Lad was getting along in years.
Not yet had age begun to claw at him; blearing the wondrous deep-set
dark eyes and silvering the classic muzzle and broadening the shapely
skull and stiffening the sweepingly free gait; dulling the sharp ears
or doing any of the other pitiably tragic things that nature does to
the dog who is progressing in his teens. Those, humiliations were still
waiting for Lad, one by one; beyond the next Turn of the Road.
Yet the romp and the spirit of bubbling fun and the lavishly needless
exercise--these were merging into sobriety. True, at rare times, with
the Mistress or the Master--especially with the Mistress, Lad would
forget he was middle-aged and dignified; and would play like a crazy
puppy. But, for the most part he had begun to carry his years a trifle
seriously.
He was not yet in the winter or even the Indian Summer of his beautiful
life. But, at least, he had strolled into its early autumn.
And this, be it well remembered, is the curse which Stepmother Nature
placed upon The Dog, when he elected to turn his back on his own kind,
and to become the only one of the world's four-footed folk to serve Man
of his own accord. To punish the Dog for this abnormality, Nature
decreed that his life should begin to fail, almost as soon as it had
reached the glory of its early prime.
A dog is not at his best, in mind or in body, until he has passed his
third year. And, before he nears the ten-year mark, he has begun to
decline. At twelve or thirteen, he is as decrepit as is the average
human of seventy. And not one dog in a hundred can be expected to live
to fourteen.
(Lad, by some miracle, was destined to endure past his own sixteenth
birthday; a record seldom equaled among his race.)
And so to our story:--
When the car and the loaded equipment-truck drew up at the door, that
golden October day, Lad forgot his advancing years. In a moment, he was
once more a puppy. For he knew what it all meant. It did not need the
advent of the Mistress and the Master from the house, in rough outing
clothes, nor the piling of duffle-bags and the like into the car's
tonneau, to send Laddie into a transport of trumpeting and gyrations.
The first sight and sniff of the tents, rolled tight in the truck, had
done that. Lad understood. Lad always understood.
This gear meant the annual fall camping trip in the back reaches of the
Ramapo Mountains, some twenty-odd miles north of the Place; the
fortnight of tent-life, of shooting, of fishing, of bracingly chill
nights and white-misted dawns and of drowsily happy campfire evenings.
It meant all manner of adventure and fun for Lad.
Now, on a fishing jaunt, the presence of any kind of dog is a
liability; not an asset. A thousand dog-fancier fishermen can attest to
that. And, when humans are hunting any sort of game, a collie is
several degrees worse than worthless.
Thus, Lad's usefulness, as a member of the party, was likely to be
negligible;--except in the matter of guarding camp and as an all-round
pal for the two campers.
Yet, as on former years, there was no question of leaving him at home.
Where the Mistress and the Master went, he went, too; whenever such a
thing were possible. He was their chum. And they would have missed him
as much as he would have missed them.
Which, of course, was an absurd way for two reasonably sane people to
regard a mere dog. But, then, Lad was not a "mere" dog.
Thus it was that he took his place, by invitation, in the car's
tonneau, amid a ruck of hand-luggage; as the camp-ward pilgrimage
began. Ten miles farther on, the equipment truck halted to take aboard
a guide named Barret, and his boy; and their professionally reliable
old Irish setter.
This setter had a quality, not over-common with members of his grand
breed; a trait which linked his career pathetically with that of a
livery-plug. He would hunt for anybody. He went through his day's work,
in stubble or undergrowth, with the sad conscientiousness of an elderly
bookkeeper.
Away from the main road, and up a steadily rising byway that merged
into an axle-snapping mountain-track, toiled the cars; at last coming
to a wheezy and radiator-boiling halt at the foot of a rock-summit so
steep that no vehicle could breast it. In a cup, at the summit of this
mountain-top hillock, was the camp-site; its farther edge only a few
yards above a little bass-populated spring-lake.
The luggage was hauled, gruntily, up the steep; and camp was pitched.
Then car and truck departed for civilization. And the two weeks of
wilderness life set in.
It was a wonderful time for old Lad. The remoteness and wild stillness
of it all seemed to take him back, in a way, to the wolf-centuries of
his ancestors. It had been monstrous pleasant to roam the peaceful
forest back of the Place. But there was a genuine thrill in exploring
these all-but manless woods; with their queer scents of wild things
that seldom ventured close to the ordained haunts of men.
It was exciting, to wake at midnight, beside the smoldering campfire,
and to hear, above the industrious snoring, of the guide and his boy,
the stealthy forest noises; the pad-pad-pad of some wary prowler
circling at long range the twinkling embers; the crash of a far-off
buck; the lumbering of some bear down to the lake to drink. The almost
moveless sharp air carried a myriad fascinating scents which human
nostrils were too gross to register; but which were acutely plain and
understandable to the great dog.
Best of all, in this outing, Lad's two deities, the Mistress and the
Master, were never busy at desk or piano, or too much tangled up with
the society of silly outsiders, to be his comrades and playmates. True,
sometimes they hurt his supersensitive feelings most distressingly, by
calling to him: "No, no, Laddie. Back! Watch camp'" when he essayed to
join them as they set forth with rods over their shoulders for a
half-day's fishing; or as, armed with guns, they whistled up the bored
but worthy setter for a shooting trip. But, for the most, Lad was close
at their sides, during these two wonderful weeks. And he was very happy.
