morning," the
Master reminded him. "Well, I won't insist on
your kicking Lad. But you say it was a light
kick ; because he was running away when it landed.
I am curious to know just how hard a kick it was.
In fact, I'm so curious about it that I am going to
offer myself as a substitute for Lad. My riding
boot is a good surface. Will you kindly kick me
there, Schwartz ; as nearly as possible with the same
force (no more, no less) than you kicked the dog?"

"I protest!" shouted Romaine. "This measly
tomfoolishness is "

"If your Honor please!" appealed the Master
sharply; turning from the bewildered Schwartz to
the no less dismayed Judge.

THE KILLER 279

Maclay was on his feet to overrule so strange a
request. But there was keen supplication in the
Master's eye that made the Judge pause. Maclay
glanced again at the Mistress. In spite of the pros-
pect of seeing her husband kicked, her face wore a
most pleased smile. The Judge noted, though, that
she was stroking Lad's head and that she was un-
obtrusively turning that head so that the dog faced
Schwartz.

"Now, then!" adjured the Master. "Whenever
you're ready, Schwartz! A German doesn't get a
chance, like this, every day, to kick an American.
And I'll promise not to go for your throat, as Lad-
die tried to. Kick away!'

Awkwardly, shamblingly, Schwartz stepped for-
ward. Urged on by his racial veneration for the
Law — and perhaps not sorry to assail the man
whose dog had tried to throttle him — he drew back
his broganed left foot and kicked out in the gen-
eral direction of the calf of the Master's thick rid-
ing boot.

The kick did not land. Not that the Master
dodged or blocked it. He stood moveless, and
grinning expectantly. "\

But the courtroom shook with a wild-beast yell
— a yell of insane fury. And Schwartz drew back
his half-extended left foot in sudden terror; as a
great furry shape came whizzing through the air
at him.

The sight of the half -delivered kick, at his wor-

280 LAD: A DOG

shipped master, had had precisely the effect on Lad
that the Mistress had foreseen when she planned
the manoeuver. Almost any good dog will attack
a man who seeks to strike its owner. And Lad
seemed to comprehend that a kick is a more con-
temptuous affront than is a blow.

Schwartz's kick at the Master had thrown the
adoring dog into a maniac rage against this defiler
of his idol. The memory of Schwartz's blow at
himself was as nothing to it. It aroused in the
collie's heart a deathless blood-feud against the
man. As the Mistress had known it would.

The Mistress* sharp command, and the Master's
hastily outflung arm barely sufficed to deflect Lad's
charge. He writhed in their dual grasp, snarling
furiously, his eyes red; his every giant muscle
strained to get at the cowering Schwartz.

"We've had enough of this!" imperatively or-
dained Maclay, above the babel of Titus Romaine's
protests. "In spite of the informality of hearing,
this is a court of law: not a dog-kennel. I "

"I crave your Honor's pardon," apologized the
Master. "I was merely trying to show that Lad is
not the sort of dog to let a stranger strike and kick
him as this man claims to have done with impunity.
I think I have shown, from Lad's own regrettable
actions, that it was some other dog — if any —
which cheered Romaine's barnyard, this morning,
and yesterday morning.

"It was your dog!" cried Schwartz, getting his

THE KILLER 281

breath, in a swirl of anger. "Next time I'll be on
watch with a shotgun and not a stick. I'll "

"There ain't going to be no 'next time/ " asserted
the equally angry Romaine. "Judge, I call on you
to order that sheep-killer shot; an' to order his
master to indemnify me for th' loss of my eight
killed sheep!"

"Your Honor!" suavely protested the Master,
"may I ask you to listen to a counter-proposition?
A proposition which I think will be agreeable to
Mr. Romaine, as well as to myself?"

"The only proposition /'// agree to, is the shootin'
of that cur and the indemnify in' of me for my
sheep !" persisted Romaine.

Maclay waved his hand for order; then, turning
to the Master, said :

"State your proposition."

"I propose," began the Master, "that Lad be
paroled, in my custody, for the space of twenty-
four hours. I will deposit with the court, here and
now, my bond for the sum of one thousand dollars ;
to be paid, on demand, to Titus Romaine; if one or
more of his sheep are killed by any dog, during that
space of time."

The crass oddity of the proposal set Titus's
leathery mouth ajar. Even the Judge gasped aloud
at its bizarre terms. Schwartz looked blank, until,
little by little, the purport of the words sank into
his slow mind. Then he permitted himself the rare
luxury of a chuckle.

LAD: A DOG

"Do I und'stand you to say," demanded Titus
Romaine, of the Master, "that if I'll agree to hold
up this case for twenty-four hours you'll give me
one thousan' dollars, cash, for any sheep of mine
that gets killed by dogs in that time?"

"That is my proposition," returned the Master.
"To cinch it, I'll let you make out the written ar-
rangement, your self. And I'll give the court a bond
for the money, at once, with instructions that the
sum is to be paid to you, if you lose one sheep,
through dogs, in the next day. I furthermore agree
to shoot Lad, myself, if you lose one or more sheep
in that time, and in that way, I'll forfeit another
thousand if I fail to keep that part of my contract.
How about it?"

"I agree!" exclaimed Titus.

Schwartz's smile, by this time, threatened to split
his broad face across. Maclay saw the Mistress'
cheek whiten a little; but her aspect betrayed no
worry over the possible loss of a thousand dollars
and the far more painful loss of the dog she loved.

When Romaine and Schwartz had gone, the Mas-
ter tarried a moment in the courtroom.

"I can't make out what you're driving at," Maclay
told him. "But you seem to me to have done a
mighty foolish thing. To get a thousand dollars
Romaine is capable of scouring the whole country
for a sheep-killing dog. So is Schwartz — if only
to get Lad shot. Did you see the way Schwartz
looked at Lad as he went out? He hates him."

THE KILLER 283

"Yes," said the Master. "And I saw the way
Lad looked at him. Lad will never forget that
kick at me. He'll attack Schwartz for it, if they
come together a year from now. That's why we
arranged it. Say, Mac; I want you to do me a
big favor. A favor that comes within the square
and angle of your work. I want you to go fishing
with me, to-night. Better come over to dinner and
be prepared to spend the night. The fishing won't
start till about twelve o'clock/'

"Twelve o'clock!" echoed Maclay. "Why, man,
nothing but catfish will bite at that hour.
And I "

"You're mistaken," denied the Master. "Much
bigger fish will bite. Much bigger. Take my word
for that. My wife and I have it all figured out.
I'm not asking you in your official capacity; but
as a friend. I'll need you, Mac. It will be a big
favor to me. And if I'm not wrong, there'll be
sport in it for you, too. I'm risking a thousand
dollars and my dog, on this fishing trip. Won't you
risk a night's sleep? I ask it as a worthy and dis-
tressed "

"Certainly," assented the wholly perplexed Judge,
impressed, "but I don't get your idea at all. I "

"I'll explain it before we start," promised the
Master. "All I want, now, is for you to commit
yourself to the scheme. If it fails, you won't lose
anything, except your sleep. Thanks for saying
you'll come."

£84 LAD: A DOG

At a little after ten o'clock that night the last
light in Titus Romaine's farmhouse went out. A1
few moments later the Master got up from a rock
on Mount Pisgah's summit, on which he and
Maclay had been sitting for the past hour. Lad,
at their feet, rose expectantly with them.

"Come on, old Man," said the Master. "Well
drop down there, now. It probably means a long
wait for us. But it's better to be too soon than
too late; when I've got so much staked. If we're
seen, you can cut and run. Lad and I will cover
your retreat and see you aren't recognized. Steady,
there, Lad. Keep at heel."

Stealthily the trio made their way down the hill
to the farmstead at its farther base. Silently they
crept along the outer fringe of the home-lot, until
they came opposite the black-gabled bulk of the
barn. Presently, their slowly cautious progress
brought them to the edge of the barnyard, and to
the rail fence which surrounds it. There they
halted.

From within the yard, as the huddle of drowsy
sheep caught the scent of the dog, came a slight
stirring. But, after a moment, the yard was quiet
again.

"Get that?" whispered the Master, his mouth
close to Maclay 's ear. "Those sheep are supposed
to have been raided by a killer-dog, for the past
two nights. Yet the smell of a dog doesn't even
make them bleat. If they had been attacked by

THE KILLER 285

any dog, last night, the scent of Lad would throw
them into a panic."

"I get something else, too," replied Maclay, in
the same ail-but soundless whisper. "And I'm
ashamed I didn't think of it before. Romaine said
the dog wriggled into the yard through the bars,
and out again the same way. Well, if those bars
were wide enough apart for an eighty-pound collie,
like Lad, to get through, what would there be to
prevent all these sheep from escaping, the same way,
any time they wanted to ? I'll have a look at those
bars before I pass judgment on the case. I begin
to be glad you and your wife coerced me into this
adventure."

"Of course, the sheep could have gotten through
the same bars that the dog did," answered the
Master. "For, didn't Romaine say the dog not only
got through, but dragged three dead sheep through,
after him, each night, and hid them somewhere,
where they couldn't be found ? No man would keep
sheep in a pen as open as all that. The entire
story is full of air-holes."

Lad, at a touch from his Master, had lain softly
down at the men's feet, beside the fence. And so,
for another full hour, the three waited there.

The night was heavily overcast; and, except for
the low drone of distant tree-toads and crickets,
it was deathly silent. Heat lightning, once in a
while, played dimly along the western horizon.

"Lucky for us that Romaine doesn't keep a dog !"

286 LAD: A DOG

whispered Maclay. "He'd have raised the alarm
before we got within a hundred yards of here."

"He told my foreman he gave his mongrel dog
away, when he stocked himself with sheep. And
he's been reading a lot of rot about dogs being non-
utilitarian, too. His dog would have been anything
but non-utilitarian, to-night."

A touch on the sleeve from Maclay silenced the
rambling whisper. Through the stillness, a house
door shut very softly, not far away. An instant
later, Lad growled throatily, and got to his feet,
tense and fiercely eager.

"He's caught Schwartz's scent!" whispered the
Master, exultantly. "Now, maybe you understand
why I made the man try to kick me ? Down, Lad !
Quiet!"

At the stark command in the Master's whisper,
Lad dropped to earth again ; though he still rumbled
deeply in his throat, until a touch from the Master's
fingers and a repeated "Quiet" silenced him.

The hush of the night was disturbed, once more —
very faintly. This time, by the muffled padding of
a man's bare feet, drawing closer to the barnyard.
Lad as he heard it made as if to rise. The Master
tapped him lightly on the head, and the dog sank
to the ground again, quivering with hard-held rage.

