Long shadows were stretching lazily athwart the lawn from the gnarled
old giant trees. Over the whole drowsing world brooded the solemn hush
of late summer afternoon.
An amber light hung in the sleepy air; touching with gold the fire-blue
lake, the circle of lovingly protecting green hills; the emerald slope
which billowed up from the water-edge to the red-roofed gray house in
its setting of ancient oaks.
On the bare flooring, in the coolest corner of the veranda, two collies
lay sprawled. They were fast asleep; which means that they were ready
to come back to complete wakefulness at the first untoward sound.
Of the two slumbrous collies, one was slenderly graceful of outline;
gold-and-white of hue. She was Lady; imperious and temperamental wisp
of thoroughbred caninity.
The second dog had been crowded out of the shadiest spot of the
veranda, by his mate; so that a part of his burnished mahogany coat was
under the direct glare of the afternoon sun. Shimmering orange tints
blazed back the reflection of the torrid light.
He was Sunnybank Lad; eighty-pound collie; tawny and powerful; with
absurdly tiny white forepaws and with a Soul looking out from his
deep-set dark eyes. Chum and housemate he was to his two human gods;--a
dog, alone of all worshipers, having the privilege of looking on the
face of his gods and of communing with them without the medium of
priest or of prayer.
Lady, only, of the Place's bevy of Little People, refused from earliest
puppyhood to acknowledge Lad's benevolent rulership. She bossed and
teased and pestered him, unmercifully. And Lad not only let her do all
this, but he actually reveled in it. She was his mate. More,--she was
his idol. This idolizing of one mate, by the way, is far less uncommon
among dogs than we mere humans realize.
The summer afternoon hush was split by the whirring chug of a
motor-car; that turned in from the highroad, two hundred yards beyond
the house, and started down through the oak grove, along the winding
driveway. Immediately, Lady was not only awake, but on her feet, and in
motion. A furry gold-white whirlwind, she flashed off of the
vine-shaded veranda and tore at top speed up the hill to meet the
coming car.
No, it was not the Mistress and the Master whose approach stirred the
fiery little collie to lightning activity. Lad knew the purr of the
Place's car and he could distinguish it from any other, as far as his
sensitive ears could catch its sound. But to Lady, all cars were alike;
and all were signals for wild excitement.
Like too many other collies, she had a mania for rushing at any motor
vehicle, and for whizzing along beside it, perilously close to its
fast-moving wheels, barking and screaming hysterically and bounding
upward at its polished sides.
Nor had punishment and scolding cured her of the trait. She was an
addict at car-chasing. She was wholly incurable. There are such dogs.
Soon or late, many of them pay high for the habit.
In early days, Lad also had dashed after motors. But a single sharp
lecture from the Master had taught him that this was one of the direst
breaches of the Place's simple Law. And, thenceforth,--though he might
tremble with eagerness,--he stood statue-still when an automobile spun
temptingly past him.
More,--he had cured pup after pup, at the Place, of car-chasing. But
Lady he could not cure; though he never gave up the useless attempt.
Down the drive came a delivery truck; driven fast and with none too
great skill. Before it had covered half the distance between gate and
house, Lady was alongside. A wheel grazed her shoulder fur as, deftly,
she slipped from in front of the vehicle and sprang up at its tonneau.
With a ceaseless fanfare of barks,--delirious in her excitement,--she
circled the car; springing, dodging, wheeling.
The delivery boy checked speed and shouted futile warnings to the
insane collie. As he slowed down a bit on the steep grade, Lady hurled
herself in front of the machine, as though taunting it for cowardice in
abating its hot pace on her account.
Again and again had she run, head on, at advancing cars. It seemed to
delight her when such cars slackened speed or swerved, in order not to
kill her.
Now, as she whizzed backward, her vibrant muzzle a bare six inches from
the shiny buffer, one of her flying feet slipped in a mud rut. Her
balance gone, she tumbled.
A collie down is a collie up, in less than a second. But there was
still less than a second's space between to overthrown Lady and the
car's front wheels.