Once, during a solitary ramble, before the humans had awakened in the
morning, Lad caught an odd scent; and followed it for a quarter mile
down the mountainside. It waxed stronger and ranker. At last, a turn
around a high boulder brought him face to face with its source. And he
found himself confronting a huge black bear.
The bear was busy looting a bee-tree. It was the season when he and his
like are stocking up, with all the fatmaking food they can gorge, in
preparation for the winter's "holing-in." Thus, he viewed with sluggish
non-interest the advent of the dog. He had scented Lad for as long a
time as Lad had scented him. But he had eaten on, unperturbed. For he
knew himself to be the match of any four dogs; especially if the dogs
were unaccompanied by men. And, a long autumn of food had dulled his
temper.
So, he merely checked his honey-gorging long enough to roll a rotted
log to one side and to scoop up from under it a pawful of fat white
grubs which had decided to winter beneath the decayed trunk. Then,
absent-mindedly brushing aside a squadron of indignant bees, he
continued his sweet feast.
As Lad rounded the boulder and came to a growling halt, the bear raised
his honey-smeared head, showed a yellowing fang from under one upcurled
corner of his sticky lips; and glowered evilly at the collie from out
of his reddening little eyes. Then he made as though to go on eating.
But Lad would not have it so. Into his rejuvenated heart stole a tinge
of the mischief which makes a collie puppy dash harrowingly at a
tethered cow. Barking with sheer delight in the excitement of meeting
this savage-looking monster, the dog rushed merrily at the bear. His
teeth were not bared. His hackles were not bristling. This was no
fight; but a jolly game. Lad's dark eyes danced with fun.
Midway of his charge, he checked himself. Not through fear, but from
utter astonishment. For his new acquaintance had done a right
non-quadrupedal thing. Bruin had reared himself upon his hind legs; and
was standing there, like a man, confronting the dog. He towered, thus,
ever so high above Lad's head.
His short arms, with their saber-shaped claws, were outstretched toward
Lad, as if in humble supplication. But there was nothing supplicating
or even civil in the tiny red eyes that squinted ferociously down at
the collie. Small wonder that Laddie halted his own galloping advance;
and stood doubtful!
The Master, a minute earlier, had turned out of the blankets for his
painfully icy morning plunge in the lakelet. The fanfare of barking, a
quarter-mile below, changed his intent. A true dogman knows his dog's
bark,--and its every shade of meaning,--as well as though it were human
speech. From the manner wherewith Lad had given tongue, the Master knew
he had cornered or treed something quite out of the common. Catching up
his rifle, he made for the direction of the bark; running at top speed.
The bear put an end to the moment of hesitancy. Lunging forward, he
raked at the crouching collie, with one of his murderous claws; in a
gesture designed to gather the impudent dog into his death-embrace.
Now, even from humans, except only the Mistress and the Master, Lad
detested patting or handling of any kind. Whether he thought this
maneuver of the bear's an uncouth form of caress or knew it for a
menace,--he moved back from it. Yet he did so with a leisurely motion,
devoid of fear and expressive of a certain lofty contempt. Perhaps that
is why he moved without his native caution.
At all events, the tip of one of the sweeping claws grazed his ear,
opening the big vein, and hurting like the very mischief.
On the instant, Lad changed from a mischievous investigator to a deeply
offended and angry dog. No longer in doubt as to Bruin's intent, he
slithered out of reach of the grasping arms, with all the amazing speed
of a wolf-descended collie of the best sort. And, in practically the
same fraction of a second, he had flashed back to the attack.
Diving in under the other's surprisingly agile arms, he slashed the
bear's stomach with one of his razorlike eyeteeth; then spun to one
side and was out of reach. Down came the bear, on all fours; raging
from the slash. Lurching forward, he flung his huge bulk at the dog.
Lad flashed out of reach, but with less leeway than he would have
expected. For Bruin, for all his awkwardness, could move with
bewildering speed.
And, as the bear turned, Lad was at him again, nipping the hairy flank,
till his teeth met in its fat; and then diving as before under the
lunging body of the foe.
It was at this point the Master hove in sight. He was just in time to
see the flank-bite and to see Lad dance out of reach of the furious
counter. It was an interesting spectacle, there in the gray dawn and in
the primeval forest's depths;--this battle between a gallant dog and a
ragingly angry bear. If the dog had been other than his own loved chum,
the Master might have stood there and watched its outcome. But he was
enough of a woodsman to know there could, in all probability, be but
one end to such a fight.
Lad weighed eighty pounds,--an unusually heavy weight for a collie that
carries no loose fat,--and he was the most compactly powerful dog of
his size the Master had ever seen. Also, when he chose to exert it, Lad
had the swiftness of a wildcat and the battling prowess of a tiger.
Yet all this would scarce carry him to victory, or even to a draw,
against a black bear several times heavier than himself and with the
ability to rend with his claws as well as with his teeth. Once let
Lad's foot slip, in charge or in elusive retreat,--once let him
misjudge time or distance--and he must be crushed to a pulp or ripped
to ribbons.
Wherefore, the Master brought his rifle to his shoulder. His finger
curled about the trigger. But it was no easy thing, by that dim light,
to aim with any accuracy. Nor was there the slightest assurance that
Lad,--dancing in and out and everywhere and nowhere at once,--might not
come in line with the bullet. Thus,--from a tolerable knowledge of
bears and of their comparative mildness in the plump season of the
year,--he shouted at the top of his lungs; and, at the same time, fired
into the air.
