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Further Adventures of Lad

by Albert Payson Terhune · English · Gutenberg #2392 · 427,209 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Further Adventures of Lad

Author: Albert Payson Terhune


        
Release date: November 1, 2000 [eBook #2392]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2392

Credits: Produced by Dianne Bean.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD ***




Produced by Dianne Bean.  HTML version by Al Haines.








FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD


by

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE



FOREWORD

Sunnybank Lad won a million friends through my book, "LAD: A DOG"; and
through the Lad-anecdotes in "Buff: A Collie." These books themselves
were in no sense great. But Laddie was great in every sense; and his
life-story could not be marred, past interest, by my clumsy way of
telling it.

People have written in gratifying numbers asking for more stories about
Lad. More than seventeen hundred visitors have come all the way to
Sunnybank to see his grave. So I wrote the collection of tales which
are now included in "Further Adventures of Lad." Most of them appeared,
in condensed form, in the Ladies' Home Journal.

Very much, I hope you may like them.

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE "Sunnybank" Pompton Lakes, New Jersey



FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD


CONTENTS

    I. The Coming Of Lad
   II. The Fetish
  III. No Trespassing!
   IV. Hero-Stuff
    V. The Stowaway
   VI. The Tracker
  VII. The Juggernaut
 VIII. In Strange Company
   IX. Old  Dog; New Tricks
    X. The Intruders
   XI. The Guard




CHAPTER I. The Coming Of Lad

In the mile-away village of Hampton, there had been a veritable
epidemic of burglaries--ranging from the theft of a brand-new ash-can
from the steps of the Methodist chapel to the ravaging of Mrs.
Blauvelt's whole lineful of clothes, on a washday dusk.

Up the Valley and down it, from Tuxedo to Ridgewood, there had been a
half-score robberies of a very different order--depredations wrought,
manifestly, by professionals; thieves whose motor cars served the
twentieth century purpose of such historic steeds as Dick Turpin's
Black Bess and Jack Shepard's Ranter. These thefts were in the line of
jewelry and the like; and were as daringly wrought as were the modest
local operators' raids on ash-can and laundry.

It is the easiest thing in the world to stir humankind's ever-tense
burglar-nerves into hysterical jangling. In house after house, for
miles of the peaceful North Jersey region, old pistols were cleaned and
loaded; window fastenings and doorlocks were inspected and new
hiding-places found for portable family treasures.

Across the lake from the village, and down the Valley from a dozen
country homes, seeped the tide of precautions. And it swirled at last
around the Place,--a thirty-acre homestead, isolated and sweet, whose
grounds ran from highway to lake; and whose wistaria-clad gray house
drowsed among big oaks midway between road and water; a furlong or more
distant from either.

The Place's family dog,--a pointer,--had died, rich in years and honor.
And the new peril of burglary made it highly needful to choose a
successor for him.

The Master talked of buying a whalebone-and-steel-and-snow bull
terrier, or a more formidable if more greedy Great Dane. But the
Mistress wanted a collie. So they compromised by getting the collie.

He reached the Place in a crampy and smelly crate; preceded by a long
envelope containing an intricate and imposing pedigree. The
burglary-preventing problem seemed solved.

But when the crate was opened and its occupant stepped gravely forth,
on the Place's veranda, the problem was revived.

All the Master and the Mistress had known about the newcomer,--apart
from his price and lofty lineage,--was that his breeder had named him
"Lad."

From these meager facts they had somehow built up a picture of a huge
and grimly ferocious animal that should be a terror to all intruders
and that might in time be induced to make friends with the Place's
vouched-for occupants. In view of this, they had had a stout kennel
made and to it they had affixed with double staples a chain strong
enough to restrain a bull.

(It may as well be said here that never in all the sixteen years of his
beautiful life did Lad occupy that or any other kennel nor wear that or
any other chain.)

Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed somehow to
destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But, the moment the crate
door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad himself.

Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him had a
ridiculous air of a chrysalis from which some bright thing had
departed. For a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the veranda
floor. And into the middle of the warm bar of radiance Laddie
stepped,--and stood.

His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million
sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a dazzle
as of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small, even for a puppy's. Above
them the ridging of the stocky leg-bones gave as clear promise of
mighty size and strength as did the amazingly deep little chest and
square shoulders.

Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a timber-wolf,
lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry tiger; a dog without
fear or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain and great lovingly loyal
heart and, withal, a dancing sense of fun. A dog with a soul.

All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the compact
frame, the proud head-carriage, the smolder in the deep-set sorrowful
dark eyes. To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful and appealing
and wonderfully cuddleable bunch of puppyhood.

Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the lawn,
the flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then, he deigned to
look at the group of humans at one side of him. Gravely, impersonally,
he surveyed them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings;
courteously inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down
here and as to the people who, presumably, were to be his future
companions.

Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory went back
to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and
most of all, to the soft furry mother against whose side he had nestled
every night since he was born. But if so, Lad was too valiant to show
homesickness by so much as a whimper. And, assuredly, this House of
Peace was infinitely better than the miserable crate wherein he had
spent twenty horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours.

From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful gaze.
After the swift inspection, Laddie's eyes rested again on the Mistress.
For an instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly polite
curiosity which held no hint of personal interest.

Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave. Into his sad eyes
sprang a flicker of warm friendliness. Unbidden--oblivious of everyone
else he trotted across to where the Mistress sat. He put one tiny white
paw in her lap; and stood thus, looking up lovingly into her face, tail
awag, eyes shining.

"There's no question whose dog he's going to be," laughed the Master.
"He's elected you,--by acclamation."

The Mistress caught up into her arms the halfgrown youngster, petting
his silken head, running her white fingers through his shining mahogany
coat; making crooning little friendly noises to him.

Lad forgot he was a dignified and stately pocket-edition of a collie.
Under this spell, he changed in a second to an excessively loving and
nestling and adoring puppy.

"Just the same," interposed the Master, "we've been stung. I wanted a
dog to guard the Place and to be a menace to burglars and all that sort
of thing. And they've sent us a Teddy-Bear. I think I'll ship him back
and get a grown one. What sort of use is--?"

"He is going to be all those things," eagerly prophesied the Mistress.
"And a hundred more. See how he loves to have me pet him! And,
look--he's learned, already, to shake hands; and--"

"Fine!" applauded the Master. "So when it comes our turn to be visited
by this motor-Raffles, the puppy will shake hands with him, and
register love of petting; and the burly marauder will be so touched by
Lad's friendliness that he'll not only spare our house but lead an
upright life ever after. I--"

"Don't send him back!" she pleaded. "He'll grow up, soon, and--"

"And if only the courteous burglars will wait till he's a couple of
years old," suggested the Master, "he--"

Set gently on the floor by the Mistress, Laddie had crossed to where
the Master stood. The man, glancing down, met the puppy's gaze. For an
instant he scowled at the miniature watchdog, so ludicrously different
from the ferocious brute he had expected. Then,--for some queer
reason,--he stooped and ran his hand roughly over the tawny coat,
letting it rest at last on the shapely head that did not flinch or
wriggle at his touch.

"All right," he decreed. "Let him stay. He'll be an amusing pet for
you, anyhow. And his eye has the true thoroughbred expression,--'the
look of eagles.' He may amount to something after all. Let him stay.
We'll take a chance on burglars."

So it was that Lad came to the Place. So it was that he demanded and
received due welcome which was ever Lad's way. The Master had been
right about the pup's proving "an amusing pet," for the Mistress. From
that first hour, Lad was never willingly out of her sight. He had
adopted her. The Master, too,--in only a little lesser
wholeheartedness,--he adopted. Toward the rest of the world, from the
first, he was friendly but more or less indifferent.

Almost at once, his owners noted an odd trait in the dog's nature. He
would of course get into any or all of the thousand mischief-scrapes
which are the heritage of puppies. But, a single reproof was enough to
cure him forever of the particular form of mischief which had just been
chidden. He was one of those rare dogs that learn the Law by instinct;
and that remember for all time a command or a prohibition once given
them.

For example:--On his second day at the Place, he made a furious rush at
a neurotic mother hen and her golden convoy of chicks. The
Mistress,--luckily for all concerned,--was within call. At her sharp
summons the puppy wheeled, midway in his charge, and trotted back to
her. Severely, yet trying not to laugh at his worried aspect, she
scolded Lad for his misdeed.

An hour later, as Lad was scampering ahead of her, past the stables,
they rounded a corner and came flush upon the same nerve-wrecked hen
and her brood. Lad halted in his scamper, with a suddenness that made
him skid. Then, walking as though on eggs, he made an idiotically wide
circle about the feathered dam and her silly chicks. Never thereafter
did he assail any of the Place's fowls.