The boy slammed on the emergency brake. Through his mind ran the
formless thought of his fate at the hands of his employer when he
should return to the store with tidings that he had run over and killed
a good customer's costly collie; and on the customer's own grounds.
In that single breathless instant, a huge mahogany-and-snow shape
flashed forward, into the path of the machine.
Lad, following his mate, had tried to shoulder her aside and to herd
her too far back from the drive for any possible return to the danger
zone, until the car should have passed. More than once, at other times,
had he done this. But, today, she had eluded his mighty shoulder and
had flung herself back to the assault.
As she fell, she rolled over, twice, from her own momentum. The second
revolution left her directly in front of the skidding wheels. One of
them had actually touched her squirming spine; when white teeth gripped
her by the scruff of the neck. Those teeth could crush a mutton-bone as
a child cracks a peanut. But, on Lady, today, their power was exerted
only to the extent of lifting her, in one swift wrench, clear of the
ground and high in air.
The mischievous collie flew through space like a lithe mass of golden
fluff; and came to earth, in a heap, at the edge of the drive; well
clear of the menacing wheels. With Lad, it fared otherwise.
The great dog had braced himself, with all his might, for the
muscle-wrenching heave. Wherefore, he had no chance to spring clear, in
time to avoid the car. This, no doubt, he had realized, when he sprang
to his adored mate's rescue. For Lad's brain was uncanny in its
cleverness. That same cleverness, more likely than mere chance,--now
came to his own aid.
The left front wheel struck him and struck him fair. It hit his massive
shoulder, dislocating the joint and knocking the eighty-pound dog prone
to earth, his ruff within an inch of the wheel. There was no time to
gather his feet under him or to coerce the dislocated shoulder into
doing its share toward lifting him in a sideways spring that should
carry him out of the machine's way. There was but one thing Lad could
do. And he did it.
His body in a compact bunch, he rolled midway between the wheels;
making the single revolution at a speed the eye could scarce follow,--a
speed which jerked him from under the impending left wheel which
already had smitten him down.
Over him slid the wheel-locked car, through the mud of a recent rain;
while the boy clung to the emergency brake and yelled.
Over him and past him skidded the car. It missed the prostrate
dog,--missed him with all four wheels; though the rear axle's housing
smeared his snowy ruff with a blur of black grease.
On went the machine for another ten feet, before it could halt. Then a
chalk-faced delivery boy peered backward in fright,--to see Lad getting
painfully to his feet and holding perplexedly aloft his tiny right
forepaw in token of the dislocated shoulder.
The delivery boy saw more. In a swirl of black bad temper, Lady had
gathered herself up from the ditch where Lad's toss had landed her.
Without a moment's pause she threw herself upon the luckless dog whose
rough toss had saved her life. Teeth aglint, growling ferociously, she
dug her fangs into the hurt shoulder and slung her whole weight forward
in the bite.
Thus was it the temperamental Lady's wont to punish real or fancied
injuries from the Place's other animals,--and from humans as well,
except only the Mistress and the Master. She charged first, and did her
thinking afterward. Apparently, her brain, just then, could hold no
impression except that her interfering mate had picked her up by the
neck-scruff and had thrown her, head over heels, into a ditch. And such
treatment called for instant penalty.
Under her fifty-pound impact, poor Lad's three-cornered balance gave
way. Down he went in an awkward heap; while Lady snarled viciously and
snapped for his momentarily exposed throat. Lad turned his head aside
to guard the throat; but he made no move to resent this ungrateful
onslaught; much less to fight back. Which was old Lad's way,--with Lady.
Dislocated shoulder or not, he would have flown at any male dog that
assailed him; and would have made the aggressor fight for dear life.
But his mate was sacred. And he merely protected his throat and let her
nip agonizingly at his ears and paws; until her brief flurry of wrath
should be past.
A shout from the veranda,--whither the racket had drawn the Master from
his study,--put a sudden stop to Lady's brainstorm. Obedience was the
first and foremost rule drilled into the Little People of the Place.
