FOR A BIT OF RIBBON
Lad 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 departed, "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!"
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 remembered 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 ever 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 remember."
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
cost 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, you can enter him, another time, in
something more important. I'm inclosing an application-blank for
you to fill out and send with your entrance-fee, to the
secretary. You'll find his address at the bottom of the blank. I'm
showing 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 Westminster 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. "He'll be horribly lonely there, all that
while--especially 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 forepaws 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 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 undergoing 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 pipeclay into the tender skin.
Sensitive tails and still more sensitive ears were sandpapered,
for the victims' 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 unnatural trimness. Ears were "scrunched" until their wearers
quivered with stark anguish--to impart 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 compared 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 arbitrary "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.
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 everyday 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.
A thoroughly unhappy dog is the most thoroughly 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 carrying
him away to something direfully 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 historic 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 din he caught the
muffled noise 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 another 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 sorrowing 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 hesitation. If
these, his gods, were leading him to 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 vet' 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 followed. 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 veterinaries 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 shaggy body closer to her knee for refuge, as he gazed blinkingly
around him.
In the Garden's center were several large inclosures of wire and
reddish wood. Inside each inclosure were a table, a chair and a
movable platform. 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 partitions 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
promiscuous 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
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 acquaintance 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, 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
(wolfhound) 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 on 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 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, gazing down at Lad. The
dog was lying, head between 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. Wonderful 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 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 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 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 when you're trying not
to choke, you know."
"It's horrible! _Horrible!_" shuddered the Mistress. "I wouldn't put
such a thing on Lad for all the prizes on earth. When I read Davis'
wonderful '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 interested "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, behind 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 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 because 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 Mistress 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 out of the competition at the very
start. There, far out of the contest, she stood, a drooping little
figure, feeling 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 contestants.
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 Mistress 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. Apparently there was no need to look for the finer
points in a disqualified collie. The sketchy examination 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 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 forequarters, 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
Highland 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 disconsolate 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. 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
remaining leaders must compete in the winners' class--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 unsportsmanlike resolution.
Again the dogs paraded the ring. Again the judge studied them from
between half-shut eyes. 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 of Lad's ears 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 Coldstream 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 Champion'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
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 before 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 him----"
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 Mistress went directly to
the collie man.
"When do they present the cups?" she asked.
"Not until Saturday night, I believe," said the man. "I congratulate
you both on----"
"In order to win his cup, Lad will have to stay in this--this
inferno--for three days and nights longer?"
"Of course. All the dogs----"
"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 coming _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 Association 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 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 efforts
of every other dog in the show.