It was the same, when he sprang up merrily at a line of laundry,
flapping in alluring invitation from the drying ground lines. A single
word of rebuke,--and thenceforth the family wash was safe from him.

And so on with the myriad perplexing "Don'ts" which spatter the career
of a fun-loving collie pup. Versed in the patience-fraying ways of pups
in general, the Mistress and the Master marveled and bragged and
praised.

All day and every day, life was a delight to the little dog. He had
friends everywhere, willing to romp with him. He had squirrels to
chase, among the oaks. He had the lake to splash ecstatically in: He
had all he wanted to eat; and he had all the petting his hungry little
heart could crave.

He was even allowed, with certain restrictions, to come into the
mysterious house itself. Nor, after one defiant bark at a leopard-skin
rug, did he molest anything therein. In the house, too, he found a
genuine cave:--a wonderful place to lie and watch the world at large,
and to stay cool in and to pretend he was a wolf. The cave was the deep
space beneath the piano in the music room. It seemed to have a peculiar
charm to Lad. To the end of his days, by the way, this cave was his
chosen resting place. Nor, in his lifetime, did any other dog set foot
therein.

So much for "all day and every day." But the nights were different.

Lad hated the nights. In the first place, everybody went to bed and
left him alone. In the second, his hard-hearted owners made him sleep
on a fluffy rug in a corner of the veranda instead of in his delectable
piano-cave. Moreover, there was no food at night. And there was nobody
to play with or to go for walks with or to listen to. There was nothing
but gloom and silence and dullness. When a puppy takes fifty cat-naps
in the course of the day, he cannot always be expected to sleep the
night through. It is too much to ask. And Lad's waking hours at night
were times of desolation and of utter boredom. True, he might have
consoled himself, as does many a lesser pup, with voicing his woes in a
series of melancholy howls. That, in time, would have drawn plenty of
human attention to the lonely youngster; even if the attention were not
wholly flattering.

But Lad did not belong to the howling type. When he was unhappy, he
waxed silent. And his sorrowful eyes took on a deeper woe. By the way,
if there is anything more sorrowful than the eyes of a collie pup that
has never known sorrow, I have yet to see it.

No, Lad could not howl. And he could not hunt for squirrels. For these
enemies of his were not content with the unsportsmanliness of climbing
out of his reach in the daytime, when he chased them; but they added to
their sins by joining the rest of the world,--except Lad,--in sleeping
all night. Even the lake that was so friendly by day was a chilly and
forbidding playfellow on the cool North Jersey nights.

There was nothing for a poor lonely pup to do but stretch out on his
rug and stare in unhappy silence up the driveway, in the impossible
hope that someone might happen along through the darkness to play with
him.

At such an hour and in such lonesomeness, Lad would gladly have tossed
aside all prejudices of caste,--and all his natural dislikes, and would
have frolicked in mad joy with the veriest stranger. Anything was
better than this drear solitude throughout the million hours before the
first of the maids should be stirring or the first of the farmhands
report for work. Yes, night was a disgusting time; and it had not one
single redeeming trait for the puppy.

Lad was not even consoled by the knowledge that he was guarding the
slumbrous house. He was not guarding it. He had not the very remotest
idea what it meant to be a watchdog. In all his five months he had
never learned that there is unfriendliness in the world; or that there
is anything to guard a house against.

True, it was instinctive with him to bark when People came down the
drive, or appeared at the gates without warning. But more than once the
Master had bidden him be silent when a rackety Puppy salvo of barking
had broken in on the arrival of some guest. And Lad was still in
perplexed doubt as to whether barking was something forbidden or merely
limited.

One night,--a solemn, black, breathless August night, when half-visible
heat lightning turned the murk of the western horizon to pulses of
dirty sulphur, Lad awoke from a fitful dream of chasing squirrels which
had never learned to climb.

He sat up on his rug, blinking around through the gloom in the half
hope that some of those non-climbing squirrels might still be in sight.
As they were not, he sighed unhappily and prepared to lay his classic
young head back again on the rug for another spell of night-shortening
sleep.

But, before his head could touch the rug, he reared it and half of his
small body from the floor and focused his nearsighted eyes on the
driveway. At the same time, his tail began to wag a thumping welcome.