And, from puppy days, the collies were taught to come,--and to come at
a run,--at call from the Mistress or the Master.
Lady, with no good grace, desisted from her punitive task, and galloped
down the drive to the house. Lad, rising with difficulty, followed; as
fast as a three-legged gait would permit. And behind them chugged the
delivery boy, bawling explanations.
A sharp word of reproof sent Lady skulking into a corner; anger
forgotten in humiliation at the public rebuke. The Master paid no heed
to her. Running up the drive, he met Lad, and picked up the suffering
collie in his arms. Carrying him into the study, the Master gave first
aid to the serious dislocation; then phoned for the nearest good vet.
As he left the study, to telephone, he encountered Lady, very woebegone
and cringing, at the door. When he returned, he beheld the remorseful
little gold-and-white vixen licking her mate's hurt shoulder and
wagging a propitiatory tail in plea for forgiveness from the dog she
had bitten and from the Master whose Law she had broken by her attack
on the car.
Always, after her brief rages, Lady was prettily and genuinely
repentant and eager to make friends again. And, as ever, Lad was
meeting her apologies more than half-way;--absurdly blissful at her
dainty attentions.
In the days that followed, Lady at first spent the bulk of her time
near her lame mate. She was unusually gentle and affectionate with him;
and seemed trying to make up to him for the enforced idleness of
strained sinews and dislocated joint. In her friendliness and
attention, Lad was very, very happy.
The vet had bandaged his shoulder and had anointed it with pungently
smelly medicines whose reek was disgusting and even painful to the
thoroughbred's supersensitive nostrils. Moreover, the vet had left
orders that Lad be made to keep quiet until the hurt should heal; and
that he risk no setback by undue exertion of any sort. It was sweet to
lie in the Master's study,--one white forepaw or the great shapely head
laid lovingly on the man's hiking boot; and with an occasional pat or a
friendly word from his deity, as the latter pounded away on a clicky
typewriter whose jarring noise Lad had long ago taught himself to
tolerate.
Sweeter it was to be made much of and "poored" by the Mistress; and to
have her light hands adjust his bandages; and to hear her tell him what
a dear dog he was and praise his bravery in rescuing Lady.
Perhaps sweetest of all, in those early days of convalescence, was the
amazing solicitude of Lady herself; and her queerly maternal tenderness
toward him.
But, as the summer days dreamed themselves away and Lad's splendid
health brought him nearer and nearer to recovery, Lady waxed restive
under the long strain of indolence and of good temper. Lad had been her
companion in the early morning rambles through the forest, back of the
Place; in rabbit quests; in swims in the ice, cool lake at the foot of
the lawn; in romps on the smooth green grass and in a dozen of the
active pursuits wherein country-bred collies love to squander the
outdoor days.
Less and less did Lady content herself with dull attendance on the
convalescent. More and more often did she set forth without him on
those cross-country runs that had meant so much to them both. Lad would
watch her vanish up the drive,--their fiery little son, Wolf, cantering
gleefully at her side. Then, his dark eyes full of sorrow, he would
gaze at the Master and, with a sigh, would lie back on his rug--and
wait.
There was something so human,--so uncomplainingly wretched,--in look
and in sigh,--that the Master was touched by the big dog's loneliness
and vexed at the flighty Lady's defection. Stooping down, at one such
time, he ran his hand over the beautiful silky head that rested against
his knee; and said in lame attempt at comfort:--
"Don't let it get under your skin, Laddie! She isn't worth it. One of
your honest paws is worth more than her whole fly-away body.--Not that
anyone ever was loved because he or she was worthy!--You're up against
the penalty that is bound to get everybody with a soul, who is fool
enough to love something or somebody without one . . . . We're going
over for the mail,--the Mistress and I. Want to come along?"
At once the melancholy in Lad's deep eyes gave place to puppy-like
exultance.
While, naturally, he did not understand one word in ten of the Master's
frequent prosy homilies to him, or of the Mistress's more melodious
speech, yet, from puppyhood, he had been talked to by both of them.