The clouds had piled thicker. Only by a dim
pulsing of far-away heat lightning could the watch-
ers discern the shadowy outline of a man, moving
silently between them and the far side of the yard.

THE KILLER 287

By the tiny glow of lightning they saw his silhou-
ette.

By Lad's almost uncontrollable trembling they
knew who he must be.

There was another drowsy stirring of the sheep ;
checked by the reassuring mumble of a voice the
animals seemed to know. And, except for the
stealthy motion of groping feet, the barnyard
seemed as empty of human life as before.

Perhaps a minute later another sulphur-gleam of
lightning revealed the intruder to the two men who
crouched behind the outer angle of the fence. He
had come out of the yard, and was shuffling away.
But he was fully a third wider of shoulder now,
and he seemed to have two heads, as his silhouette
dimly appeared and then vanished.

"See that?" whispered the Master. "He has a
sheep slung over his back. Probably with a cloth
wrapped around its head to keep it quiet. We will
give him twenty seconds' start and then "

"Good!" babbled Maclay, in true buck-ague fever
of excitement. "It's worked out, to a charm ! But
how in the blazes can we track him through this
dark? It's as black as the inside of a cow. And
if we show the flashlights "

"Trust Lad to track him," rejoined the Master,
who had been slipping a leash around the dog's low-
growling throat. "That's what the old fellow's
here for. He has a kick to punish. He would fol-

288 LAD: A DOG

low Schwartz through the Sahara desert, if he had
to. Come on."

Lad, at a word from the Master, sprang to the
end of the leash, his mighty head and shoulders
straining forward. The Master's reiterated
"Quiet !" alone kept him from giving tongue. And
thus the trio started the pursuit.

Lad went in a geometrically straight line, swerv-
ing not an inch; with much difficulty held back to
the slow walk on which the Master insisted. There
was more than one reason for this insistence. Not
only did the two men want to keep far enough
behind Schwartz to prevent him from hearing their
careful steps; but Lad's course was so uncompro-
misingly straight that it led them over a hundred
obstacles and gullies which required all sorts of skill
to negotiate.

For at least two miles, the snail-like progress con-
tinued; most of the way through woods. At last,
with a gasp, the Master found himself wallowing
knee-deep in a bog. Maclay, a step behind him, also
plunged splashingly into the soggy mire.

"What's the matter with the dog?" grumpily de-
manded the Judge. "He's led us into the Pancake
Hollow swamp. Schwartz never in the world car-
ried a ninety pound sheep through here."

"Maybe not," puffed the Master. "But he has
carried it over one of the half-dozen paths that lead
through this marsh. Lad is in too big a hurry to
bother about paths. He "

THE KILLER 289

Fifty feet above them, on a little mid-swamp
knoll, a lantern shone. Apparently, it had just been
lighted. For it waxed brighter in a second or so.
The men saw it and strode forward at top speed.
The third step caused Maclay to stumble over a
hummock and land, noisily, on all fours, in a mud-
pool. As he fell, he swore — with a loud distinct-
ness that rang through the swampy stillnesses, like
a pistol shot.

Instantly, the lantern went out. And there was a
crashing in among the bushes of the knoll.

"After him!" yelled Maclay, floundering to his
feet. "He'll escape! And we have no real proof
who he is or "

The Master, still ankle-high in sticky mud, saw
the futility of trying to catch a man who, unim-
peded, was running away, along a dry-ground path.
There was but one thing left to do. And the Master
did it.

Loosening the leash from the dog's collar he
shouted :

"Get him, Laddie! Get him!"

There was a sound as of a cavalry regiment gal-
loping through shallow water. That and a queerly
ecstatic growl. And the collie was gone.

As fast as possible the two men made for the
base of the knoll. They had drawn forth their
electric torches; and these now made the progress
much swifter and easier.

Nevertheless, before the Master had set foot on

290 LAD: A DOG

the first bit of firm ground, all pandemonium burst
forth amid the darkness, above and in front of him.

The turmoil's multiple sounds were indescrib-
able, blending into one wild cacophony the yells
and stamping of a fear-demented man, the bleats
of sheep, the tearing of underbrush — through and
above and under all — a hideous subnote as of a
rabid beast worrying its prey.

It was this undercurrent of sound which put
wings on the tired feet of Maclay and the Master,
as they dashed up the knoll and into the path lead-
ing east from it. It spoke of unpleasant — not ta
say gruesome — happenings. So did the swift
change of the victim's yells from wrath to mortal
terror.

"Back Lad!" called the Master, pantingly, as he
ran. "Back! Let him alone!"

And as he cried the command he rounded a turn
in the wooded path.

Prone on the ground, writhing like a cut snake
and frantically seeking to guard his throat with
his slashed forearm, sprawled Schwartz. Crouch-
ing above him — right unwillingly obeying the Mas-
ter's belated call — was Lad.

The dog's great coat was a-bristle. His bared
teeth glinted white and blood-flecked in the electric
flare. His soft eyes were blazing.

"Back!" repeated the Master. "Back here!"

Absolute obedience was the first and foremost of
The Place's few simple dog-rules. Lad had learned

THE KILLER 291

it from earliest puppyhood. The collie, still shak-
ing all over with the effort of repressing his fury,
turned slowly and came over to his Master. There
he stood stonily awaiting further orders.

Maclay was on his knees beside the hysterically
moaning German roughly telling him that the dog
would do him no more damage, and at the same
time making a quick inspection of the injuries
wrought by the slashing white fangs in the shield-
ing arm and its shoulder.

"Get up!" he now ordered. "You're not too
badly hurt to stand. Another minute and he'd have
gotten through to your throat, but your clothes
saved you from anything worse than a few ugly
flesh-cuts. Get up! Stop that yowling and get
up!"

Schwartz gradually lessened his dolorous plaints
under the stern authority of Maclay's exhortations.
Presently he sat up nursing his lacerated forearm
and staring about him. At sight of Lad he shud-
dered. And recognizing Maclay he broke into
violent and fatly-accented speech.

"Take witness, Judge!" he exclaimed. "I
watched the barnyard to-night and I saw that
schweinhund steal another sheep. I followed him
and when he got here he dropped the sheep and
went for me. He "

"Very bad, Schwartz!" disgustedly reproved
Maclay. "Very bad, indeed. You should have
waited a minute longer and thought up a better

292 LAD: A DOG

one. But since this is the yarn you choose to tell,
we'll look about and try to verify it. The sheep,
for instance — the. one you say Lad carried all the
way here and then dropped to attack you. I seem
to have heard a sheep bleating a few moments ago.
Several sheep in fact. We'll see if we can't find
the one Lad stole."

Schwartz jumped nervously to his feet.

"Stay where you are!" Maclay bade him. "We
won't bother a tired and injured man to help in
our search."

Turning to the Master, he added:

"I suppose one of us will have to stand guard
over him while the other one hunts up the sheep.
Shall I "

"Neither of us need do that," said the Master.
"Lad!"

The collie started eagerly forward, and Schwartz
started still more eagerly backward.

"Watch him !" commanded the Master. ' Watch
him!"

It was an order Lad had learned to follow in
the many times when the Mistress and the Master
left him to guard the car or to do sentry duty
over some other article of value. He understood.
He would have preferred to deal with this enemy
according to his own lights. But the Master had
spoken. So, standing at view, the collie looked
iongily at Schwartz's throat.

"Keep perfectly still!" the Master warned the

THE KILLER 293

prisoner, "and perhaps he won't go for you. Move,
and he most surely will. Watch him, Laddie!"

Maclay and the Master left the captive and his
guard, and set forth on a flashlight-illumined tour
of the knoll. It was a desolate spot, far back in
the swamp and more than a mile from any road;
a place visited not three times a year, except in
the shooting season.

In less than a half -minute the plaintive ba-a-a
of a sheep guided the searchers to the left of the
knoll where stood a thick birch-and-alder copse.
Around this they circled until they reached a nar-
row opening where the branch-ends, several feet
above ground, were flecked with hanks of wool.

Squirming through the aperture in single file,
the investigators found what they sought.

In the tight-woven copse's center was a small
clearing. In this, was a rudely wattled pen some
nine feet square; and in the pen were bunched six
sheep.

An occasional scared bleat from deeper in the
copse told the whereabouts of the sheep Schwartz
had taken from the barnyard that night and which
he had dropped at Lad's onslaught before he could
put it in the pen. On the ground, just outside the
enclosure, lay the smashed lantern.

"Sheep on the hoof are worth $12.50 per, at the
Paterson Market," mused the Master aloud, as
Maclay blinked owlishly at the treasure trove.
"There are $75 worth of sheep in that pen, and

294 LAD: A DOG

there would have been three more of them before
morning if we hadn't butted in on Herr Schwartz's
overtime labors. To get three sheep at night, it
was well worth his while to switch suspicion to
Lad by killing a fourth sheep every time, and
mangling its throat with a stripping-knife. Only,
he mangled it too efficiently. There was too much
Kultur about the mangling. It wasn't ragged
enough. That's what first gave me my idea. That,
and the way the missing sheep always vanished
into more or less thin air. You see, he prob-
ably "

"But," sputtered Maclay, "why four each night?
Why "

"You saw how long it took him to get one of
them here/' replied the Master. "He didn't dare
to start in till the Romaines were asleep, and he
had to be back in time to catch Lad at the slaughter
before Titus got out of bed. He wouldn't dare
hide them any nearer home. Titus has spent most
of his time both days in hunting for them.
Schwartz was probably waiting to get the pen nice
and full. Then he'd take a day off to visit his
relatives. And he'd round up this tidy bunch and
drive them over to the Ridgewood road, through
the woods, and so on to the Paterson Market. It
was a pretty little scheme all around/'

"But," urged Maclay, as they turned back to
where Lad still kept his avid vigil, "I still hold
you were taking big chances in gambling $1000

THE KILLER 295

and your dog's life that Schwartz would do the
same thing again within twenty- four hours. He
might have waited a day or two, till "

"No," contradicted the Master, "that's just what
he mightn't do. You see, I wasn't perfectly sure
whether it was Schwartz or Romaine— or both —
who were mixed up in this. So I set the trap at
both ends. If it was Romaine, it was worth
$1000 to him to have more sheep killed within
twenty-four hours. If it was Schwartz — well,
that's why I made him try to hit Lad and why I
made him try to kick me. The dog went for him
both times, and that was enough to make Schwartz
want him killed for his own safety as well as for
revenge. So he was certain to arrange another
killing within the twenty- four hours if only to force
me to shoot Lad. He couldn't steal or kill sheep
by daylight. I picked the only hours he could do it
in. If he'd gotten Lad killed, he'd probably have
invented another sheep-killer dog to help him swipe
the rest of the flock, or until Romaine decided to
do the watching. We "

"It was clever of you," cordially admitted
Maclay. "Mighty clever, old man! I "

"It was my wife who worked it out, you know,"
the Master reminded him. "I admit my own
cleverness, of course, only (like a lot of men's
money) it's all in my wife's name. Come on, Lad!
Y"ou can guard Herr Schwartz just as well by
walking behind him. We're going to wind up the

296 LAD: A DOG

evening's fishing trip by tendering a surprise party
to dear genial old Mr. Titus Romaine. I hope the
flashlights will hold out long enough for me to get
a clear look at his face when he sees us."