Now, by day, a dog cannot see so far nor so clearly as can a human. But
by night,--for comparatively short distances,--he can see much better
than can his master. By day or by darkness, his keen hearing and keener
scent make up for all defects of eyesight.

And now three of Lad's senses told him he was no longer alone in his
tedious vigil. Down the drive, moving with amusing slowness and
silence, a man was coming. He was on foot. And he was fairly well
dressed. Dogs, the foremost snobs in creation,--are quick to note the
difference between a well-clad and a disreputable stranger.

Here unquestionably was a visitor:--some such man as so often came to
the Place and paid such flattering attention to the puppy. No longer
need Lad be bored by the solitude of this particular night. Someone was
coming towards the house;--and carrying a small bag under his arm.
Someone to make friends with. Lad was very happy.

Deep in his throat a welcoming bark was born. But he stilled it. Once,
when he had barked at the approach of a stranger, the stranger had gone
away. If this stranger were to go away, all the night's fun would go
with him. Also, no later than yesterday, the Master had scolded Lad for
barking at a man who had called. Wherefore the dog held his peace.

Getting to his feet and stretching himself, fore and aft, in true
collie fashion, the pup gamboled up the drive to meet the visitor.

The man was feeling his way through the pitch darkness, groping
cautiously; halting once or twice for a smolder of lightning to
silhouette the house he was nearing. In a wooded lane, a quarter mile
away, his lightless motor car waited.

Lad trotted up to him, the tiny white feet noiseless in the soft dust
of the drive. The man did not see him, but passed so close to the dog's
hospitably upthrust nose that he all but touched it.

Only slightly rebuffed at such chill lack of cordiality, Lad fell in
behind him, tail awag, and followed him to the porch. When the guest
should ring the bell, the Master or one of the maids would come to the
door. There would be lights and talk; and perhaps Laddie himself might
be allowed to slip in to his beloved cave.

But the man did not ring. He did not stop at the door at all. On tiptoe
he skirted the veranda to the old-fashioned bay windows at the south
side of the living room; windows with catches as old-fashioned and as
simple to open as themselves.

Lad padded along, a pace or so to the rear;--still hopeful of being
petted or perhaps even romped with. The man gave a faint but promising
sign of intent to romp, by swinging his small and very shiny brown bag
to and fro as he walked. Thus ever did the Master swing Lad's precious
canton flannel doll before throwing it for him to retrieve. Lad made a
tentative snap at the bag, his tail wagging harder than ever. But he
missed it. And, in another moment the man stopped swinging the bag and
tucked it under his arm again as he began to mumble with a bit of steel.

There was the very faintest of clicks. Then, noiselessly the window
slid upward. A second fumbling sent the wooden inside shutters ajar.
The man worked with no uncertainty. Ever since his visit to the Place,
a week earlier, behind the aegis of a big and bright and newly forged
telephone-inspector badge, he had carried in his trained memory the
location of windows and of obstructing furniture and of the primitive
small safe in the living room wall, with its pitifully pickable
lock;--the safe wherein the Place's few bits of valuable jewelry and
other compact treasures reposed at night.

Lad was tempted to follow the creeping body and the fascinatingly
swinging bag indoors. But his one effort to enter the house,--with
muddy paws,--by way of an open window, had been rebuked by the
Lawgivers. He had been led to understand that really well-bred little
dogs come in by way of the door; and then only on permission.

So he waited, doubtfully, at the veranda edge; in the hope that his new
friend might reappear or that the Master might perhaps want to show off
his pup to the caller, as so often the Master was wont to do.

Head cocked to one side, tulip ears alert, Laddie stood listening. To
the keenest human ears the thief's soft progress across the wide living
room to the wall-safe would have been all but inaudible. But Lad could
follow every phase of it; the cautious skirting of each chair; the
hesitant pause as a bit of ancient furniture creaked; the halt in front
of the safe; the queer grinding noise, muffled but persevering, at the
lock; then the faint creak of the swinging iron door, and the deft
groping of fingers.

Soon, the man started back toward the pale oblong of gloom which marked
the window's outlines from the surrounding black. Lad's tail began to
wag again. Apparently, this eccentric person was coming out, after all,
to keep him company. Now, the man was kneeling on the window-seat. Now,
in gingerly fashion, he reached forward and set the small bag down on
the veranda; before negotiating the climb across the broad seat,--a
climb that might well call for the use of both his hands.