The bluff sufficed. Even as Lad jumped back from close quarters and
whirled about, at sound of the voice and the shot,--the bear dropped to
all fours, with ridiculous haste; and shambled off at very creditable
speed into the tangle of undergrowth.
Not so far gone in the battle-lust had Bruin been that he cared to risk
conflict with an armed man. Twice, before, in his somewhat long life,
had he heard at close quarters the snap of a rifle, in the forest
stillness, and the whine of a bullet. Once, such a bullet had found its
mark by scoring a gouge on his scalp; a gouge which gnats and mayflies
and "no-see-'ems" and less cleanly pests had made a torment for him,
for weeks thereafter.
Bruin had a good memory. Just now, he had nothing to defend. He was not
at bay. Nor had the fight-fury possessed him to the exclusion of
sanity. Thus, he fled. And, eagerly, Lad gave chase.
But, at the very edge of the bush-rampart, the Master's call brought
the collie back, to heel, exceeding glum and reluctant. Reproachfully,
Lad gazed up at the man who had spoiled his morning of enthralling
sport. Halfheartedly, Lad listened to the Master's rebuke, as he
followed back to camp. His day had begun so delightfully! And, as
usual, a human had interrupted the fun, at the most exciting time; and
for no apparent reason. Humans were like that.
Barring one other incident, Lad's two weeks at camp were
uneventful,--until the very last day. That "one incident" can be passed
over, with modest brevity. It concerned a black-and-white cat which Lad
saw, one evening, sneaking past the campfire's farthest shadows. He
gave chase. The chase ended in less than ten seconds. And, Lad had to
be bathed and scoured and rubbed and anointed, for the best part of
twenty-four hours, before he was allowed to come again within fifty
feet of the dining tent.
On a raw morning, the car and the truck made their appearance at the
foot of the rocky mountaintop hillock. The tents had been struck, at
daylight; and every cooking utensil and dish had been scoured and put
into the crate as soon as it was used. Camp was policed and cleaned.
The fire was beaten to death; a half-score pails of water were dowsed
over its remains; and damp earth was flung upon it.
In short, the camping spot was not only left as it had been found and
as one would want it to be found again, but every trace of fire was
destroyed.
And all this, be it known, is more than a mere rule for campers. It
should be their sacred creed. If one is not thoroughgoing sportsman
enough to make his camp-site scrupulously clean, at least there is one
detail he should never allow himself to neglect;--a detail whose
omission should be punished by a term in prison: Namely, the utter
extinction of the campfire.
Every year, millions of dollars' worth of splendid trees and of homes
are wiped out, by forest fires. No forest fire, since the birth of
time, ever started of its own accord. Each and every one has been due
to human carelessness.
A campfire ill-extinguished;--a smolder of tobacco not stamped
out;--the flaming cinders of a railroad train,--a match dropped among
dry leaves before spark and blaze have both been destroyed,--these be
the first and only causes of the average forest fire. All are
avoidable. None is avoided. And the loss to property and to life and to
natural resources is unbelievably great.
Any fool can start a forest fire. Indeed, a fool generally does. But a
hundred men cannot check it. Forest wardens post warnings. Forest
patrols, afoot or in airships, keep sharp watch. But the selfish
carelessness of man undoes their best precautions.
Sometimes in spring or in lush summer, but far oftenest in the dry
autumn, the Red Terror stalks over mountain and valley; leaving black
ruin in its wake. Scarce an autumn passes that the dirty smoke reek
does not creep over miles of sweet woodland, blotting out the sunshine
for a time and blotting out rich vegetation for much longer.
This particular autumn was no exception. On the day before camp was
broken, the Mistress had spied, from the eyrie heights of the knoll, a
grim line of haze far to southward; and a lesser smoke-smear to the
west. And the night sky, on two horizons, had been faintly lurid.
The campers had noted these phenomena, with sorrow. For, each
wraithlike smoke-swirl meant the death of tree and shrub. Lad noted the
smudges as distinctly as did they. Indeed, to his canine nostrils, the
chill autumn air brought the faint reek of wood-smoke; an odor much too
elusive, at that distance, for humans to smell. And, once or twice, he
would glance in worried concern at these humans; as if wondering why
they took so coolly a manifestation that a thousand-year-old hereditary
instinct made the dog shrink from.
But the humans showed no outward sign of terror or of rage. And, as
ever, taking his tone from his gods, Lad decided there was nothing to
fear. So, he tried to give no further heed to the reek.
The driver of the truck and his assistant were full of tales of the
fire's ravages in other sections. And their recital was heard with
active interest by the folk who for fourteen days had been out of touch
with the world.
"It's well we're lighting out for civilization," said the Master, as he
superintended the loading of the truck. "The woods are as dry as
tinder. And if the wind should change and grow a bit fresher, the blaze
over near Wildcat Mountain might come in this direction. If ever it
does, it'll travel faster than any gang of fire-fighters can block it.
This region is dead ripe for such a thing. Not a drop of rain in a
month . . . . No, no, Laddie!" he broke off in his maunderings, as the
collie sought to leap aboard the truck in the wake of a roll of
bedding. "No, no. You're going with us, in the car."