CHAPTER XI
WOLF

4

THERE were but three collies on The Place
in those days. There was a long shelf in
the Master's study whereupon shimmered
and glinted a rank of silver cups of varying sizes
and shapes. Two of The Place's dogs had won
them all.

Above the shelf hung two huge picture-frames.
In the center of each was the small photograph of
a collie. Beneath each likeness was a certified
pedigree, a-bristle with the red-letter names of
champions. Surrounding the pictures and pedi-
grees, the whole remaining space in both frames
was filled with blue ribbons — the very meanest bit
of silk in either was a semi-occasional "Reserve
Winners" — while, strung along the tops of the
frames from side to side, ran a line of medals.

Cups, medals, and ribbons alike had been won by
The Place's two great collies, Lad and Bruce.
(Those were their "kennel names." Their official
titles on the A. K. C. registry list were high-sound-
ing and needlessly long.)

Lad was growing old. His reign on The Place
297

298 LAD: A DOG

was drawing toward a benignant close. His
muzzle was almost snow-white and his once grace-
ful lines were beginning to show the oncoming
heaviness of age. No longer could he hope to
hold his own, in form and carriage, with younger
collies at the local dog-shows where once he had
carried all before him.

Bruce — "Sunnybank Goldsmith" — was six years
Lad's junior. He was tawny of coat, kingly of
bearing; a dog without a fault of body or of dis-
position; stately as the boar-hounds that the
painters of old used to love to depict in their por-
traits of monarchs.

The Place's third collie was Lad's son, Wolf.
But neither cup nor ribbon did Wolf have to show
as an excuse for his presence on earth, nor would
he have won recognition in the smallest and least
exclusive collie-show.

For Wolf was a collie only by courtesy. His
breeding was as pure as was any champion's, but
he was one of those luckless types to be found in
nearly every litter — a throwback to some forgotten
ancestor whose points were all defective. Not even
the glorious pedigree of Lad, his father, could make
Wolf look like anything more than he was — a dog
without a single physical trait that followed the
best collie standards.

In spite of all this he was beautiful. His gold-
and-white coat was almost as bright and luxuriant
as any prize-winner's. He had, in a general way,

WOLF 299

the collie head and brush. But an expert, at the
most casual glance, would have noted a shortness
of nose and breadth of jaw and a shape of ear
and shoulder that told dead against him.

The collie is supposed to be descended direct
from the wolf, and Wolf looked far more like
his original ancestors than like a thoroughbred
collie. From puppyhood he had been the living
image, except in color, of a timber-wolf, and it
was from this queer throw-back trait that he had
won his name.

Lad was the Mistress' dog. Bruce was the
Master's. Wolf belonged to the Boy, having been
born on the latter's birthday.

For the first six months of his life Wolf lived
at The Place on sufferance. Nobody except the
Boy took any special interest in him. He was kept
only because his better-formed brothers had died
in early puppyhood and because the Boy, from the
outset, had loved him.

At six months it was discovered that he was a
natural watch-dog. Also that he never barked ex-
cept to give an alarm. A collie is, perhaps, the
most excitable of all large dogs. The veriest trifle
will set him off into a thunderous paroxysm of
barking. But Wolf, the Boy noted, never barked
without strong cause.

He had the rare genius for guarding that so
few of his breed possess. For not one dog in ten
merits the title of watch-dog. The duties that

300 LAD: A DOG

should go with that office are far more than the
mere clamorous announcement of a stranger's ap-
proach, or even the attacking of such a stranger.

The born watch-dog patrols his beat once in so
often during the night. At all times he must sleep
with one ear and one eye alert. By day or by
night he must discriminate between the visitor
whose presence is permitted and the trespasser whose
presence is not. He must know what class of
undesirable to scare off with a growl and what class
needs stronger measures. He must also know to
the inch the boundaries of his own master's land.

Few of these things can be taught; all of them
must be instinctive. Wolf had been born with
them. Most dogs are not.

His value as a watch-dog gave Wolf a settled
position of his own on The Place. Lad was growing
old and a little deaf. He slept, at night, under the
piano in the music-room. Bruce was worth too
much money to be left at large in the night time
for any clever dog-thief to steal. So he slept in
the study. Rex, a huge mongrel, was tied up at
night, at the lodge, a furlong away. Thus Wolf
alone was left on guard at the house. The piazza
was his sentry-box. From this shelter he was wont
to set forth three or four times a night, in all sorts
of weather, to make his rounds.

The Place covered twenty-five acres. It ran from
the high-road, a furlong above the house, down to
the lake that bordered it on two sides. On the

WOLF 301

third side was the forest. Boating-parties, late at
night, had a pleasant way of trying to raid the
lakeside apple-orchard. Tramps now and then
strayed down the drive from the main road.
Prowlers, crossing the woods, sometimes sought to
use The Place's sloping lawn as a short cut to the
turnpike below the falls.

For each and all of these intruders Wolf had
an ever-ready welcome. A whirl of madly patter-
ing feet through the dark, a snarling growl far
down in the throat, a furry shape catapulting into
the air — and the trespasser had his choice between
a scurrying retreat or a double set of white fangs
in the easiest-reached part of his anatomy.

The Boy was inordinately proud of his pet's
watchdog prowess. He was prouder yet of Wolf's
almost incredible sharpness of intelligence, his
quickness to learn, his knowledge of word mean-
ing, his zest for romping, his perfect obedience,
the tricks he had taught himself without human
tutelage — in short, all the things that were a sign
of the brain he had inherited from Lad.

But none of these talents overcame the sad fact
that Wolf was not a show dog and that he looked
positively underbred and shabby alongside of his
sire or of Bruce. Which rankled at the Boy's heart ;
even while loyalty to his adored pet would not let
him confess to himself or to anyone else that Wolf
was not the most flawlessly perfect dog on earth.

Under-sized (for a collie), slim, graceful, fierce,

302 LAD: A DOG

affectionate, Wolf was the Boy's darling, and he
was Lad's successor as official guardian of The
Place. But all his youthful life, thus far, had
brought him nothing more than this — while Lad
and Bruce had been winning prize after prize at
one local dog show after another within a radius of
thirty mites.

The Boy was duly enthusiastic over the winning
of each trophy; but always, for days thereafter,
he was more than usually attentive to Wolf to make
up for his pet's dearth of prizes.

Once or twice the Boy had hinted, in a veiled,
tentative way, that young Wolf might perhaps win
something, too, if he were allowed to go to a
show. The Master, never suspecting what lay be-
hind the cautious words, would always laugh in
good-natured derision, or else he would point in
silence to Wolf's head and then to Lad's.

The Boy knew enough about collies to carry the
subject no further. For even his eyes of devotion
could not fail to mark the difference in aspect be-
tween his dog and the two prize-winners.

One July morning both Lad and Bruce went
through an hour of anguish. Both of them, one
after the other, were plunged into a bath-tub full of
warm water and naphtha soap-suds and Lux; and
were scrubbed right unmercifully, after which they
were rubbed and curried and brushed for another
hour until their coats shone resplendent. All day,

WOLF 303

at intervals, the brushing and combing were kept
::p.

Lad was indignant at such treatment, and he
took no pains to hide his indignation. He knew
perfectly well, from the undue attention, that a
dog show was at hand. But not for a year or more
had Le himself been made ready for one. His lake
baths and his daily casual brushing at the Mistress'
hands had been, in that time, his only form of
grooming. He had thought himself graduated for-
ever from the nuisance of going to shows.

"What's the idea of dolling up old Laddie like
that?" asked the Boy, as he came in for luncheon
and found the Mistress busy with comb and dandy-
brush over the unhappy dog.

"For the Fourth of July Red Cross Dog Show
at Ridgewood to-morrow," answered his mother,
looking up, a little flushed from her exertions.

"But I thought you and Dad said last year he
was too old to show any more," ventured the Bov.

"This time is different," said the Mistress. "It1-.
a specialty show, you see, and there is a cup offere^
for 'the best veteran dog of any recognized bref <
Isn't that fine? We didn't hear of the Veter
Cup till Dr. Hooper telephoned to us about it t"
morning. So we're getting Lad ready. There co*
be any other veteran as splendid as he is."

"No," agreed the Boy, dully, "I suppose not.'

He went into the dining-room, surreptitiously
helped himself to a handful of lump-sugar and

304 LAD: A DOG

passed on out to the veranda. Wolf was sprawled
half-asleep on the driveway lawn in the sun.

The dog's wolf like brush began to thump against
the shaven grass. Then, as the Boy stood on the
veranda edge and snapped his fingers, Wolf got
up from his soft resting-place and started toward
him, treading mincingly and with a sort of
swagger, his slanting eyes half shut, his mouth
a-grin.

"You know I've got sugar in my pocket as well
as if you saw it/' said the Boy. "Stop where you

are."

Though the Boy accompanied his order with no
gesture nor change of tone, the dog stopped dead
short ten feet away.

"Sugar is bad for dogs," went on the Boy. "It
does things to their teeth and their digestions.
Didn't anybody ever tell you that, Wolfie?"

The young dog's grin grew wider. His slanting
eyes closed to mere glittering slits. He fidgeted a
little, his tail wagging fast.

"But I guess a dog's got to have some kind of
consolation purse when he can't go to a show,"
resumed the Boy. "Catch !"

As he spoke he suddenly drew a lump of sugar
from his pocket and, with the same motion, tossed
it in the direction of Wolf. Swift as was the
Boy's action, Wolf's eye was still quicker. Spring-
ing high in air, the dog caught the flung cube of
sugar as it flew above him and to one side. A

WOLF 305

second and a third lump were caught as deftly as
the first.