Lad was entranced. Here was a game he understood. Thus, more than once,
had the Mistress tossed out to him his flannel doll, as he had stood in
pathetic invitation on the porch, looking in at her as she read or
talked. She had laughed at his wild tossings and other maltreatments of
the limp doll. He had felt he was scoring a real hit. And this hit he
decided to repeat.

Snatching up the swollen little satchel, almost before it left the
intruder's hand, Lad shook it, joyously, reveling in the faint clink
and jingle of the contents. He backed playfully away; the bag-handle
swinging in his jaws. Crouching low, he wagged his tail in ardent
invitation to the stranger to chase him and get back the satchel. Thus
did the Master romp with Lad, when the flannel doll was the prize of
their game. And Lad loved such races.

Yes, the stranger was accepting the invitation. The moment he had
crawled out on the veranda he reached down for the bag. As it was not
where he thought he had left it, he swung his groping hand forward in a
half-circle, his fingers sweeping the floor.

Make that enticing motion, directly in front of a playful collie pup;
specially if he has something he doesn't want you to take from
him;--and watch the effect.

Instantly, Lad was athrill with the spirit of the game. In one
scurrying backward jump, he was off the veranda and on the lawn, tail
vibrating, eyes dancing; satchel held tantalizingly towards its
would-be possessor.

The light sound of his body touching ground reached the man. Reasoning
that the sweep of his own arm had somehow knocked the bag off the
porch, he ventured off the edge of the veranda and flashed a swathed
ray of his pocket light along the ground in search of it.

The flashlight's lens was cleverly muffled; in a way to give forth but
a single subdued finger of illumination. That one brief glimmer was
enough to show the thief a right impossible sight. The glow struck
answering lights from the polished sides of the brown bag. The bag was
hanging in air, some six inches above the grass and perhaps five feet
away from him. Then he saw it swig frivolously to one side and vanish
in the night.

The astonished man had seen more. Feeble was the flashlight's shrouded
ray, too feeble to outline against the night the small dark body behind
the shining brown bag. But that same ray caught and reflected back to
the incredulous beholder two splashes of pale fire;--glints from a pair
of deep-set collie-eyes.

As the bag disappeared, the eerie fire-points were gone. The thief all
but dropped his flashlight. He gaped in nervous dread; and sought
vainly to account for the witch-work he had witnessed. He had plenty of
nerve. He had plenty of experience along his chosen line of endeavor.
But, while a crook may control his nerve, he cannot make  it phlegmatic
or steady. Always, he must be conscious of holding it in check, as a
clever driver checks and steadies and keeps in subjection a plunging
horse. Let the vigilance slacken, and there is a runaway.

Now this particular marauder had long ago keyed his nerve to the chance
of interruption from some gun-brandishing householder; and to the
possible pursuit of police; and to the need of fighting or of fleeing.
But all his preparations had not taken into account this newest
emergency. He had not steeled himself to watch unmoved the gliding away
of a treasure-satchel, apparently moving of its own will; nor the
shimmer of two greenish sparks in the air just above it. And, for an
instant, the man had to battle against a craven desire to bolt.

Lad, meanwhile, was having a beautiful time. Sincerely, he appreciated
the playful grab his nocturnal friend had made in his general
direction. Lad had countered this, by frisking away for another five or
six feet, and then wheeling about to face once more his playfellow and
to await the next move in the blithe gambol. The pup could see
tolerably well, in the darkness quite well enough to play the game his
guest had devised. And of course, he had no way of knowing that the man
could not see equally well.

Shaking off his momentary terror, the thief once more pressed the
button of his flashlight; swinging the torch in a swift semicircle and
extinguishing it at once; lest the dim glow be seen by any wakeful
member of the family.

That one quick sweep revealed to his gaze the shiny brown bag a
half-dozen feet ahead of him, still swinging several inches above
ground. He flung himself forward at it; refusing to believe he also saw
that queer double glow of pale light just above. He dived for the
satchel with the speed and the accuracy of a football tackle. And that
was all the good it did him.

Perhaps there is something in nature more agile and dismayingly elusive
than a romping young collie. But that "something" is not a mortal man.
As the thief sprang, Lad sprang in unison with him; darting to the left
and a yard or so backward. He came to an expectant standstill once
more; his tail wildly vibrating, his entire furry body tingling with
the glad excitement of the game. This sportive visitor of his was a
veritable godsend. If only he could be coaxed into coming to play with
him every night--!