And, as ever with a highbred collie, such constant conversation had
borne ample fruit;--not only in giving the dog a startling
comprehension of voice-meanings, but also in teaching him to understand
many simple words and phrases.
For example, he recognized, as readily as would any five-year-old
child, this invitation to go motoring. And it banished the memory of
Lady's fickleness.
This morning, for the first time since his accident, Lad was able to
spring into the car-tonneau, unaided. His hurt was all-but well.
Enthroning himself in the precise center of the rear seat, he prepared
to enjoy every inch of the ride.
No matter how long or how tedious were these jaunts, Lad never went to
sleep or ceased to survey with eager attention the myriad details of
the trip. There was something half-laughable, half-pathetic, in his air
of strained interest.
Only when the Mistress and the Master both chanced to leave the car at
the same time, at market or bank or postoffice, would Lad cease from
this genial and absorbed inspection of everything in sight. Left alone
in the machine, he always realized at once that he was on guard. Head
on paws he would lie, intently scanning anyone who might chance to
pause near the auto; and, with a glint of curved white fang beneath
sharply upcurled lip, warning away such persons as ventured too close.
Marketing done, today, the trio from the Place started homeward. Less
than a quarter-mile from their own gateway, they heard the blaring honk
of a motor horn behind them.
Within a second thereafter, a runabout roared past, the cut-out making
echoes along the still road; and a poisonously choking cloud of dust
whirling aloft in the speedster's wake.
The warning honk had not given the Mistress time to turn out. Luckily
she was driving well on her own side of the none-too-wide road. As it
was, a sharp little jar gave testimony to the light touch of mudguards.
And the runabout whizzed on.
"That's one of the speed-idiots who make an automobile an insult to
everybody except its owner! The young fool!" stormed the Master,
glowering impotently at the other car, already a hundred yards ahead;
and at the back of its one occupant, a sportily-clad youth in the early
twenties.
A high-pitched yelping bark,--partly of dismay, partly of
warning,--from Lad, broke in on the Master's fuming remonstrance. The
big dog had sprung up from his rear seat cushion and, with forepaws
gripping the back of the front seat, he was peering forward; his head
and shoulders between the Mistress and the Master.
Never before in all his rides had Lad so transgressed the rules of
motoring behavior as to thrust himself forward like this. A word of
rebuke died on the Master's tongue; as the Mistress, with a gasp of
fear, pointed ahead, in the path of the speeding runabout.
Lady and Wolf had had a jolly gallop through the summer woodlands. And
at last they had turned their faces homeward; for the plunge in the
cool lake which was wont to follow a hot weather run. Side by side they
jogged along, to the forest edge--and into the sixteen-acre meadow that
stretches from forest to highway.
A few rods on the far side of the road which separated the meadow from
the rest of the Place, Wolf paused to investigate a chipmunk hole. Lady
was more interested just then in splashing her hot body in the chill of
the lake than in exploring for hypothetical chipmunks.
Moreover, her keen ears caught a sound which rapidly swept nearer and
nearer. A motor-car with the muffler cut out was approaching, at a most
gratifyingly high speed.
The noise was as martial music to Lady. The speed promised exhilarating
sport. Her trot merged into a headlong run; and she dashed out into the
road.
The runabout was a bare fifty yards ahead of her, and it was coming on
with a speed which shook even Lady's excitement-craving nerves. Here,
evidently, was a playmate which it would be safer to chase than to
confront head-on.
It was at this juncture, by the way, that Lad lurched forward from the
rear seat and that the Mistress pointed in terror at the endangered
collie.
Lady, for once overawed by speed, leaped to one side of the road. Not
far, but leaving ample space for the driver to miss her by at least a
yard. He had honked loudly, at sight of her. But, he had abated not an
atom of his fifty-mile-an-hour pace.
Whether the man was rattled by the collie's antics,--whether he acted
in sudden rage at her for startling him, whether he belonged to the
filthy breed of motorist who recites chucklingly the record of his
kills,--he did not hold his midroad course.