Then the Boy took from his pocket the fourth
and last lump. Descending the steps, he put his
left hand across Wolf's eyes. With his right he
flipped the lump of sugar into a clump of shrub-
bery.

"Find it!" he commanded, lifting the blindfold
from the eyes of his pet.

Wolf darted hither and thither, stopped once or
twice to sniff, then began to circle the nearer
stretch of lawn, nose to ground. In less than two
minutes he merged from the shrubbery placidly
crunching the sugar-lump between his mighty jaws.

"And yet they say you aren't fit to be shown!"
exclaimed the Boy, fondling the dog's ears. "Gee,
but I'd give two years' growth if you could have
a cup! You deserve one, all right; if only those
judges had sense enough to study a collie's brain
as well as the outside of his head!"

Wolf ran his nose into the cupped palm and
whined. From the tone underlying the words, he
knew the Boy was unhappy, and he wanted to be
of help.

The Boy went into the house again to find his
parents sitting down to lunch. Gathering his
courage in both hands, he asked:

"Is there going to be a Novice Class for collies
at Ridgewood, Dad?"

S06 LAD: A DOG

"Why, yes/* said the Master, "I suppose so.
There always is."

"Do — do they give cups for the Novice Class?"
inquired the Boy, with studied carelessness.

"Of course they don't," said the Master, adding
reminiscently, "though the first time we showed
Lad we put him in the Novice Class and he won
the blue ribbon there, so we had to go into the
Winners' Class afterward. He got the Winner's
Cup, you remember. So, indirectly, the Novice
Class won him a cup."

"I see," said the Boy, not at all interested in
this bit of ancient history. Then speaking very
fast, he went on :

"Well, a ribbon's better than nothing! Dad,
will you do me a favor? Will you let me enter
Wolfie for the Novice Class to-morrow? I'll pay
the fee out of my allowance. Will you, Dad?"

The Master looked at his son in blank amaze-,
ment. Then he threw back his head and laughed
loudly. The Boy flushed crimson and bit his lips.

"Why, dear!" hurriedly interposed the Mistress,
noting her son's discomfiture. "You wouldn't
want Wolf to go there and be beaten by a lot of
dogs that haven't half his brains or prettiness ! It
wouldn't be fair or kind to Wolf. He's so clever,
he'd know in a moment what was happening. He'd
know he was beaten. Nearly all dogs do. No, it
wouldn't be fair to him."

"There's a 'mutt' class among the specials, Dr.

WOLF 307

Hopper says," put in the Master, jocosely. "You
might "

"Wolf's not a mutt!" flashed the Boy, hotly.
"He's no more of a mutt than Bruce or Lad, or
Grey Mist, or Southport Sample, or any of the
best ones. He has as good blood as all of them.
Lad's his father, and Squire of Tytton was his
grandfather, and Wishaw Clinker was his "

"I'm sorry, son," interposed the Master, catch-
ing his wife's eye and dropping his tone of banter.
"I apologize to you and Wolf. He's not a 'mutt/
There's no better blood in colliedom than his, on
both sides. But Mother is right. You'd only be
putting him up to be beaten, and you wouldn't
like that. He hasn't a single point that isn't hope-
lessly bad from a judge's view. We've never taken
a loser to a show from The Place. You don't
want us to begin now, do you ?"

"He has more brains that any dog alive, except
Lad!" declared the Boy, sullenly. "That ought to
count."

"It ought to," agreed the Mistress, soothingly,
"and I wish it did. If it did, I know he'd win."

"It makes me sick to see a bushel of cups go
to dogs that don't know enough to eat their own
dinners," sn6rted the Boy. "I'm not talking about
Lad and Bruce, but the thoroughbreds that are
brought up in kennels and that have all their sense
sacrificed for points. Why, Wolf's the cleverest

308 LAD: A DOG

— best — and hell never even have one cup to show
for it. He "

He choked, and began to eat at top speed. The
Master and the Mistress looked at each other and
said nothing. They understood their son's chagrin,
as only a dog-lover could understand it. The
Mistress reached out and patted the Boy gently
on the shoulder.

Next morning, directly after early breakfast,
Lad and Bruce were put into the tonneau of the
car. The Mistress and the Master and the Boy
climbed in, and the twelve-mile journey to Ridge-
wood began.

Wolf, left to guard The Place, watched the de-
parting show-goers until the car turned out of the
gate, a furlong above. Then, with a sigh, he curled
up on the porch mat, his nose between his snowy
little paws, and prepared for a day of loneliness.

The Red Cross dog show, that Fourth of July,
was a triumph for The Place.

Bruce won ribbon after ribbon in the collie
division, easily taking "Winners" at the last, and
thus adding another gorgeous silver cup to his col-
lection. Then, the supreme event of the day —
"Best dog in the show" — was called. And the
winners of each breed were led into the ring. The
judges scanned and handled the group of sixteen
for barely five minutes before awarding to Bruce
the dark-blue rosette and the "Best Dog" cup.

The crowd around the ring's railing applauded

WOLF 309

loudly. But they applauded still more loudly a
little later, when, after a brief survey of nine aged
thoroughbreds, the judge pointed to Lad, who was
standing like a mahogany statue at one end of
the ring.

These nine dogs of various breeds had all been
famed prize-winners in their time. And above all
the rest, Lad was adjudged worthy of the "veteran
cup!" There was a haze of happy tears in the
Mistress* eyes as she led him from the ring. It
seemed a beautiful climax for his grand old life.
She wiped her eyes, unashamed, whispering praise
the while to her stately dog.

"Why don't you trundle your car into the ring?"
one disgruntled exhibitor demanded of the Mis-
tress. "Maybe you'd win a cup with that, too.
You seem to have gotten one for everything else
you brought along."

It was a celebration evening for the two prize
dogs, when they got home, but everybody was tired
from the day's events, and by ten o'clock the house
was dark. Wolf, on his veranda mat, alone of all
The Place's denizens, was awake.

Vaguely Wolf knew the other dogs had done
some praiseworthy thing. He would have known
it, if for no other reason, from the remorseful hug
the Boy had given him before going to bed.

Well, some must win honors and petting and the
right to sleep indoors ; while others must plod along
at the only work they were fit for, and must sleep

310 LAD: A DOG

out, in thunderstorm or clear, in heat or freezing
cold. That was life. Being only a dog, Wolf was
too wise to complain of life. He took things as he
found them, making the very best of his share.

He snoozed, now, in the warm darkness. Two
hours later he got up, stretched himself lazily fore
and aft, collie-fashion, and trotted forth for the
night's first patrol of the grounds.

A few minutes afterward he was skirting the
lake edge at the foot of the lawn, a hundred yards
below the house. The night was pitch dark, ex-
cept for pulses of heat-lightning, now and then, far
to westward. Half a mile out on the lake two
men in an anchored scow were cat-fishing.

A small skiff was slipping along very slowly, not
fifty feet off shore.

Wolf did not give the skiff a second glance.
Boats were no novelty to him, nor did they interest
him in the least — except when they showed signs
of running ashore somewhere along his beat.

This skiff was not headed for land, but was
paralleling the shore. It crept along at a snail-pace
and in dead silence. A man, its only occupant, sat
at the oars, scarcely moving them as he kept his
boat in motion.

A dog is ridiculously near-sighted. More so
than almost any other beast. Keen hearing and
keener scent are its chief guides. At three hundred
yards' distance it cannot, by eye, recognize its
master, nor tell him from a stranger. But at close

WOLF 311

quarters, even in the darkest night, a dog's vision
is far more piercing and accurate than man's under
like conditions.

Wolf thus saw the skiff and its occupant, while
he himself was still invisible. The boat was no con-
cern of his ; so he trotted on to the far end of The
Place, where the forest joined the orchard.

On his return tour of the lake edge he saw the
skiff again. It had shifted its direction and was
now barely ten feet off shore — so near to the bank
that one of the oars occasionally grated on the
pebbly bottom. The oarsman was looking intently
toward the house.

Wolf paused, uncertain. The average watchdog,
his attention thus attracted, would have barked.
But Wolf knew the lake was public property. Boats
were often rowed as close to shore as this with-
out intent to trespass. It was not the skiff that
caught Wolf's attention as he paused there on the
brink, it was the man's furtive scrutiny of the
house.

A pale flare of heat-lightning turned the world,
momentarily, from jet black to a dim sulphur-color.
The boatman saw Wolf standing, alert and sus-
picious, among the lakeside grasses, not ten feet
away. He started slightly, and a soft, throaty
growl from the dog answered him.

The man seemed to take the growl as a challenge,
and to accept it He reached into his pocket and
drew something out. When the next faint glow of

312 LAD: A DOG

lightning illumined the shore, the man lifted the
thing he had taken from his pocket and hurled it
at Wolf.

With all the furtive swiftness bred in his wolf-
ancestry, the dog shrank to one side, readily dodg-
ing the missile, which struck the lawn just behind
him. Teeth bared in a ferocious snarl, Wolf
dashed forward through the shallow water toward
the skiff.

But the man apparently had had enough of the
business. He rowed off with long strokes into deep
water, and, once there, he kept on rowing until dis-
tance and darkness hid him.

Wolf stood, chest deep in water, listening to the
far-off oar-strokes until they died away. He was
not fool enough to swim in pursuit; well knowing
that a swimming dog is worse than helpless against
a boatman.

Moreover, the intruder had been scared away.
That was all which concerned Wolf. He turned
back to shore. His vigil was ended for another
few hours. It was time to take up his nap where
he had left off.

Before he had taken two steps, his sensitive
nostrils were full of the scent of raw meat. There,
on the lawn ahead of him, lay a chunk of beef as
big as a fist. This, then, was what the boatman had
thrown at him!

Wolf pricked up his ears in appreciation, and his
brush began to vibrate. Trespassers had once or

WOLF 313

twice tried to stone him, but this was the first time
any of them had pelted him with delicious raw
beef. Evidently, Lad and Bruce were not the only
collies on The Place to receive prizes that day.

Wolf stooped over the meat, sniffed at it, then
caught it up between his jaws.

Now, a dog is the easiest animal alive to poison,
just as a cat is the hardest, for a dog will usually
bolt a mouthful of poisoned meat without pausing
to chew or otherwise investigate it. A cat, on the
contrary, smells and tastes everything first and
chews it scientifically before swallowing it. The
slightest unfamiliar scent or flavor warns her to
sheer off from the feast.