But presently he noted that the other seemed to have wearied of the
game. After plunging through the air and landing on all fours with his
grasping hands closing on nothingness, the man had remained thus, as if
dazed, for a second or so. Then he had felt the ground all about him.
Then, bewildered, he had scrambled to his feet. Now he was standing,
moveless, his lips working.

Yes, he seemed to be tired of the lovely game;--and just when Laddie
was beginning to enter into the full spirit of it. Once in a while, the
Mistress or the Master stopped playing, during the romps with the
flannel doll. And Laddie had long since hit on a trick for reviving
their interest. He employed this ruse now.

As the man stood, puzzled and scared, something brushed very
lightly,-even coquettishly,--against his knuckles. He started in
nervous fright. An instant later, the same thing brushed his knuckles
again, this time more insistently. The man, in a spurt of fear-driven
rage, grabbed at the invisible object. His fingers slipped along the
smooth sides of the bewitched bag that Lad was shoving invitingly at
him.

Brief as was the contact, it was long enough for the thief's sensitive
finger tips to recognize what they touched. And both hands were brought
suddenly into play, in a mad snatch for the prize. The ten avid fingers
missed the bag; and came together with clawing force. But, before they
met, the finger tips of the left hand telegraphed to the man's brain
that they had had momentary light experience with something hairy and
warm,--something that had slipped, eel-like, past them into the
night;--something that most assuredly was no satchel, but ALIVE!

The man's throat contracted, in gagging fright. And, as before, fear
scourged him to feverish rage.

Recklessly he pressed the flashlight's button; and swung the muffled
bar of light in every direction. In his other hand he leveled the
pistol he had drawn. This time the shaded ray revealed to him not only
his bag, but,--vaguely,--the Thing that held it.

He could not make out what manner of creature it was which gripped the
satchel's handle and whose eyes pulsed back greenish flares into the
torch's dim glow. But it was an animal of some kind;--distorted and
formless in the wavering finger of blunted light; but still an animal.
Not a ghost.

And fear departed. The intruder feared nothing mortal. The mystery in
part explained, he did not bother to puzzle out the remainder of it.
Impossible as it seemed, his bag was carried by some living thing. All
that remained for him was to capture the thing, and recover his bag.
The weak light still turned on, he gave chase.

Lad's spirits arose with a bound. His ruse had succeeded. He had
reawakened in this easily-discouraged chum a new interest in the game.
And he gamboled across the lawn, fairly wriggling with delight. He did
not wish to make his friend lose interest again. So instead of dashing
off at full speed, he frisked daintily, just out of reach of the
clawing hand.

And in this pleasant fashion the two playfellows covered a hundred
yards of ground. More than once, the man came within an inch of his
quarry. But always, by the most imperceptible spurt of speed, Laddie
arranged to keep himself and his dear satchel from capture.

Then, in no time at all, the game ended; and with it ended Lad's baby
faith in the friendliness and trustworthiness of all human nature.

Realizing that the sound of his own stumblingly running feet and the
intermittent flashes of his torch might well awaken some light sleeper
in the house, the thief resolved on a daring move. This creature in
front of him,--dog or bear or goat, or whatever it was,--was
uncatchable. But by sending a bullet through it, he could bring the
animal to a sudden and permanent stop.

Then, snatching up his bag and running at top speed, he himself could
easily win clear of the Place before anyone of the household should
appear. And his car would be a mile away before the neighborhood could
be aroused. Fury at the weird beast and the wrenching strain on his own
nerves lent eagerness to his acceptance of the idea.

He reached back again for his pistol, whipped it out, and, coming to a
standstill, aimed at the pup. Lad, waiting only to bound over an
obstruction in his path, came to a corresponding pause, not ten feet
ahead of his playmate.

It was an easy shot. Yet the bullet went several inches above the
obligingly waiting dog's back. Nine men out of ten, shooting by
moonlight or by flashlight, aim too high. The thief had heard this old
marksman-maxim fifty times. But, like most hearers of maxims, he had
forgotten it at the one time in his speckled career when it might have
been of any use to him.

He had fired. He had missed. In another second, every sleeper in the
house and in the gate-lodge would be out of bed. His night's work was a
blank, unless--

With a bull rush he hurled himself forward at the interestedly waiting
Lad. And, as he sprang, he fired again. Then several things happened.