Now, long usage and an uncanny intelligence had given Lad a more than
tolerable understanding of the English language's simpler phrases. The
term, "You're going with us in the car," was as comprehensible to him
as to any child. He had heard it spoken, with few variations, a
thousand times, in the past nine years. At once, on hearing the
Master's command, he jumped down from the truck; trotted off to the
car, a hundred yards distant; and sprang into his wonted place in the
luggage-cluttered tonneau.
He chanced to jump aboard, from one side; just as the guide's
hobbledehoy son was hoisting a heavy and cumbersome duffle bag into the
tonneau, from the other. Lad's eighty pounds of nervous energy smote
the bag, amidships; as the boy was balancing it high in air,
preparatory to setting it down between two other sacks. As a result,
boy and bag rolled backward in a tangled embrace, across several yards
of stony ground.
Lad had not meant to cause any such catastrophe. Yet he stood looking
down in keen enjoyment at the lively spectacle. But as the boy came to
a halt, against a sharp-pointed rock, and sat up, sniveling with pain,
the great dog's aspect changed. Seeming to realize he was somehow to
blame, he jumped lightly down from the car and went over to offer to
the sufferer such comfort as patting forepaw and friendly licking
tongue could afford.
"Here!" called the guide, who had seen but a crosssection of the
collision. "Here, you! Stop a-playin' with the dorg, and hustle them
bags onto--"
"I wa'n't playin' with him," half-blubbered the boy, glowering dourly
at the sympathetic Lad; and scrambling up from his bruise-punctured
roll on the ground. "He came a-buntin' me; and I--"
"That'll do, Sonny!" rasped Barret, who was strong on discipline and
who fancied he had witnessed the climax of a merry game between boy and
dog, "I seen what I seen. And I don't aim to take no back-talk from a
wall-eyed, long-legged, chuckle-headed brat; that's hired to help his
poor old dad and who spends his time cuttin' monkeyshines with a dorg.
You take that collie over to the truck, and ask his boss to look after
him and to see he don't pester us while we're aworkin'. On the way
back, stop at the lean-to and catch me that bag of cookin' things I
left there. The's just room for 'em, under the seat. Chase!"
Woefully, the boy limped off; his hand clinched in the fur of Lad's
ruff. The dog, ordinarily, would have resented such familiarity. But,
still seeking to comfort the victim's manifest unhappiness, he suffered
himself to be led along. Which was Lad's way. The sight of sorrow or of
pain always made him ridiculously gentle and sympathetic.
The boy's bruises hurt cruelly. The distance to the truck was a full
hundred yards. The distance to the lean-to (a permanent shed, back of
the camp-site) was about the same, and in almost the opposite
direction. The prospect of the double journey was not alluring. The
youth hit on a scheme to shorten it. First glancing back to see that
his father was not looking, he climbed the bare stony hillock, toward
the lean-to; Lad pacing courteously along beside him.
Arrived at the shed, he took from a nail a rope-length; tied it around
Lad's neck; fastened the dog to one of the uprights; shouldered the
cooking-utensil bag; and started back toward the car.
He had saved himself, thus, a longer walk; and had obeyed his father's
orders to take Lad away. He was certain the Master, or one of the
others, missing the dog, would see him standing forlornly there, just
outside the lean-to's corner; or that another errand would bring some
of the party to the shed to release him. At best, the boy was sore of
heart and of body, at his own rough treatment. And he had scant
interest anything else.
Twenty minutes later, the truck chugged bumpily off, upon its trip down
the hazardous mountain track. The guide's boy rode in triumph on the
seat beside the truckman;--a position of honor and of excitement.
"Where's Lad?" asked the Mistress, a minute afterward, as she and the
Master and the guide made ready to get into the car and follow.
"Aboard the truck," responded Barret, in entire good faith. "Him and my
boy got a-skylarkin' here. So I sent Bud over to the truck with him."
"That's queer!" mused the Mistress. "Why, Laddie never condescends to
play,--or 'skylark,' as you call it,--with anyone except my husband or
myself! He--"
"Never mind!" put in the Master. "We'll catch up with the truck before
it's gone a mile. And we can take Laddie aboard here, then. But I
wonder he consented to go ahead, without us. That isn't like Lad.
Holiday-spirits, I suppose. This trip has made a puppy of him. A
stately old gentleman like Laddie would never think of rounding up
bears and skunks, if he was at home." As he talked, the car got under
way; moving at rackety and racking "first speed" over hummock and bump;
as it joggled into the faint wheeltrack. By reason of this noise and of
the Master's stupid homily, none of the trio heard an amazed little
bark, from the knoll-top, a hundred yards behind them.
Nor did the car catch up with the truck. At the end of the first half
mile, the horrible roadbed began to take toll of the elderly tires.
There were two punctures, in rapid succession. Then came a blowout.
And, at the bottom of the mountain a third puncture varied the monotony
of the ride. Thus, the truck reached the Place well ahead of the faster
vehicle.
The Mistress's first question was for Lad. Terror seized upon the
guide's boy, as he remembered where he had left the dog. He glanced
obliquely at the truckman, who had unloaded and who was cranking.
"Now--" said the scared youth, glibly, avoiding his father's
unsuspecting eye. "Now--now, Lad he was settin' 'twixt Simmons and me.
And he hops down and runs off around the house, towards--towards the
lake--soon as we stopped here. Most likely he was thirsty-like, or
something."