So the average dog would have gulped this tooth-
some windfall in a single swallow; but Wolf was
not the average dog. No collie is, and Wolf was
still more like his eccentric forefathers of the wild-
erness than are most collies.

He lacked the reasoning powers to make him
suspicious of this rich gift from a stranger, but a
queer personal trait now served him just as well.

Wolf was an epicure; he always took three times
as long to empty his dinner dish as did the other
dogs, for instead of gobbling his meal, as they did,
he was wont to nibble affectedly at each morsel,
gnawing it slowly into nothingness; and all the
time showing a fussily dainty relish of it that used
to delight the Boy and send guests into peals of
laughter.

LAD: A DOG

This odd little trait that had caused so much
ridicule now saved Wolf's life.

He carried the lump of beef gingerly up to the
veranda, laid it down on his mat, and prepared to
revel in his chance banquet after his own deliberate
fashion.

Holding the beef between his forepaws, he pro-
ceeded to devour it in mincing little squirrel-bites.
About a quarter of the meat had disappeared when
Wolf became aware that his tongue smarted and
that his throat was sore; also that the interior of
the meat-ball had a ranky pungent odor, very differ-
ent from the heavenly fragrance of its outside and
not at all appetizing.

He looked down at the chunk, rolled it over with
his nose, surveyed it again, then got up and moved
away from it in angry disgust.

Presently he forgot his disappointment in the
knowledge that he was very, very ill. His tongue
and throat no longer burned, but his body and
brain seemed full of hot lead that weighed a ton.
He felt stupid, and too weak to stir. A great
drowsiness gripped him.

With a grunt of discomfort and utter fatigue, he
slumped down on the veranda floor to sleep off his
sick lassitude. After that, for a time, nothing
mattered.

For perhaps an hour Wolf lay sprawling there,
dead to his duty, and to everything else. Then
faintly, through the fog of dullness that enwrapped

WOLF 315

his brain, came a sound — a sound he had long ago
learned to listen for. The harshly scraping noise
of a boat's prow drawn up on the pebbly shore at
the foot of the lawn.

Instinct tore through the poison vapors and
roused the sick dog. He lifted his head. It was
strangely heavy and hard to lift.

The sound was repeated as the prow was pulled
farther up on the bank. Then came the crunch of
a human foot on the waterside grass.

Heredity and training and lifelong fidelity took
control of the lethargic dog, dragging him to his
feet and down the veranda steps through no voli-
tion of his own.

Every motion tired him. He was dizzy and
nauseated. He craved sleep; but as he was just a
thoroughbred dog and not a wise human, he did
not stop to think up good reasons why he should
shirk his duty because he did not feel like perform-
ing it.

To the brow of the hill he trotted — slowly,
heavily, shakily. His sharp powers of hearing told
him the trespasser had left his boat and had taken
one or two stealthy steps up the slope of lawn to-
ward the house.

And now a puff of west wind brought Wolf's
sense of smell into action. A dog remembers odors
as humans remember faces. And the breeze bore to
him the scent of the same man who had flurg

316 LAD: A DOG

ashore that bit of meat which had caused all his
suffering.

He had caught the man's scent an hour earlier,
as he had stood sniffing at the boat ten feet away
from him. The same scent had been on the meat
the man had handled.

And now, having played such a cruel trick on
him, the joker was actually daring to intrude on
The Place!

A gust of resentful rage pierced the dullness of
Wolf's brain and sent a thrill of fierce energy
through him. For the moment this carried him out
of his sick self and brought back all his former
zest as a watch-dog.

Down the hill, like a furry whirlwind, flew Wolf,
every tooth bared, his back a-bristle from neck to
tail. Now he was well within sight of the intruder.
He saw the man pausing to adjust something to
one of his hands. Then, before this could be ac-
complished, Wolf saw him pause and stare through
the darkness as the wild onrush of the dog's feet
struck upon his hearing.

Another instant and Wolf was near enough to
spring. Out of the blackness he launched himself,
straight for the trespasser's face. The man saw
the dim shape hurtling through the air toward him*
He dropped what he was carrying and flung up
both hands to guard his neck.

At that, he was none too soon, for just as the

WOLF 317

thief's palm reached his own throat, Wolf's teeth
met in the fleshy part of the hand.

Silent, in agony, the man beat at the dog with
his free hand ; but an attacking collie is hard to lo-
cate in the darkness. A bulldog will secure a grip
and will hang on ; a collie is everywhere at once.

Wolf's snapping jaws had already deserted the
robber's mangled hand and slashed the man's left
shoulder to the bone. Then the dog made another
furious lunge for the face.

Down crashed the man, losing his balance under
the heavy impact; Wolf atop of him. To guard
his throat, the man rolled over on his face, kick-
ing madly at the dog, and reaching back for his
own hip-pocket. Half in the water and half on the
bank, the two rolled and thrashed and struggled —
the man panting and wheezing in mortal terror;
the dog growling in a hideous, snarling fashion as
might a wild animal.

The thief's torn left hand found a grip on Wolf's
fur-armored throat. He shoved the fiercely writh-
ing dog backward, jammed a pistol against Wolf's
head, and pulled the trigger!

The dog relaxed his grip and tumbled in a hud-
dled heap on the brink. The man staggered, gasp-
ing, to his feet; bleeding, disheveled, his clothes
torn and mud-coated.

The echoes of the shot were still reverberating
among the lakeside hills. Several of the house's

318 LAD: A DOG

dark windows leaped into sudden light — then more
windows in another room — and in another.

The thief swore roundly. His night's work was
ruined. He bent to his skiff and shoved it into the
water; then he turned to grope for what he had
dropped on the lawn when Wolf's unexpected at-
tack had interfered with his plans.

As he did so, something seized him by the ankle.
In panic terror the man screamed aloud and jumped
into the water, then, peering back, he saw what had
happened.

Wolf, sprawling and unable to stand, had reached
forward from where he lay and had driven his
teeth for the last time into his foe.

The tl^ef raised his pistol again and fired at the
prostrate dog, then he clambered into his boat and
rowed off with frantic speed, just as a salvo of
barks told that Lad and Bruce had been released
from the house ; they came charging down the lawn,
the Master at their heels.

But already the quick oar-beats were growing
distant; and the gloom had blotted out any chance
of seeing or following the boat.

Wolf lay on his side, half in and half out of
the water. He could not rise, as was his custom,
to meet the Boy, who came running up, close be-
hind the Master and valorously grasping a target
rifle; but the dog wagged his tail in feeble greet-
ing, then he looked out over the black lake, and
snarled.

WOLF 319

The bullet had grazed Wolfs scalp and then had
passed along the foreleg; scarring and numbing it.
No damage had been done that a week's good nurs-
ing would not set right.

The marks in the grass and the poisoned meat
on the porch told their own tale ; so did the neat kit
of burglar tools and a rubber glove found near the
foot of the lawn; and then the telephone was put
to work.

At dawn, a man in torn and muddy clothes, called
at the office of a doctor three miles away to be
treated for a half-dozen dog-bites received, he said,
from a pack of stray curs he had met on the turn-
pike. By the time his wounds were dressed, the
sheriff and two deputies had arrived to take him
in charge. In his pockets were a revolver, with
two cartridges fired, and the mate of the rubber
glove he had left on The Place's lawn.

"You — you wouldn't let Wclfie go to any show
and win a cup for himself," half-sobbed the Boy,
as the Master worked over the injured dog's wound,
"but he's saved you from losing all the cups the
other dogs ever won!"

Three days later the Master came home from a
trip to the city. He went directly to the Boy's
room. There on a rug lounged the convalescent
Wolf, the Boy sitting beside him, stroking the dog's
bandaged head.

"Wolf," said the Master, solemnly, "I've been

320 LAD: A DOG

talking about you to some people I know. And we
all agree - "

"Agree what?" asked the Boy, looking up in mild
curiosity.

The Master cleared his throat and continued:

"We agree that the trophy-shelf in my study
hasn't enough cups on it. So I've decided to add
still Another to the collection. Want to see it, son ?"

From behind his back the Master produced a
gleaming silver cup — one of the largest and most
ornate the Boy had ever seen — larger even than
Bruce's "Best Dog" cup.

The Boy took it from his father's outstretched
hand.

"Who won this?" he asked. "And what for?
Didn't we get all the cups that were coming to us
at the shows. Is it - "

The Boy's voice trailed away into a gurgle of be-
wildered rapture. He had caught sight of the let-
tering on the big cup. And now, his arm around
Wolf, he read the inscription aloud, stammering
with flight as he blurted out the words:

CUP. WON BY WOLF, AGAINST ALL
COMERS/'

CHAPTER XII
IN THE DAY OF BATTLE

NOW, this is the true tale of Lad's last great
adventure.

For more years than he could remember,
Lad had been king. He had ruled at The Place,
from boundary-fence to boundary- fence, from high-
way to Lake. He had had, as subjects, many a
thoroughbred collie; and many a lesser animal and
bird among the Little Folk of The Place. His rule
of them all had been lofty and beneficent.

The other dogs at The Place recognized Lad's
rulership — recognized it without demur. It would
no more have occurred to any of them, for example,
to pass in or out through a doorway ahead of Lad
than it would occur to a courtier to shoulder his
way into the throne-room ahead of his sovereign.
Nor would one of them intrude on the "cave"
under the living-room piano which for more than
a decade had been Lad's favorite resting-place.

Great was Lad. And now he was old — very old.

He was thirteen — which is equivalent to the
human age of seventy. His long, clean lines had
become blurred with flesh. He was undeniably

321

LAD: A DOG

stout. When he ran fast, he rolled slightly in his
stride. Nor could he run as rapidly or as long as
of yore. While he was not wheezy or asthmatic,
yet a brisk five-mile walk would make him strangely
anxious for an hour's rest.

He would not confess, even to himself, that age
was beginning to hamper him so cruelly. And he
sought to do all the things he had once done —
if the Mistress or the Master were looking. But
when he was alone, or with the other dogs, he
spared himself every needless step. And he slept
a great deal.

Withal, Lad's was a hale old age. His spirit
and his almost uncanny intelligence had not fal-
tered. Save for the silvered muzzle — first outward
sign of age in a dog — his face and head were as
classically young as ever. So were the absurdly
small fore-paws — his one gross vanity — on which
he spent hours of care each day, to keep them clean
and snowy.

He would still dash out of the house as of old
— with the wild trumpeting bark which he reserved
as greeting to his two deities alone — when the Mis-
tress or the Master returned home after an absence.
He would still frisk excitedly around either of them
at hint of a romp. But the exertion was an exer-
tion. And despite Lad's valiant efforts at youthful-
ness, everyone could see it was.