Everyone, except movie actors and newly-appointed policemen, knows that
a man on foot cannot shoot straight, unless he is standing stock still.
Yet, as luck would have it, this second shot found a mark where the
first and better aimed bullet had gone wild.

Lad had leaped the narrow and deep ditch left along the lawn-edge by
workers who were putting in a new water-main for the Place. On the far
side of this obstacle he had stopped, and had waited for his friend to
follow. But the friend had not followed. Instead, he had been somehow
responsible for a spurt of red flame and for a most thrilling racket.
Lad was more impressed than ever by the man's wondrous possibilities as
a midnight entertainer. He waited, gayly expectant, for more. He got it.

There was a second rackety explosion and a second puff of lightning
from the man's out-flung hand. But, this time, something like a red-hot
whip-lash smote Lad with horribly agonizing force athwart the right hip.

The man had done this,--the man whom Laddie had thought so friendly and
playful!

He had not done it by accident. For his hand had been out-flung
directly at the pup, just as once had been the arm of the kennelman,
back at Lad's birthplace, in beating a disobedient mongrel. It was the
only beating Lad had ever seen. And it had stuck, shudderingly, in his
uncannily sensitive memory. Yet now, he himself had just had a like
experience.

In an instant, the pup's trustful friendliness was gone. The man had
come on the Place, at dead of night, and had struck him. That must be
paid for! Never would the pup forget,--his agonizing lesson that night
intruders are not to be trusted or even to be tolerated. Within a
single second, he had graduated from a little friend of all the world,
into a vigilant watchdog.

With a snarl, he dropped the bag and whizzed forward at his assailant.
Needle-sharp milk-teeth bared, head low, ruff abristle, friendly soft
eyes as ferocious as a wolf's, he charged.

There had been scarce a breathing-space between the second report of
the pistol and the collie's counterattack. But there had been time
enough for the onward-plunging thief to step into the narrow lip of the
water-pipe ditch. The momentum of his own rush hurled the upper part of
his body forward. But his left leg, caught between the ditch-sides, did
not keep pace with the rest of him. There was a hideous snapping sound,
a screech of mortal anguish; and the man crashed to earth, in a dead
faint of pain and shock,--his broken left leg still thrust at an
impossible angle in the ditch.

Lad checked himself midway in his own fierce charge. Teeth bare, throat
agrowl, he hesitated. It had seemed to him right and natural to assail
the man who had struck him so painfully. But now this same man was
lying still and helpless under him. And the sporting instincts of a
hundred generations of thoroughbreds cried out to him not to mangle the
defenseless.

Wherefore, he stood, irresolute; alert for sign of movement on the part
of his foe. But there was no such sign. And the light bullet-graze on
his hip was hurting like the very mischief.

Moreover, every window in the house beyond was blossoming forth into
lights. There were sounds,--reassuring human sounds. And doors were
opening. His deities were coming forth.

All at once, Laddie stopped being a vengeful beast of prey; and
remembered that he was a very small and very much hurt and very lonely
and worried puppy. He craved the Mistress's dear touch on his wound,
and a word of crooning comfort from her soft voice. This yearning was
mingled with a doubt lest perhaps he had been transgressing the Place's
Law, in some new way; and lest he might have let himself in for a
scolding. The Law was still so queer and so illogical!

Lad started toward the house. Then, pausing, he picked up the bag which
had been so exhilarating a plaything for him this past few minutes and
which he had forgotten in his pain.

It was Lad's collie way to pick up offerings (ranging from slippers to
very dead fish) and to carry them to the Mistress. Sometimes he was
petted for this. Sometimes the offering was lifted gingerly between
aloof fingers and tossed back into the lake. But, nobody could well
refuse so jingly and pretty a gift as this satchel.

The Master, sketchily attired, came running down the lawn, flashlight
in hand. Past him, unnoticed, as he sped toward the ditch, a collie pup
limped;--a very unhappy and comfort-seeking puppy who carried in his
mouth a blood-spattered brown bag.