The Mistress was busy with details of the car's unpacking. So she
accepted the explanation. It seemed probable that the long and dusty
ride should have made Lad thirsty; and that after his drink at the
lake, he had made the rounds of the Place; as ever was his wont after
his few brief absences from home.
Not until dinnertime did she give another thought to her loved pet's
absence. The guide and his boy had long since departed, on the truck,
for their ten-mile distant home. Nor, even yet, did it occur to the
Mistress to question the truth of the youngster's story. She merely
wondered why, for the first time in his life, Lad should absent himself
at dinnertime from his time-honored place on the dining-room floor, at
the Master's left. And, amusedly, she recalled what her husband had
said of the stately dog's new propensity for mischief. Perhaps Lad was
exploring the friendly home-woods in search of a bear!
But when ten o'clock came and Lad did not seek the shelter of his
"cave" under the music-room piano, for the night, there was real worry.
The Mistress went out on the veranda and sounded long and shrilly upon
the silver whistle which hung from her belt.
From puppyhood, Laddie had always come, at a sweeping gallop, on sound
of this whistle. Its notes could travel, through still air, for a half
mile or more. Their faintest echoes always brought the dog in eager
response. But tonight, a dozen wait-punctuated blasts brought no other
response than to set the distant village dogs to barking.
The Mistress went back into the house, genuinely worried. Acting on a
sudden idea, she called up the Place's superintendent, at the gatelodge.
"You were down here when the truck came to the house this afternoon,
weren't you?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am," said the man. "I was waiting for it. Mike and I helped
Simmons to unload."
"Did you see which way Lad went, when he jumped out of the truck?"
pursued the Mistress. "Or have any of you seen him since then?"
"Why, no, ma'am," came the puzzled answer. "I haven't seen him at all.
I supposed he was in the car with you, and that maybe he'd been in the
house ever since. He wasn't on the truck: That's one sure thing. I saw
it stop; and I stayed till they finished emptying it. Lad wasn't there."
There was a moment's pause. Then, the Mistress spoke again. Her voice
slightly muffled, she said:
"Please find out if there is plenty of gas in my car;--enough to take
it--say, forty miles. Thank you."
"What on earth--?" began the Master, as his wife left the telephone and
picked up an ulster.
"Laddie didn't come home on the truck," she made tremulous reply. "And
he wasn't with us. He hasn't come home all."
"He'll find his way, easily enough," returned the Master, albeit with
no great assurance. "Lad's found his way farther than that. He--"
"If he was going to find his way," interrupted the Mistress, "he'd have
found it before now. I know Laddie. So do you. He is up there. And he
can't get back. He--"
"Nonsense!" laughed the Master. "Why, of course, he--"
"He is up there," insisted the Mistress, "and he can't get back. I know
him well enough to be, sure he'd have overtaken us, when we stopped all
those times to fix the tires;--if he had been left behind. And I know
something else: When we started on, after that first puncture, we were
about half a mile below the knoll. And as we went around the bend,
there was a gap in the trees. I was looking back. For a second, I could
see the lean-to, outlined ever so clearly against the sky. And
alongside of it was standing some animal. It was far away; and we
passed out of sight so suddenly, that I couldn't see what it was;
except that it was large and dark. And it seemed to be struggling to
move from where it stood. I was going to speak to you about it,--I
supposed it was that black bear of Laddie's,--when we had the next
puncture. And that made me forget all about it;--till now. Of course,
it never occurred to me it could be Lad. Because Barret had said he was
in the truck. But--but oh, it WAS Laddie! He--he was fastened, or
caught, in some way. I know he was. Why, I could see him struggle to--"
"Come on!" broke in the Master, hustling into his mackinaw. "Unless
you'll stay here, while I--"
"No," she protested. "I'm going. And I'm going because I'm thinking of
the same thing that's troubling you. I'm thinking of those forest fires
and of what you said about the wind changing and--"
"Come on!" repeated the Master; starting for the garage.
Which shows how maudlinly foolish two otherwise sane people can be;
when they are lucky enough to own such a dog as Sunnybank Lad.
Naturally, the right course, at so cold and late an hour of the autumn
night, and after a long day of packing and motoring and unpacking, was
to go to bed; and to trust to luck that the wise old collie would find
his way back again. Instead, the two set off on a twenty-mile wildgoose
chase, with worried faces and fast-beating hearts. It did not occur to
either of them to stay at home; or to send someone else on the long,
frosty drive in search of the missing dog.
Lad had watched the preparations for departure with increasing worry.
Also, the abnormally sensitive old fellow was wretchedly unhappy.
Except at dog-shows, he had never before been tied up. And at such
shows, the Mistress and the Master were always on hand to pet and
reassure him. Yet, here, he had suffered himself to be tied by a smelly
rope to the rotting post of a lean-to, by a comparative stranger. And,
in the open ground below the hillock, his deities moved back and forth
without so much as an upward glance at him.
Then, to his dismay, truck and car had made off down the mountainside;
and he had been left alone in his imprisonment. Except for a single
unheard bark of protest, Lad made no effort to call back the departing
humans. Never before had they forsaken him. And he had full trust that
they would come back in a few minutes and set him free.
When the car halted, a half-mile below, Lad felt certain his faith was
about to be justified. Then, as it moved on again, he sprang to the end
of his short rope, and tried to break free and follow.
Then came the dying away of the chugging motor's echoes; and silence
rolled up and engulfed the wilderness hilltop.