No longer did he lead the other dogs in their
headlong rushes through the forest, in quest of rab-

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 323

bits. Since he could not now keep the pace, he
let the others go on these breath-and-strength-taking
excursions without him; and he contented himself
with an occasional lone and stately walk through
the woods where once he had led the run — strolling
along in leisurely fashion, with the benign dignity
of some plump and ruddy old squire inspecting his
estate.

There had been many dogs at The Place during
the thirteen years of Lad's reign — dogs of all sorts
and conditions, including Lad's worshiped collie
mate, the dainty gold-and- white "Lady." But in
this later day there were but three dogs beside him-
self.

One of them was Wolf, the only surviving son
of Lad and Lady — a slender, powerful young collie,
with some of his sire's brain and much of his
mother's appealing grace — an ideal play-dog. Be-
tween Lad and Wolf there had always been a bond
of warmest affection. Lad had trained this son of
his and had taught him all he knew. He unbent
from his lofty dignity, with Wolf, as with none of
the others.

The second of the remaining dogs was Bruce
("Sunnybank Goldsmith"), tawny as Lad himself,
descendant of eleven international champions and
winner of many a ribbon and medal and cup. Bruce
was — and is — flawless in physical perfection and in
obedience and intelligence.

The third was Rex — a giant, a freak, a dog oddly

324 LAD: A DOG

out of place among a group of thoroughbreds. On
his father's side Rex was pure collie ; on his mother's,
pure bull-terrier. That is an accidental blending of
two breeds which cannot blend. He looked more
like a fawn-colored Great Dane than anything else.
He was short-haired, full two inches taller and ten
pounds heavier than Lad, and had the bunch-
muscled jaws of a killer.

There was not an outlander dog for two miles
in either direction that Rex had not at one time
or another met and vanquished. The bull-terrier
strain, which blended so ill with collie blood, made
its possessor a terrific fighter. He was swift as a
deer, strong as a puma.

In many ways he was a lovable and affectionate
pet ; slavishly devoted to the Master and grievously
jealous of the latter's love for Lad. Rex was five
years old — in his fullest prime — and, like the rest,
he had ever taken Lad's rulership for granted.

I have written at perhaps prosy length, introduc-
ing these characters of my war-story. The rest is
action.

March, that last year, was a month of drearily
recurrent snows. In the forests beyond The Place,
the snow lay light and fluffy at a depth of sixteen
inches.

On a snowy, blowy, bitter cold Sunday — one of
those days nobody wants — Rex and Wolf elected to
go rabbit-hunting.

Bruce was not in the hunt, sensibly preferring

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE S£5

to lie in front of the living-room fire on so vile a
day rather than to flounder through dust-fine drifts
in search of game that was not worth chasing under
such conditions. Wolf, too, was monstrous com-
fortable on the old fur rug by the fire, at the Mis-
tress' feet.

But Rex, who had waxed oddly restless of late,
was bored by the indoor afternoon. The Mistress
was reading ; the Master was asleep. There seemed
no chance that either would go for a walk or other-
wise amuse their four-footed friends. The winter
forests were calling. The powerful crossbred dog
would find the snow a scant obstacle to his hunting.
And the warmly quivering body of a new-caught
rabbit was a tremendous lure.

Rex got to his feet, slouched across the living-
room to Bruce and touched his nose. The drowsing
collie paid no heed. Next Rex moved over to
where Wolf lay. The two dogs' noses touched.

Now, this is no Mowgili tale, but a true narra-
tive. I do not pretend to say whether or not dogs
have a language of their own. (Personally, I think
they have, and a very comprehensive one, too. But
I cannot prove it.) No dog-student, however, will
deny that two dogs communicate their wishes to
each other in some way by (or during) the swift
contact of noses.

By that touch Wolf understood Rex's hint to
join in the foray. Wolf was not yet four years old
—at an age when excitement still outweighs lazy

326 LAD: A DOG

comfort. Moreover, he admired and aped Rex, as
much as ever the school's littlest boy models him-
self on the class bully. He was up at once and
ready to start.

A maid was bringing in an armful of wood from
the veranda. The two dogs slipped out through
the half-open door. As they went, Wolf cast a side-
long glance at Lad, who was snoozing under the
piano. Lad noted the careless invitation. He also
noted that Wolf did not hesitate when his father
refused to join the outing but trotted gayly off in
Rex's wake.

Perhaps this defection hurt Lad's abnormally sen-
sitive feelings. For of old he had always led such
forest-runnings. Perhaps the two dogs' departure
merely woke in him the memory of the chase's joys
and stirred a longing for the snow-clogged woods.

For a minute or two the big living-room was
quiet, except for the scratch of dry snow against
the panes, the slow breathing of Bruce and the turn-
ing of a page in the book the Mistress was reading.
Then Lad get up heavily and walked forth from
his piano-cave.

He stretched himself and crossed to the Mistress*
chair. There he sat down on the rug very close
beside her and laid one of his ridiculously tiny
white fore-paws in her lap. Absent-mindedly, still
absorbed in her book, she put out a hand and patted
the soft fur of his ruff and ears.

Often, Lad came to her or to the Master for

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 327

some such caress ; and, receiving it, would return to
his resting-place. But to-day he was seeking to at-
tract her notice for something much more impor-
tant. It had occurred to him that it would be jolly
to go with her for a tramp in the snow. And his
mere presence failing to convey the hint, he began,
to "talk."

To the Mistress and the Master alone did Lad
condescend to "talk" — and then only in moments of
stress or appeal. No one, hearing him, at such a
time, could doubt the dog was trying to frame
human speech. His vocal efforts ran the gamut
of the entire scale. Wordless, but decidedly elo-
quent, this "talking" would continue sometimes for
several minutes without ceasing; its tones carried
whatever emotion the old dog sought to convey —
whether of joy, of grief, of request or of complaint.

To-day there was merely playful entreaty in the
speechless "speech." The Mistress looked up.

"What is it, Laddie?" she asked. "What do
you want?"

For answer Lad glanced at the door, then at the
Mistress; then he solemnly went out into the hall
— whence presently he returned with one of her fur
gloves in his mouth.

"No, no," she laughed. "Not to-day, Lad. Not
in this storm. We'll take a good, long walk to-
morrow."

The dog sighed and returned sadly to his lair
beneath the piano. But the vision of the forests

328 LAD: A DOG

was evidently hard to erase from his mind. And a
little later, when the front door was open again
by one of the servants, he stalked out.

The snow was driving hard, and there was a
sting in it. The thermometer was little above zero;
but the snow had been a familiar bedfellow, for
centuries, to Lad's Scottish forefathers; and the
cold was harmless against the woven thickness of
his tawny coat. Picking his way in stately fashion
along the ill-broken track of the driveway, he
strolled toward the woods. To humans there was
nothing in the outdoor day but snow and chill and
bluster and bitter loneliness. To the trained eye
and the miraculous scent-power of a collie it con-
tained a million things of dramatic interest.

Here a rabbit had crossed the trail — not with
leisurely bounds or mincing hops, but stomach to
earth, in flight for very life. Here, close at the ter-
rified bunny's heels, had darted a red fox. Yonder,
where the piling snow covered a swirl of tracks,
the chase had ended.

The little ridge of snow-heaped furrow, to the
right, held a basketful of cowering quail — who
heard Lad's slow step and did not reckon on his
flawless gift of smell. On the hemlock tree just
ahead a hawk had lately torn a blue- jay asunder.
A fluff of gray feathers still stuck to a bough, and
the scent of blood had not been blown out of the
air. Underneath, a field-mouse was plowing its

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 329

way into the frozen earth, its tiny paw-scrapes
wholly audible to the ears Of the dog above it.

Here, through the stark and drifted undergrowth,
Rex and Wolf had recently swept along in pursuit
of a half -grown rabbit. Even a human eye could
not have missed their partly-covered tracks; but
Lad knew whose track was whose and which dog
had been in the lead.

Yes, to humans, the forest would have seemed a
deserted white waste. Lad knew it was thick-popu-
lated with the Little People of the woodland, and
that all day and all night the seemingly empty and
placid groves were a blend of battlefield, slaughter-
house and restaurant. Here, as much as in the
cities or in the trenches, abode strenuous life, vio-
lent death, struggle, greed and terror.

A partridge rocketed upward through a clump
of evergreen, while a weasel, jaws a-quiver, glared
after it, baffled. A shaggy owl crouched at a tree-
limb hole and blinked sulkily about in search of
prey and in hope of dusk. A crow, its black feet
red with a slain snowbird's blood, flapped clumsily
overhead. A poet would have vowed that the still
and white-shrouded wilderness was a shrine sacred
to solitude and severe peace. Lad could have told
him better. Nature (beneath the surface) is never
solitary and never at peace.

When a dog is very old and very heavy and a
little unwieldy, it is hard to walk through sixteen-
inch snow, even if one moves slowly and sedately.

330 LAD: A DOG

Hence Lad was well pleased to come upon a narrow
woodland track ; made by a laborer who had passed
and repassed through that same strip of forest dur-
ing the last few hours. To follow in that trampled
rut made walking much easier; it was a rut barely
wide enough for one wayfarer.

More and more like an elderly squire patrolling
his acres, Lad rambled along, and presently his
ears and his nose told him that his two loving
friends Rex and Wolf were coming toward him
on their home-bound way. His plumy tail wagged
expectantly. He was growing a bit lonely on this
Sunday afternoon walk of his, and a little tired.
It would be a pleasure to have company — especially
Wolfs.

Rex and Wolf had fared ill on their hunt. They
had put up two rabbits. One had doubled and com-
pletely escaped them ; and in the chase Rex had cut
his foot nastily on a strip of unseen barbed wire.
The sandlike snow had gotten into the jagged cut
in a most irritating way.

The second rabbit had dived under a log. Rex
had thrust his head fiercely through a snowbank
in quest of the vanished prey; and a long briar-
thorn, hidden there, had plunged its needle point
deep into the inside of his left nostril. The inner
nostril is a hundred-fold the most agonizingly
sensitive part of a dog's body, and the pain wrung
a yell of rage and hurt from the big dog.

With a nostril and a foot both hurt, there was

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 331

no more fun in hunting, and — angry, cross, sav-
agely in pain — Rex loped homeward, Wolf patter-
ing along behind him. Like Lad, they came upon
the laborer's trampled path and took advantage of
the easier going.