Instead,--still without checking speed,--he veered his machine slightly
to the right; aiming the flying juggernaut directly at the
mischievously-poised little collie who danced in imagined safety at the
road-edge.
The rest was horror.
Merciful in its mercilessness, the hard-driven right front wheel smote
the silky golden head with a force that left no terrible instant of
fear or of agony. More lucky by far than the myriad innocent and
friendly dogs that are left daily to scream out their lives writhingly
in the wake of speeding motor-cars, Lady was killed at a single stroke.
The fluffy golden body was hurled far in front of its slayer; and the
wheels struck it a second time. The force of the impact caused the
runabout to skid, perilously; and the youthful driver brought it to a
jarring and belated halt. Springing to the ground, he rolled the dead
collie's impeding body into the shallow wayside ditch, clear of his
wheels. Then, scrambling aboard again, he jammed down the accelerator.
Lad had made a flying leap over the door of the Master's car. He struck
ground with a force which crumpled his healing right shoulder under
him. Heedless of the pain, he hurled himself forward, on three legs, at
an incredible speed; straight for the runabout. His great head low, his
formidable teeth agleam beneath drawn-back lips, his soft eyes
a-smolder with red flame, Lad charged.
But, for all his burst of speed, he was too late to avenge; even as he
had been too late to save. By the time he could reach the spot where
Lady lay crumpled and moveless in the ditch, the runabout had gathered
full speed and was disappearing down the bend of the highway.
After it flew Lad, silent, terrible,--not stopping to realize that the
fleetest dog,--even with all four of his legs in commission,--cannot
hope to overhaul a motor-car driven at fifty miles an hour.
But, at the end of a furious quarter-mile, his wise brain took charge
once more of his vengeance-craving heart. He halted, snarled hideously
after the vanished car, and limped miserably back to the scene of the
tragedy.
There, he found the Mistress sitting in the roadside dust, Lady's head
in her lap. She was smoothing lovingly the soft rumpled fur; and was
trying hard not to cry over the inert warm mass of gold-and-white
fluffiness which, two minutes earlier, had been a beautiful
thoroughbred collie, vibrant with life and fun and lovableness.
The Master had risen from his brief inspection of his pet's fatal
injuries. Scowling down the road, he yearned to kick himself for his
stupidity in failing to note the Juggernaut's number.
Head and tail a-droop, Lad toiled back to where Lady was lying. A queer
low sound, strangely like a human sob, pulsed in his shaggy throat, as
he bent down and touched his dead mate's muzzle with his own. Then,
huddling close beside her, he reverted all at once to a trait of his
ancestors, a thousand generations back.
Sitting on his haunches and lifting his pointed nose to the summer sky,
he gave vent to a series of long-drawn wolf howls; horrible to hear.
There was no hint of a housebred twentieth century dog in his lament.
It was the death-howl of the primitive wolf;--a sound that sent an
involuntary shiver through the two humans who listened aghast to their
chum's awesome mourning for his lost mate.
The Master made as though to say something,--in comfort or in
correction. The Mistress, wiser, motioned to him not to speak.
In a few seconds, Lad rose wearily to his feet; the spasm of primal
grief having spent itself. Once more he was himself; sedate, wise, calm.
Limping over to where the car had halted so briefly, he cast about the
ground, after the manner of a bloodhound.
Presently, he came to an abrupt halt. He had found what he sought. As
motionless as a bird-dog at point, he stood there; nose to earth,
sniffing.
"What in blazes--?" began the Master, perplexed.
The Mistress was keener of eye and of perception. She understood. She
saw the Lad's inhalingly seeking muzzle was steady above a faint mark
in the road-dust;--the mark of a buckskin shoe's print. Long and
carefully the dog sniffed. Then, with heavy deliberation he moved on to
the next footprint and the next. The runabout's driver had taken less
than a half dozen steps in all; during his short descent to the ground.