Lad was alone. They had gone off and left him. They had with never a
word of goodby or a friendly command to watch camp until their return.
This was not the dog's first sojourn in camp. And his memory was
flawless. Always, he recalled, the arrival and the loading of the truck
and the striking of tents had meant that the stay was over and that at
the party was going home.
Home! The charm and novelty of the wilderness all at once faded. Lad
was desperately lonely and desperately unhappy. And his feelings were
cruelly hurt; at the strange treatment accorded him.
Yet, it did not occur to him to seek freedom and to follow his gods to
the home he loved. He had been tied here, presumably by their order;
certainly with their knowledge. And it behooved him to wait until they
should come to release him. He knew they would come back, soon or late.
They were his gods, his chums, his playmates. They would no more desert
him than he would have deserted them. It was all right, somehow. Only,
the waiting was tedious!
With a tired little sigh, the collie curled up in a miserable heap on
the stony ground, the shortness of his tether making even this effort
at repose anything but comfortable. And he waited.
A dog, that is happy and well, settles himself for a prolonged wait, by
stretching out on his side;--oftenest the left side; and by dropping
off into slumber. Seldom, unless he be cold or ill, does a big dog curl
up into a ball, to rest. Nor is he thoroughly comfortable in such a
posture.
Lad was not comfortable. He was not resting. He was wretched. Nor did
he try to snooze. Curled in a compact heap, his sorrowful eyes abrim
with sorrow, he lay scanning the bumpy mountainside and straining his
ears, for sign of the car's return. His breathing was not as splendidly
easy as usual. For, increasingly, that earlier twinge of acrid
smoke-reek was tickling his throat. The haze, that had hovered over the
farther hilltops and valleys, was thickening; and it was creeping
nearer. The breath of morning breeze was stiffening into a steady wind;
a wind that blew strong from the west and carried on it the smell of
forest fire.
Lad did not enjoy the ever-stronger smoke scent. But he gave only
half-heed to it. His main attention was centered on that winding
wagon-track whence the car and the truck had vanished into the
lowlands. And, through the solemnly spent hours he lay forlornly
watching it.
But, after sunset, the smoke became too pervasive to be ignored longer.
It was not only stinging his throat and lungs, but it was making his
eyes smart. And it had cut off the view of all save the nearer
mountain-peaks.
Lad got to his feet; whining softly, under his breath. Ancestral
instinct was fairly shouting to his brain that here was terrible peril.
He strained at his thick rope; and looked imploringly down the
wagon-road.
The wind had swelled into something like a gale. And, now, to Lad's
keen ears came the far-off snap and crack of a million dry twigs as the
flame kissed them in its fast-crawling advance. This sharper sound rose
and fell, as a theme to the endless and slowly-augmenting roar which
had been perceptible for hours.
Again, Laddie strained at his heavy rope. Again, his smoke-stung eyes
explored the winding trail down the mountain. No longer was the trail
so distinguishable as before. Not only by reason of darkness, but
because from that direction came the bulk of the eddying gusts of
wind-driven smoke.
The fire's mounting course was paralleling the trail; checked from
crossing it only by a streambed and an outcrop of granite which
zigzagged upward from the valley. The darkness served also to tinge the
lowering sky to south and to westward with a steadily brightening lurid
glare. The Master had been right in his glum prophecy that a strong and
sudden shift of wind would carry the conflagration through the
tinder-dry undergrowth and dead trees of that side of the mountain, far
faster than any body of fire-fighters could hope to check it.
The flame-reflection began to light the open spaces below the knoll,
with increasing vividness. The chill of early evening was counteracted
waves of sullen heat, which the wind sent swirling before it.
Lad panted; from warmth as much as from nervousness. He had gone all
day without water. And a collie, more perhaps than any other dog, needs
plenty of fresh, cool water to drink; at any and all times. The hot
wind and the smoke were parching his throat. His thirst was intolerable.
Behind him, not very many yards away, was the ice-cold mountain lakelet
in which so often he had bathed and drunk. The thought of it made him
hate the stout rope.
But he made no serious effort to free himself. He had been tied
there,--supposedly by the Master's command. And, as a well-trained dog,
it was his place to stay where he was, until the Master should free
him. So, apart from an instinctive tug or two at his moorings, he
submitted to his fate.
But, in mid-evening, something occurred, to change his viewpoint, in
this matter of nonresistance.
The line of fire, climbing the mountain toward him, had encountered a
marshy stretch; where, in normal weather, water stood inches deep.
Despite the drought, there was still enough moisture to stay the
advance of the red line until the dampness could be turned to dust and
tindery vegetation. And, in the meanwhile, after the custom of its
kind, the fire had sought to spread to either side. Stopped at the
granite-outcrop to the right, it had rolled faster through the herbage
to the left.
Thus, by the time the morass was dry enough for the flame to pass it,
there was a great sickle of crawling red fire to the left; which
encircled a whole flank of the mountain and which was moving straight
upward.
Lad knew nothing of this; nor why the advance of the fire's direct line
had been so long checked. Nor did he know, presumably, that this sickle
of flame was girdling the mountain-flank; like a murderous net; hemming
in all live things within the flaming arc and forcing them on in panic,
ahead of its advance. Perhaps he did not even note the mad scurryings
in undergrowth and bramble, in front of the oncoming blaze. But one
thing, very speedily, became apparent to him:--
From out a screen of hazel and witch-elm (almost directly in front of
the place where the truck, that morning, had been loaded) crashed a
right hideous object. By sight and by scent Lad knew the creature for
his olden foe, the giant black bear.