Thus it was, at a turn in the track, that they
came face to face with Lad. Wolf had already
smelled him, and his brush began to quiver in wel-
come. Rex, his nose in anguish, could smell noth-
ing; not until that turn did he know of Lad's
presence. He halted, sulky, and ill-tempered. The
queer restlessness, the pre-springtime savagery
that had obsessed him of late- had been brought to
a head by his hurts. He was not himself. His
mind was sick.

There was not room for two large dogs to pas*
each other in that narrow trail. One or the other
must flounder out into the deep snow to the side.
Ordinarily, there would be no question about any
other dog on The Place turning out for Lad. It
would have been a matter of course, and so, to-day,
Lad expected it to be. Onward he moved, at that
same dignified walk, until he was not a yard away
from Rex.

The latter, his brain fevered and his hurts tor-
turing him, suddenly flamed into rebellion. Even
as a younger buck sooner or later assails for
mastery the leader of the herd, so the brain-sick
Rex went back, all at once, to primal instincts, a

332 LAD: A DOG

maniac rage mastered him — the rage of the angry
underlying, the primitive lust for mastery.

With not so much as a growl or warning, he
launched himself upon Lad. Straight at the tired
old dog's throat he flew. Lad, all unprepared for
such unheard-of mutiny, was caught clean off his
guard. He had not even time enough to lower
his head to protect his throat or to rear and meet
his erstwhile subject's attack halfway. At one
moment he had been plodding gravely toward his
two supposedly loyal friends; the next, Rex's
ninety pounds of whale-bone muscle had smitten
him violently to earth, and Rex's fearsome jaws —
capable of cracking a beef -bone as a man cracks a
filbert — had found a vise-grip in the soft fur of
his throat.

Down amid a flurry of high-tossed snow, crashed
Lad, his snarling enemy upon him, pinning him to
the ground, the huge jaws tearing and rending at
his ruff — the silken ruff that the Mistress daily
combed with such loving care to keep it fluffy and
beautiful.

It was a grip and a leverage that would have
made the average opponent helpless. With a short-
haired dog it would have meant the end, but the
providence that gave collies a mattress of fur — to
stave off the cold, in their herding work amid the
snowy moors — has made that fur thickest about the
lower neck.

Rex had struck in crazy rage and had not gauged

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 333

his mark as truly as though he had been cooler. He
had missed the jugular and found himself grinding
at an enormous mouthful of matted hair — and at
very little else ; and Lad belonged to the breed that
is never to be taken wholly by surprise and that acts
by the swiftest instinct or reason known to dog-
dom. Even as he fell, he instinctively threw his
body sideways to avoid the full jar of Rex's im-
pact— and gathered his feet under him.

With a heave that wrenched his every unaccus-
tomed muscle, Lad shook off the living weight and
scrambled upright. To prevent this, Rex threw
his entire body forward to reinforce his throat-grip.
As a result, a double handful of ruff-hair and a
patch of skin came away in his jaws. And Lad
was free.

He was free — to turn tail and run for his life
from the unequal combat — and that his hero-heart
would not let him do. He was free, also, to stand
his ground and fight there in the snowbound forest
until he should be slain by his younger and larger
and stronger foe, and this folly his almost-human
intelligence would not permit.

There was one chance and only one — one com-
promise alone between sanity and honor. And this
chance Lad took.

He would not run. He could not save his life by
fighting where he stood. His only hope was to
keep his face to his enemy, battling as best he
could, and all the time keep backing toward home.

334 LAD: A DOG

If he could last until he came within sight or
sound of the folk at the house, he knew he would
be saved. Home was a full half-mile away and
the snow was almost chest-deep. Yet, on the in-
stant, he laid out his plain of campaign and put
it into action.

Rex cleared his mouth of the impeding hair and
flew at Lad once more — before the old dog had
fairly gotten to his feet, but not before the line
of defense had been thought out. Lad half
wheeled, dodging the snapping jaws by an inch
and taking the impact of the charge on his left
shoulder, at the same time burying his teeth in the
right side of Rex's face.

At the same time Lad gave ground, moving back-
ward three or four yards, helped along by the
impetus of his opponent. Home was a half-mile
behind him, in an oblique line, and he could not
turn to gauge his direction. Yet he moved in pre-
cisely the correct angle.

(Indeed, a passer-by who witnessed the fight, and
the Master, who went carefully over the ground
afterward, proved that at no point in the battle
did Lad swerve or mistake his exact direction.
Yet not once could he have been able to look around
to judge it, and his foot-prints showed that not
once had he turned his back on the foe.)

The hold Lad secured on Rex's cheek was good,
but it was not good enough. At thirteen, a dog's
"biting teeth" are worn short and dull, and his

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 335

yellowed fangs are blunted; nor is the jaw by any
means as powerful as once it was. Rex writhed
and pitched in the fierce grip, and presently tore
free from it and to the attack again, seeking now
to lunge over the top of Lad's lowered head to
the vital spot at the nape of the neck, where sharp
teeth may pierce through to the spinal cord.

Thrice Rex lunged, and thrice Lad reared on his
hind legs, meeting the shock with his deep, shaggy
breast, snapping arid slashing at his enemy and
every time receding a few steps between charges.
They had left the path now, and were plowing a
course through deep snow. The snow was scant
barrier to Rex's full strength, but it terribly im-
peded the steadily backing Lad. Lad's extra flesh,
too, was a bad handicap; his wind was not at all
what it should have been, and the unwonted exer-
tion began to tell sharply on him.

Under the lead-hued skies and the drive of the
snow the fight swirled and eddied. The great dogs
reared, clashed, tore, battered against tree-trunks,
lost footing and rolled, staggered up again and re-
newed the onslaught. Ever Lad manceuvered his
way backward, waging a desperate "rear-guard
action." In the battle's wage was an irregular but
mathematically straight line of trampled and blood-
spattered snow.

Oh, but it was slow going, this ever-fighting re-
treat of Lad's, through the deep drifts, with his
mightier foe pressing him and rending at his throat

336 LAD: A DOG

and shoulders at every backward step! The old
dog's wind was gone ; his once-superb strength was
going, but he fought on with blazing fury — the
fury of a dying king who will not be deposed.

In sheer skill and brain-work and generalship,
Lad was wholly Rex's superior, but these served
him ill in a death-grapple. With dogs, as with
human pugilists, mere science and strategy avail
little against superior size and strength and youth.
Again and again Lad found or made an opening.
Again and again his weakening jaws secured the
right grip only to be shaken off with more and
more ease by the younger combatant.

Again and again Lad "slashed" as do his wolf
cousins and as does almost no civilized dog but
the collie. But the slashes had lost their one-time
lightning speed and prowess. And the blunt "rend-
ing fangs" scored only superficial furrows in Rex's
fawn-colored hide.

There was meager hope of reaching home alive.
Lad must have known that. His strength was
gone. It was his heart and his glorious ancestry
now that were doing his fighting — not his fat and
age-depleted body. From Lad's mental vocabulary
the word quit had ever been absent. Wherefore —
dizzy, gasping, feebler every minute — he battled
fearlessly on in the dying day; never losing his
sense of direction, never turning tail, never dream-
ing of surrender, taking dire wounds, inflicting
light ones.

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 337

There are many forms of dog-fight. Two
strange dogs, meeting, will fly at each other because
their wild forbears used to do so. Jealous dogs
will battle even more fiercely. But the deadliest
of all canine conflicts is the "murder-fight." This
is a struggle wherein one or both contestants have
decided to give no quarter, where the victor will
fight on until his antagonist is dead and will then
tear his body to pieces. It is a recognized form
of canine mania.

And it was a murder-fight that Rex was waging,
for he had gone quite insane. (This is wholly dif-
ferent, by the way, from "going mad/')

Down went Lad, for perhaps the tenth time, and
once more — though now with an effort that was
all but too much for him — he writhed to his feet,
gaining three yards of ground by the move. Rex
was upon him with one leap, the frothing and
bloody jaws striking for his mangled throat. Lad
reared to block the attack. Then suddenly, over-
balanced, he crashed backward into the snowdrift.

Rex had not reached him, but young Wolf had.

Wolf had watched the battle with a growing ex-
citement that at last had broken all bounds. The
instinct, which makes a fluff-headed college-boy
mix into a scrimmage that is no concern of his,
had suddenly possessed Lad's dearly loved son.

Now, if this were a fiction yarn, it would be
edifying to tell how Wolf sprang to the aid of
his grand old sire and how he thereby saved Lad's

338 LAD: A DOG

life. But the shameful truth is that Wolf did noth-
ing of the sort. Rex was his model, the bully he
had so long and so enthusiastically imitated. And
now Rex was fighting a most entertaining bout,
fighting it with a maniac fury that infected his
young disciple and made him yearn to share in the
glory.

Wherefore, as Lad reared to meet Rex's lunge,
Wolf hurled himself like a furry whirlwind upon
the old dog's flank, burying his white teeth in the
muscles of the lower leg.

The flank attack bowled Lad completely over.
There was no chance now for such a fall as would
enable him to spring up again unscathed. He was
thrown heavily upon his back, and both his
murderers plunged at his unguarded throat and
lower body.

But a collie thrown is not a collie beaten, as per-
haps I have said once before. For thirty seconds
or more the three thrashed about in the snow in
a growling, snarling, right unloving embrace.
Then, by some miracle, Lad was on his feet again.

His throat had a new and deep wound, perilously
close to the jugular. His stomach and left side
were slashed as with razor-blades. But he was up.
And even in that moment of dire stress — with both
dogs flinging themselves upon him afresh — he
gained another yard or two in his line of retreat.

He might have gained still more ground. For
his assailants, leaping at the same instant, collided

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 339

and impeded each other's charge. But, for the
first time the wise old brain clouded, and the hero-
heart went sick; as Lad saw his own loved and
spoiled son ranged against him in the murder- fray.
He could not understand. Loyalty was as much
a part of himself as were his sorrowful brown
eyes or his tiny white fore-paws. And Wolf's
amazing treachery seemed to numb the old war-
rior, body and mind.

But the second of dum founded wonder passed
quickly — too quickly for either of the other dogs
to take advantage of it. In its place surged a
righteous wrath that, for the instant, brought back
youth and strength to the aged fighter.

With a yell that echoed far through the forest's
sinister silence, Lad whizzed forward at the ad-
vancing Rex. Wolf, who was nearer, struck for
his father's throat — missed and rolled in the snow
from the force of his own momentum. Lad did
not heed him. Straight for Rex he leaped. Rex,
bounding at him, was already in midair. The two
met, and under the Berserk onset Rex fell back
into the snow.