But Lad did not stop until he had found and identified each and every
step.
"He knows!" marveled the Mistress. "He saw the brute jump down from his
car. And he has found his footsteps. He'll remember them, too."
"Little good it will do the poor chap!" commented the Master. "He can't
track him, that way. Get aboard, won't you?" he went on. "I'll make Lad
go back into the tonneau again, too. Drive down to the house; and take
Lad indoors with you. Better telephone to the vet to come over and have
another look at his shoulder. He's wrenched it badly, in all that run.
Anyway, please keep him indoors till--"
He finished his sentence by a glance at Lady. At the Master's order,
Lad with sore reluctance left the body of his mate; whither he had
returned after his useless finding of the footmarks. He had just curled
up, in the ditch, pressing close to her side; and again that unnatural
sobbing sound was in his throat. On the Master's bidding, Lad crossed
to the car and suffered himself to be lifted aboard. The Mistress
started down the drive. As they went, Lad ever looked back, with
suffering despair in his dark eyes, at that huddle of golden fur at the
wayside.
The Master carried the pitifully light armful to a secluded spot far
beyond the stables; and there he buried it. Then, satisfied that Lad
could not find his mate's grave, he returned to the house.
His heart was heavy with helpless wrath. Again and again, in the course
of their drives, he and the Mistress had sickened at sight of mutely
eloquent little bodies left in mid-road or tossed in some
ditch,--testimony to the carelessness and callous hoggishness of
autoists. Some few of these run-over dogs,--like poor Lady,--had of
course tempted fate; spurred on by that strange craving which goaded
them to fly at cars. But the bulk of them had been strolling peacefully
along the highways or crossing to or from their own dooryards, when the
juggernauts smashed them into torture or into instant death.
The Master reflected on the friendly country folk who pay taxes for the
scenery and for the fine roads which make motoring so pleasant;--and on
the reward so many motorists bestow upon these rural hosts of theirs by
wanton or heedless murder of pet animals. For the first time, he could
understand how and why farmers are tempted to strew glass or tacks in
the road to revenge the slaying of a beloved dog.
For the next few days, until his shoulder was again in condition to
bear his eighty-pound weight on it, Lad was kept indoors or on the
veranda. As soon as he was allowed to go out alone, the big collie went
straight to the spot where last he had seen Lady's body. Thence, he a
made a careful detour of the Place,--seeking for--something. It was two
days before he found what he sought.
In the meantime,--as ever, since his mate's killing,--he ate
practically nothing; and went about in a daze.
"He'll get over it presently," prophesied the Master, to soothe his
wife's worry.
"Perhaps so," returned the Mistress. "Or perhaps not. Remember he's a
collie, and not just a human."
On the third day, Lad's systematic quartering of the Place brought him
to the tiny new mound, far beyond the stables. Twice, he circled it.
Then he lay down, very close beside it; his mighty head athwart the
ridge of upflung sod.
There,--having seen him from a distance,--the Master came across to
speak to him. But at sight of the man, the collie got up from his
resting place and moved furtively away.
Time after time, during the next week, the Master or the Mistress found
him lying there. And always, at their approach, he would get up and
depart. Nor did he go direct to the mound, on these pilgrimages; but by
devious paths; as though trying to shake off possible pursuit. No
longer did he spend the nights, as from puppyhood, in his beloved
"cave" under the piano in the music room. On one pretext or another, he
would manage to slip out of the house, during the evening. Twice, in
gray dawn, the Master found him crouched beside the mound, where,
sleepless, he had lain all night.
The Mistress and the Master grew seriously troubled over their collie
chum's continued grief. They thought, more than once, of sending him
away to boarding kennels or to some friend, for a month or two; to
remove him from the surroundings which made him so wretched. Oddly
enough, his heartbreak struck neither of them as absurd.
They had made a long study of collie nature in all its million queer
and half-human phases. They knew, too, that a grieving dog is upheld by
none of the supports of Faith nor of Philosophy; and that he lacks the
wisdom which teaches the wondrous anaesthetic powers of Time. A
sorrowing dog sorrows without hope.