Growling, squealing, a dozen stinging fiery sparks sizzling through his
bushy coat, the bear tore his way from the hedge of thicket and out
into the open. The fire had roused him from his snug lair and had
driven him ahead of it with a myriad hornets of flame, in a crazed
search for safety.
At sight of the formidable monster, Lad realized for the first time the
full extent of his own helplessness. Tethered to a rope which gave him
scarce twenty-five inches of leeway, he was in no fit condition to fend
off the giant's assault.
He wasted no time in futile struggles. All his race's uncanny powers of
resource came rushing to his aid. Without an instant's pause, he
wheeled about; and drove his keen teeth into the rope that bound him to
the post.
Lad did not chew aimlessly at the thick tether; nor throw away one
ounce of useless energy. Seizing the hempen strands, he ground his
teeth deeply and with scientific skill, into their fraying recesses.
Thus does a dog, addicted to cutting his leash, attack the bonds which
hold him.
It was Lad's first experience of the kind. But instinct served him
well. The fact that the rope had been left out of doors, in all
weathers, for several years, served him far better. Not only did it
sever the more easily; but it soon lost the cohesion needed for
resisting any strong pull.
The bear, lurching half-blindly, had reeled out into the open, below
the knoll. There, panting and grunting, he turned to blink at the
oncoming fire and to get his direction. For perhaps a half-minute he
stood thus; or made little futile rushes from side to side. And this
breathing space was taken up by Lad in the gnawing of the rope.
Then, while the collie was still toiling over the hempen mouthfuls, the
bear seemed to recover his own wonted cleverness; and to realize his
whereabouts. Straight up the hillock he charged, toward the lean-to;
his splay feet dislodging innumerable surface stones from the rocky
steep; and sending them behind him in a series of tiny avalanches.
Lad, one eye ever on his foe, saw the onrush. Fiercely he redoubled his
efforts to bite through the rope, before the bear should be upon him.
But the task was not one to be achieved in a handful of seconds.
Moving with a swiftness amazing for an animal of his clumsy bulk, the
bear swarmed up the hillock. He gained the summit; not three yards from
where Laddie struggled. And the collie knew the rope was not more than
half gnawed through. There was no further time for biting at it. The
enemy was upon him.
Fear did not enter the big dog's soul. Yet he grieved that the
death-battle should find him so pitifully ill-prepared. And, abandoning
the work of self-release, he flung himself ragingly at the advancing
bear.
Then, two things happened. Two things, on neither of which the dog
could have counted. The bear was within a hand's breadth of him; and
was still charging, headlong. But he looked neither to right nor to
left. Seemingly ignorant of Lad's presence, the huge brute tore past
him, almost grazing the collie in his insane rush; and sped straight on
toward the lake beyond.
That was one of the two unforeseen happenings. The other was the
snapping of the rotted rope, under the wrench of Lad's furious leap.
Free, and with the severed rope's loop still dangling uselessly from
around his shaggy throat, the dog stood staring in blank amaze after
his former adversary. He saw the bear reach the margin of the icy lake
and plunge nose deep into its sheltering waters. Here, as Bruin's
instinct or experience had foretold, no forest fire could harm him. He
need but wallow there until the Red Terror should have swept past and
until the scorched ground should be once more cool enough to walk on.
Lad turned again toward the slope. He was free, now, to follow the
wagon track to the main road and so homeward, guided perhaps by memory,
perhaps by scent; most probably guided by the mystic sixth sense which
has more than once enabled collies to find their way, over hundreds of
miles of strange territory, back to their homes.
But, in the past few minutes, the fire's serpent-like course had taken
a new twist. It had flung volleys of sparks across the upper reach of
granite rock-wall, and had ignited dry wood and brier on the right hand
side of the track. This, far up the mountain, almost at the very foot
of the rock-hillock.
The way to home was barred by a three-foot-high crackling fence of
red-gold flame; a flame which nosed hungrily against the barren rocks
of the knoll-foot; as if seeking in ravenous famine the fuel their bare
surfaces denied it.
And now, the side of the hillock showed other signs of forest life. Up
the steep slope thundered a six-antlered buck, snorting shrilly in
panic and flying toward the cool refuge of the little lake.
Far more slowly, but with every tired muscle astrain, a fat porcupine
was mounting the hill; its claws digging frantically for foothold among
the slippery stones. It seemed to flow, rather than to run. And as it
hurried on, it chuckled and scolded, like some idiot child.
A bevy of squirrels scampered past it. A long snake, roused from its
stony winter lair, writhed eerily up the slope, heedless of its fellow
travelers' existence. A raccoon was breasting the steep, from another
angle. And behind it came clawing a round-paunched opossum; grinning
from the pain of sparks that were stinging it to a hated activity.
The wilderness was giving up its secrets, with a vengeance. And the Red
Terror, as ever, was enforcing a truce among the forest-folk; a truce
bred of stark fear. One and all--of those that had been aroused in time
to get clear of the oncoming fiery sickle--the fugitives were making
for the cool safety of the lake.
Lad scarce saw or noted any of his companions. The road to home was
barred. And, again, ancestral instinct and his own alert wit came to
his aid. Turning about, and with no hint of fear in his gait or in the
steady dark eyes, he trotted toward the lake.