Lad was upon him at once. The worn-down
teeth found their goal above the jugular. Deep
and raggedly they drove, impelled by the brief flash
of power that upbore their owner.

Almost did that grip end the fight and leave Rex
gasping out his life in the drift. But the access
of false strength faded. Rex, roaring like a hurt

340 LAD: A DOG

tiger, twisted and tore himself free. Lad reali2ing
his own bolt was shot, gave ground, backing away
from two assailants instead of one.

It was easier now to retreat. For Wolf, un-
skilled in practical warfare, at first hindered Rex
almost as much as he helped him, again and again
getting in the bigger dog's way and marring a rush.
Had Wolf understood "teamwork," Lad must have
been pulled down and slaughtered in less than a
minute.

But soon Wolf grasped the fact that he could do
worse damage by keeping out of his ally's way
and attacking from a different quarter, and there-
after he fought to more deadly purpose. His
favorite ruse was to dive for Lad's forelegs and
attempt to break one of them. That is a collie
manceuver inherited direct from Wolf's namesake
ancestors.

Several times his jaws reached the slender white
forelegs, cutting and slashing them and throwing
Lad off his balance. Once he found a hold on the
left haunch and held it until his victim shook loose
by rolling.

Lad defended himself from this new foe as well
as he might, by dodging or by brushing him to one
side, but never once did he attack Wolf, or so
much as snap at him. (Rex after the encounter,
was plentifully scarred. Wolf had not so much as a
scratch. )

Backward, with ever-increasing difficulty, the

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 341

old dog fought his way, often borne down to earth
and always staggering up more feebly than before.
But ever he was warring with the same fierce
courage; despite an ache and bewilderment in his
honest heart at his son's treason.

The forest lay behind the fighters. The deserted
highroad was passed. Under Lad's clawing and
reeling feet was the dear ground of The Place —
The Place where for thirteen happy years he had
reigned as king, where he had benevolently ruled
his kind and had given worshipful service to his
gods.

But the house was still nearly a furlong off, and
Lad was well-nigh dead. His body was one mass
of wounds. His strength was turned to water.
His breath was gone. His bloodshot eyes were
dim. His brain was dizzy and refused its office.
Loss of blood had weakened him full as much as
had the tremendous exertion of the battle.

Yet — uselessly now — he continued to fight. It
was a grotesquely futile resistance. The other dogs
were all over him — tearing, slashing, gripping, at
will — unhindered by his puny effort to fend them
off. The slaughter-time had come. Drunk with
blood and fury, the assailants plunged at him for
the last time.

Down went Lad, helpless beneath the murderous
avalanche that overwhelmed him. And this time
his body flatly refused to obey the grim command
of his will. The fight was over — the good, good

343 LAD: A DOG

fight of a white-souled Paladin against hopeless
odds.

The living-room fire crackled cheerily. The
snow hissed and slithered against the glass. A
sheet of frost on every pane shut out the stormy
twilit world. The screech of the wind was music
to the comfortable shut-ins.

The Mistress drowsed over her book by the fire.
Bruce snored snugly in front of the blaze. The
Master had awakened from his nap and was in the
adjoining study, sorting fishing-tackle and scouring
a rusted hunting-knife.

Then came a second's lull in the gale, and all at
once Bruce was wide awake. Growling, he ran to
the front door and scratched imperatively at the
panel. This is not the way a well-bred dog makes
known his desire to leave the house. And Bruce
was decidedly a well-bred dog.

The Mistress, thinking some guest might be ar-
riving whose scent or tread displeased the collie,
called to the Master to shut Bruce in the study,
lest he insult the supposed visitor by barking. Re-
luctantly— very reluctantly — Bruce obeyed the
order. The Master shut the study door behind
him and came into the living-room, still carrying
the half -cleaned knife.

As no summons at bell or knocker followed
Bruce's announcement, the Mistress opened the
front door and looked out. The dusk was falling,
but it was not too dark for her to have seen the

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 343

approach of anyone, nor was it too dark for the
Mistress to see two dogs tearing at something that
lay hidden from her view in the deep snow a hun-
dred yards away. She recognized Rex and Wolf
at once and amusedly wondered with what they
were playing.

Then from the depth of snow beneath them she
saw a feeble head rear itself — a glorious head,
though torn and bleeding — a head that waveringly
lunged toward Rex's throat.

'They're— they're killing— Lad!" she cried in
stark, unbelieving horror. Forgetful of thin dress
and thinner slippers, she ran toward the trio.
Halfway to the battlefield the Master passed by
her, running and lurching through the knee-high
snow at something like record speed.

She heard his shout. And at sound of it she
saw Wolf slink away from the slaughter like a
scared schoolboy. But Rex was too far gone in
murder-lust to heed the shout. The Master seized
him by the studded collar and tossed him ten feet
or more to one side. Rage-blind, Rex came flying
back to the kill. The Master stood astride his
prey, and in his blind mania the cross-breed sprang
at the man.

The Master's hunting-knife caught him squarely
behind the left fore-leg. And with a grunt like the
sound of an exhausted soda-siphon, the huge dog
passed out of this story and out of life as well.

There would be ample time, later, for the Master

344 LAD: A DOG

to mourn his enforced slaying of the pet dog that
had loved and served him so long. At present he
had eyes only for the torn and senseless body of
Lad lying huddled in the red-blotched snow.

In his arms he lifted Lad and carried him
tenderly into the house. There the Mistress' light
fingers dressed his hideous injuries. Not less than
thirty-six deep wounds scored the worn-out old
body. Several of these were past the skill of home
treatment.

A grumbling veterinary was summoned on the
telephone and was lured by pledge of a triple fee
to chug through ten miles of storm in a balky car
to the rescue.

Lad was lying with his head in the Mistress' lap.
The vet* looked the unconscious dog over and then
said tersely:

"I wish I'd stayed at home. He's as good as
dead/'

"He's a million times better than dead," denied
the Master. "I know Lad. You don't. He's got
into the habit of living, and he's not going to break
that habit, not if the best nursing and surgery in
the State can keep him from doing it. Get busy !"

"There's nothing to keep me here/' objected the
vet'. "He's "

"There's everything to keep you here," gently
contradicted the Master. "You'll stay here till
Lad's out of danger — if I have to steal your
trousers and your car. You're going to cure him.

IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 345

And if you do, you can write your bill on a Liberty
Bond."

Two hours later Lad opened his eyes. He was
swathed in smelly bandages and he was soaked in
liniments. Patches of hair had been shaved away
from his worst wounds. Digitalis was reinforcing
his faint heart-action.

He looked up at the Mistress with his only avail-
able eye. By a herculean struggle he wagged his
tail — just once. And he essayed the trumpeting
bark wherewith he always welcomed her return
after an absence. The bark was a total failure.

After which Lad tried to tell the Mistress the
story of the battle. Very weakly, but very per-
sistently he "talked." His tones dropped now and
then to the shadow of a ferocious growl as he
related his exploits and then scaled again to a
puppy-like whimper.

He had done a grand day's work, had Lad, and
he wanted applause. He had suffered much and he
was still in racking pain, and he wanted sympathy

and petting. Presently he fell asleep.

******

It was two weeks before Lad could stand up-
right, and two more before he could go out of
doors unhelped. Then on a warm, early spring
morning, the vet* declared him out of all danger.

Very thin was the invalid, very shaky, snow-
white of muzzle and with the air of an old, old

346 LAD: A DOG

man whose too-fragile body is sustained only by
a regal dignity. But he was alive.

Slowly he marched from his piano cave toward
the open front door. Wolf — in black disgrace for
the past month — chanced to be crossing the living-
room toward the veranda at the same time. The
two dogs reached the door-way simultaneously.

Very respectfully, almost cringingly, Wolf stood
aside for Lad to pass out.

His sire walked by with never a look. But his
step was all at once stronger and springier, and
he held his splendid head high.

For Lad knew he was still king !

THE END.

AFTERWORD

THE stories of Lad, in various magazines, found
unexpectedly kind welcome. Letters came to me
from soldiers and sailors in Europe, from hosts of
children; from men and women, everywhere.

Few of the letter-writers bothered to praise the
stories, themselves. But all of them praised Lad,
which pleased me far better. And more than a
hundred of them wanted to know if he were a real
dog : and if the tales of his exploits were true.

Perhaps those of you who have followed Lad's
adventures, through these pages, may also be a
little interested to know more about him.

Yes, Lad was a "real" dog — the greatest dog
by far, I have known or shall know. And the
chief happenings in nearly all of my Lad stories
are absolutely true. This accounts for such
measure of success as the stories may have won.

After his "Day of Battle," Lad lived for more
than two years — still gallant of spirit, loyally
mighty of heart, uncanny of wisdom — still the un-
disputed king of The Place's "Little People."

Then, on a warm September morning in 1918,
he stretched himself to sleep in the coolest and
shadiest corner of the veranda, And, while he

347

348 LAD: A DOG

slept, his great heart very quietly stopped beating.
He had no pain, no illness, none of the distressing
features of extreme age. He had lived out a full
span of sixteen years — years rich in life and hap-
piness and love.

Surely, there was nothing in such a death to war-
rant the silly grief that was ours, nor the heart-
sick gloom that overhung The Place! It was
wholly illogical, not to say maudlin. I admit that
without argument. The cleric-author of "The
Mansion Yard" must have known the same miser-
able sense of loss, I think, when he wrote:

" Stretched on the hearthrug in a deep content,

Fond of the fire as I.

Oh, there was something with the old dog went
I had not thought could die!"

We buried Lad in a sunlit nook that had been
his favorite lounging place, close to the house he
had guarded so long and so gallantly. With him
we buried his honorary Red Cross and Blue Cross —
awards for money raised in his name. Above his
head we set a low granite block, with a carven
line or two thereon.

The Mistress wanted the block inscribed : 'The
Dearest Dog!" I suggested: "The Dog God
Made." But we decided against both epitaphs.
We did not care to risk making our dear old friend's
memory ridiculous by words at which saner folk

AFTER-WORD

349

might one day sneer. So on the granite is en-
graved :

LAD

THOROUGHBRED IN BODY AND SOUL

Some people are wise enough to know that a
dog has no soul. These will find ample theme for
mirth in our foolish inscription. But no one, who
knew Lad, will laugh at it.

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE.
"Sunnybank"
Pompton Lakes,
New Jersey.

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