Nor did Lad's misery seem ridiculous to the Place's many kindly
neighbors; with whom the great dog was a favorite and who were
righteously indignant over the killing of Lady.
Then in a single minute came the cure.
On Labor Day afternoon, the finals in a local tennis tournament were to
be played at the mile distant country club. The Mistress and the Master
went across to the tournament; taking Lad along. Not that there could
be anything of the remotest interest to a dog in the sight of flanneled
young people swatting a ball back and forth. But Lad was a privileged
guest at all outdoor functions; and he enjoyed being with his two
deities.
Thus, when the two climbed the clubhouse veranda, Lad was at their
heels; pacing along in majestic unhappiness and not turning his
beautiful head in response to any of a dozen greetings flung at him.
The Mistress found a seat among a bevy of neighbors. Lad lay down,
decorously, at her feet; and refused to display the faintest interest
in anything that went on around him.
The playing had not yet begun. New arrivals were drifting up the steps
of the clubhouse. Car after car disgorged women in sport clothes and
men in knickerbockers or flannels. There was plenty of chatter and
bustle and motion. Lad paid no heed to any of it.
Then, up to the foot of the veranda steps jarred a flashy runabout;
driven by a flashier youth. At word from the policeman in charge he
parked his car at the rear of the clubhouse among fifty others, and
returned on foot to the steps.
"That's young Rhuburger," someone was confiding to the Mistress. "You
must have read about him. He was arrested as a Conscientious Objector,
during the war. Since then, his father has died, and left him all sorts
of money. And he is burning it; in double handfuls. No one seems to
know just how he got into the club, here. And no one seems to--"
The gossipy maundering broke off short; drowned in a wild beast growl.
Both the Mistress and her husband had been eyeing Rhuburger as he
ascended the veranda steps in all the glory of unbelievably exquisite
and gaudy raiment. There seemed to both of them something vaguely
familiar about the fellow; though neither could place him. But, to Lad,
there was nothing at all vague in his recollections of the gorgeous
newcomer.
As Rhuburger reached the topmost step, the collie lifted his head, his
nostrils dilating wide. A thrill went through him. His nearsighted eyes
swept the crowd. They rested at last on Rhuburger. Another deep
inhalation told him all he needed to know. Not in vain had Lad sniffed
so long and so carefully at those faint footprints in the road dust, at
the spot where Lady died. In his throat a deep growl was born.
"Hello, folks!" Rhuburger was declaiming, to a wholly unenthusiastic
circle of acquaintances. "Made another record, just now. The little
boat spun me here from Montclair in exactly nineteen minutes.
That's--that's roughly an average rate of a mile in seventy-five
seconds. Not so bad, eh? That car sure made a hit with ME, all right.
Not so much of a hit, maybe, with a couple of chickens and a fat old
dog that had the bad luck to be asleep in the middle of the--"
His plangent brag was lost in a sound seldom heard on the hither side
of jungle or zoo. From the group of slightly disgusted onlookers, a
huge and tawny shape burst forth; hurtling through the air, straight
for the fat throat of the boaster.
Rhuburger, by some heaven-sent instinct, flung up his arms to shield
his menaced jugular. He had no time to do more.
Lad's fury-driven eighty pounds of muscular weight crashed full against
his chest. Lad's terrible teeth, missing their throat-goal, drove deep
into the uplifted right forearm; shearing through imported tweed
coat-sleeve and through corded silken shirt, and through flabby flesh
and clean to the very bone.
The dog's lion-roar blended with the panic-screeches of the victim.
And, under that fearful impact, Rhuburger reeled back from the
stairhead, and went crashing down the steps, to the broad stone
flagging at the bottom.
Not once, during that meteoric, shriek-punctured downward flight, did
Lad loose his grip on the torn forearm. But as the two struck the
flagging at the bottom, he shifted his hold, with lightning speed;
stabbing once more for the exposed jugular.
