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 highway 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
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 faltered. 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 Mistress 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 exertion. And despite Lad's valiant
efforts at youthfulness, everyone could see it was.
No longer did he lead the other dogs in their headlong rushes through
the forest in quest of rabbits. 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 himself.
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. Between 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 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, introducing 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 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 comfortable on the old fur
rug by the fire, at the Mistress' 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 otherwise 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 _Mowgli_ tale, but a true narrative. 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 comfort. Moreover, he admired and aped Rex, as much as ever the
school's littlest boy models himself 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
sidelong 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 sensitive 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 turning of a page in the book the Mistress was reading. Then Lad
got 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 some such caress; and,
receiving it, would return to his resting-place. But to-day he was
seeking to attract her notice for something much more important. 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 eloquent, 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 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
contained 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 terrified 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 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-populated 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, slaughterhouse and
restaurant. Here, as much as in the cities or in the trenches, abode
strenuous life, violent 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. 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 during 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 Wolf's.
Rex and Wolf had fared ill on their hunt. They had put up two
rabbits. One had doubled and completely 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 no more fun in hunting,
and--angry, cross, savagely in pain--Rex loped homeward, Wolf
pattering 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
welcome. Rex, his nose in anguish, could smell nothing; 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 pass 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 torturing 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 maniac rage mastered him--the rage
of the angry underling, 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 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
dogdom. Even as he fell, he instinctively threw his body sideways to
avoid the full jar of Rex's impact--and gathered his feet under him.
With a heave that wrenched his every unaccustomed 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 compromise 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. 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 instant, he laid out his plan 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 backward 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 precisely 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 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 and 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 impeded 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
exertion 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 renewed
the onslaught. Ever Lad manoeuvered his way backward, waging a
desperate "rear-guard action." In the battle's wake was an irregular
but mathematically straight line of trampled and blood-spattered snow.
Oh, but it was slow going, this ever-fighting retreat of Lad's,
through the deep drifts, with his mightier foe pressing him and
rending at his throat 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 "rending 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 dreaming of surrender, taking dire
wounds, inflicting light ones.
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 different, 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, overbalanced,
he crashed backward into the snowdrift.
Rex had not reached him, but young Wolf had.
Wolf had watched the battle with a growing excitement 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 life. But the shameful truth is that Wolf did nothing
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 perhaps 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 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
warrior, body and mind.
But the second of dumfounded 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 advancing 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 tiger, twisted and tore himself free. Lad realizing his
own bolt was shot, gave ground, backing away from two assailants
instead of one.
It was easier now to retreat. For Wolf, unskilled 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 thereafter 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 manoeuver 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 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_ 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 arriving 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.
Reluctantly--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 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 hundred
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 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. 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 available 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 persistently 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 upright, 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 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 undisputed 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
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
happiness and love.
Surely, there was nothing in such a death to warrant the silly grief
that was ours, nor the heartsick 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 miserable 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 might one day sneer. So on the granite is
engraved:
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.
[
Transcriber's Note:
The following is a list of changes made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
_Nineteenth Printing March, 1922_
_Nineteenth Printing, March, 1922_
_Twentieth Printing August, 1922_
_Twentieth Printing, August, 1922_
_Twenty-first Printing Sept. 1922_
_Twenty-first Printing, Sept., 1922_
You're--your're more of a man than I am, old
You're--you're more of a man than I am, old
the inner wooden blinds in search the catch.
the inner wooden blinds in search of the catch.
formally entered for the Novice class, at the Westminister
formally entered for the Novice class, at the Westminster
white sign, was inscribed "COLLIES" Here his
white sign, was inscribed "COLLIES." Here his
was apparently no part of the law. And Lad felt
was apparently no part of the Law. And Lad felt
Lad was viewing the procedings from the top of
Lad was viewing the proceedings from the top of
a bushy tail hung limpy between crooked hind legs;
a bushy tail hung limply between crooked hind legs;
Any body, with price to buy a dog, can be an 'owner,'
Anybody, with price to buy a dog, can be an 'owner,'
"'_Third_,' the Mistress read, her brows crinkling
"'_Third_,'" the Mistress read, her brows crinkling
And Schwartz was an eye-witeness to this--Schwartz,
And Schwartz was an eye-witness to this--Schwartz,
"A sight harder, responded Schwartz. "My
"A sight harder," responded Schwartz. "My
longily at Schwartz's throat.
longingly at Schwartz's throat.
and to accept it He reached into his pocket and
and to accept it. He reached into his pocket and
Now, this is no _Mowgili_ tale, but a true narrative.
Now, this is no _Mowgli_ tale, but a true narrative.
underlying, the primitive lust for mastery.
underling, the primitive lust for mastery.
he laid out his plain of campaign and put
he laid out his plan of campaign and put
action." In the battle's wage was an irregular but
action." In the battle's wake was an irregular but
]