Already the bear had reached its soothing refuge; and was standing hip
deep in the black waters; now and then ducking his head and tossing
showers of cold spray over his scorched shoulder-fur.
Lad trotted to the brink. There, stooping--not fifty feet away from
Bruin--he lapped thirstily until he had at last drunk his fill. Then,
looking back once in the direction of the fire-line, he lay down, very
daintily indeed, in shallow water; and prepared to enjoy his liberty.
Scourged by none of the hideous fear which had goaded his fellow
fugitives, he watched with grave interest the arrival of one after
another of the refugees; as they came scurrying wildly down to the
water.
Lad was comfortable. Here, the smoke-reek stung less acutely. Here,
too, were grateful darkness, after the torrid glare of the fire, and
cold water and security. Here were also many diverting creatures to
watch. It would have been pleasant to go home at once. But, since that
was out of the question, there were far worse things than to lie
interestedly at ease until the Master should come for him.
The fire raged and flickered along the base of the bare rocky knoll;
and, finding no path of advance, turned back on itself, fire-fashion;
seeking new outlet. The thin line of bushes and other undergrowth at
the hillock's foot were quickly consumed; leaving only a broad bed of
ember and spark. And the conflagration swept on to the left, over the
only course open to it. To the right, the multiple ridges of rock and
the dearth of vegetation were sufficient "No Thoroughfare" enforcement.
This same odd rock-formation had kept the wagon track clear, up to the
twist where it bore to leftward at the base of the knoll. And the
Mistress and the Master were able to guide their rattlingly protesting
car in safety up the trail from the main road far below. The set of the
wind prevented them from being blinded or confused by smoke. Apart from
a smarting of the eyes and a recurrent series of heat waves, they made
the climb with no great discomfort;--until the final turn brought them
to an abrupt halt at the spot where the wide swath of red coals and
flaming ashes marked the burning of the hillock foot bushes.
The Master jumped to earth and stood confronting the lurid stretch of
ash and ember with, here and there, a bush stump still crackling
merrily. It was not a safe barrier to cross; this twenty-foot-wide
fiery stretch. Nor, for many rods in either direction, was there any
way around it.
"There's one comfort," the Master was saying, as he began to explore
for an opening in the red scarf of coals, "the fire hasn't gotten up to
the camp-site. He--"
"But the smoke has," said the Mistress, who had been peering vainly
through the hazecurtain toward the summit. "And so has the heat. If
only--"
She broke off, with a catch in her sweet voice. And, scarce realizing
what she did, she put the silver whistle to her lips and blew a
piercingly loud blast.
"What's that for?" asked the Master, crankily, worry over his beloved
dog making his nerves raw. "If Lad's alive, he's fastened there. You
say you saw him struggling to get loose, this morning. He can't come,
when he hears that whistle. There's no sense in--How in blue blazes he
ever got fastened there,--if he really was,--is more than I can--"
"Hush!" begged the Mistress, breaking in on his grumbled monologue.
"Listen!"
Out of the darkness, beyond the knoll-top, came the sound of a
bark,--the clear trumpeting welcome-bark which Lad reserved for the
Mistress and the Master, alone; on their return from any absence.
Through the night it echoed, gaily, defiantly; again and again; ringing
out above the obscene hiss and crackle and roar of the forest-fire. And
at every repetition, it was nearer and nearer the dumfounded listeners
at the knoll foot.
"It's--it's Laddie!" cried the Mistress, in wondering rapture. "Oh,
it's LADDIE!"
The Master, hearing the glad racket, did a thoroughly asinine thing.
Drawing in his breath and holding his coat in front of him, he prepared
to make a dash through the wide smear of embers, to the hilltop; where,
presumably, Lad was still tied. But, before he could take the first
step, the Mistress stayed him.
"Look!" she cried, pointing to the hither side of the knoll; lividly
bright in the ember-glow.
Down the steep was galloping at breakneck speed a great, tawny shape.
Barking rapturously,--even as he had barked when first the whistle's
blast had roused him from his lazy repose in the lakeside
shallows,--Lad came whizzing toward the two humans who watched so
incredulously his wild approach.
The Master, belatedly, saw that the collie could not avoid crashing
into the spread of embers; and he opened his mouth to order Lad back.
But there was not time.
For once, the wise dog took no heed of even the simplest caution. His
lost and adored deities had called him and were awaiting him. That was
all Lad knew or cared. They had come back for him. His horrible vigil
and loneliness and his deadly peril were ended.
Too insanely happy to note where he was treading, he sprang into the
very center of the belt of smoldering coals. His tiny white
forefeet--drenched with icy water--did not remain among them long
enough to feel pain. In two more bounds he had cleared the barrier and
was dancing in crazy excitement around the Mistress and the Master;
patting at them with his scorched feet; licking their eagerly caressing
hands; "talking" in a dozen different keys of rapture, his whimpers and
growls and gurgles running the entire gamut of long-pent-up emotions.
His coat and his feet had, for hours, been immersed in the cold water
of the lake. And, he had fled through the embers at express-train
speed. Scarce a blister marked the hazardous passage. But Lad would not
have cared for all the blisters and burns on earth. His dear gods had
come back to him,--even as he had known they would!
Once more,--and for the thousandth time--they had justified his divine
Faith in them. Nothing else mattered.