He lunged murderously at his mark. Yes, and this time he found it. His
teeth had touched the pudgy throat, and began to cleave their
remorseless way to the very life of the man who had slain Lady.
But, out of the jumble of cries and stamping feet and explosive shouts
from the scared onlookers on the veranda above, one staccato yell
pierced the swirl of rage-mists in the avenging collie's brain.
"LAD!" came the Master's sharp, scandalized mandate. "LAD!!!"
Hating the thought of desisting from his cherished revenge, the dog
heard and heeded. With visible reluctance, he drew back from the
slaughter; and turned his noble head to face the man who was running
down the steps toward him.
Lad knew well what he might expect, for this thing he had done. He knew
the Law. He knew, almost from birth, the courteous tolerance due to
folk among whom his deities took him. And now he had made an
industrious effort to kill one of these people.
It was no light offense for a dog to attack a human. Lad, like every
well-trained collie, knew that. His own death might well follow.
Indeed, from the babel of voices on the veranda, squalling confusedly
such hackneyed sentiments as "Mad dog!" and "Get a gun!" it seemed
highly probable that Lad was due to suffer full penalty, from the
man-pack.
Yet he gave no heed to the clamor. Instead, turning slowly, he faced
the Master; ready for whatever might follow. But nothing
followed,--nothing at least that he expected.
The Master simply commanded:--
"Down, Lad!"
As the dog, obediently, dropped to the ground, the Master bent to
examine the groaning and maudlinly weeping Rhuburger. In this Samaritan
task he was joined by one or two of the club's more venturesome members
who had followed him down the steps.
Rhuburger was all-but delirious with fright. His throat was scored by
the first raking of Lad's teeth; but in the merest of flesh-wounds. The
chewed arm was more serious; but no bone or tendon was injured. A
fortnight of care would see it as good as new. By more or less of a
miracle, no bones had been broken and no concussion caused by the
backward dive down the flight of steps. There were bad bruises
a-plenty; but there was nothing worse.
As the Master and the few others who had descended the steps were
working over the fallen man, the Mistress checked the turmoil on the
veranda. At Lad's leap, memory of this speed-mad motorist had rushed
back to her.
Now, tersely, for the benefit of those around, she was identifying him
with the killer of Lady; whose death had roused so much indignation in
the village. And, as she spoke, the people who had clamored loudest of
mad dogs and who had called so frantically for a gun, waxed silent. The
myriad glances cast at the prostrate and blubbering Rhuburger were not
loving. Someone even said, loudly:
"GOOD old Laddie!"
As the Mistress and the Master were closing the house for the night, a
car came down the drive. Out of it stepped their friend of many years,
Maclay, the local Justice of the Peace.
"Hello, Mac!" hailed the Master. "Here to take us all to jail for
assault-and-battery; or just to serve a 'dangerous dog' notice on us?"
He spoke lightly; but he was troubled. Today's escapade might well lead
the village law to take some cognizance of Lad's ferocious deed.
"No," laughed Maclay. "Neither of those things. I'm here,
unprofessionally. I thought you people might like to know a few things,
before you go to bed. In the first place, the doctor patched up
Rhuburger's bites and took him home. He couldn't take him home in
Rhuburger's own car. For some of the tennis crowd had gotten at that.
What they did to that $6,000 runabout was a crime! They stripped it of
everything. They threw the carburetor and the wheels and the steering
gear and a lot of other parts into the lake."
"WHAT?"
"Then they left their cards pinned to the dismantled machine's
cushions;--in case Rhuburger cares to go further into the matter. While
they were doing all that, the club's Governors had a hurry-call
meeting. And for once the Board was unanimous about something. It was
unanimous--in expelling Rhuburger from the club. Then we--By the way,
where's Laddie? Curled up by Lady's grave, as usual, I suppose? Poor
old dog!"
"No," denied the Mistress. "He's asleep in his 'cave' under the piano.
He went there, of his own accord. And he ate a perfectly tremendous
supper, tonight. He's--he's CURED!"