"It doesn't make sense to me!" complained the Master, next day, as he
told the story for the dozenth time, to a new group of callers. "I
heard the shots and I went out to investigate. There he was lying, half
in and half out of the ditch. The fellow was unconscious. He didn't get
his senses back till after the police came. Then he told some babbling
yarn about a creature that had stolen his bag of loot and that had
lured him to the ditch. He was all unnerved and upset, and almost out
of his head with pain. So the police had little enough trouble in
'sweating' him. He told everything he knew. And there's a wholesale
round-up of the motor-robbery bunch going on this afternoon as a result
of it. But what I can't understand--"

"It's as clear as day," insisted the Mistress, stroking a silken head
that pressed lovingly against her knee. "As clear as day. I was
standing in the doorway here when Laddie came pattering up to me and
laid a little satchel at my feet. I opened it, and well, it had
everything of value in it that had been in the safe over there. That
and the thief's story make it perfectly plain. Laddie caught the man as
he was climbing out of that window. He got the bag away from him; and
the man chased him, firing as he went. And he stumbled into the ditch
and--"

"Nonsense!" laughed the Master. "I'll grant all you say about Lad's
being the most marvelous puppy on earth. And I'll even believe all the
miracles of his cleverness. But when it comes to taking a bag of
jewelry from a burglar and then enticing him to a ditch and then coming
back here to you with the bag--"

"Then how do you account--?"

"I don't. None of it makes sense to me. As I just said. But, whatever
happened, it's turned Laddie into a real watchdog. Did you notice how
he went for the police when they started down the drive, last night?
We've got a watchdog at last."

"We've got more than a watchdog," amended the Mistress. "An ordinary
watchdog would just scare away thieves or bite them. Lad captured the
thief and then brought the stolen jewelry back to us. No other dog
could have done that."

Lad, enraptured by the note of praise in the Mistress's soft voice,
looked adoringly up into the face that smiled so proudly down at him.
Then, catching the sound of a step on the drive, he dashed out to bark
in murderous fashion at a wholly harmless delivery boy whom he had seen
every day for weeks.

A watchdog can't afford to relax vigilance, for a single
instant,--especially at the responsible age of five months.



CHAPTER II. The Fetish

From the night of the robbery, Lad's high position at the Place was
assured.

Even in the months of ganglingly leggy awkwardness which generally
separate furry puppyhood from dignified collie maturity, he gave sure
promise of his quality. He was such a dog as is found perhaps once in a
generation; the super-collie that neither knows nor needs such things
as whip and chain; and that learns the Law with bewildering swiftness.
A dog with a brain and a mighty heart, as well as an endless fund of
loveableness and of gay courage.

Month by month, the youngster developed into a massive giant; his
orange-mahogany coat a miracle of thickness and length, his deep chest
promising power as well as wolflike grace. His mind and his oddly human
traits developed as fast as did his body.

After the first month or so he received privileges never to be accorded
to any other of the Place's dogs in Lad's lifetime. He slept at night
under the music-room piano, in the "cave" that was his delight. At
mealtimes he was even admitted into the sacred dining-room, where he
lay on the floor at the Master's left hand. He had the run of the
house, as fully as any human.

It was when Lad was eighteen months old that the mad-dog scare swept
Hampton village; and reached its crawly tentacles out across the lake
to the mile-distant Place.

Down the village street, one day, trotted an enormous black mongrel;
full in the center of the roadway. The mongrel's heavy head was low,
and lolled from side to side with each lurching stride of the big body.
The eyes were bloodshot. From the mouth and the hanging dewlaps, flecks
of foam dropped now and then to the ground.

The big mongrel was sick of mind and of body. He craved only to get out
of that abode of men and to find solitude in the forests and hills
beyond the village.

For this is the considerate way of dogs; and of cats as well. When dire
sickness smites them, they do not hang about, craving sympathy and
calling for endless attention. All they want is to get out of the
way,--well out of the way, into the woods and swamps and mountains;
where they may wrestle with their life-or-death problem in their own
primitive manner; and where, if need be, they may die alone and
peacefully, without troubling anyone else.

Especially is this true with dogs. If their malady is likely to affect
the brain and to turn them savage, they make every possible attempt to
escape from home and to be as far away from their masters as may be,
before the crisis shall goad them into attacking those they love.

And, when some such suffering beast is seen, on his way to solitude, we
humans prove our humanity by raising the idiotic bellow of "Mad dog!"
and by chasing and torturing the victim. All this, despite proof that
not one sick dog in a thousand, thus assailed, has any disease which is
even remotely akin to rabies.

Next to vivisection, no crime against helpless animals is so needlessly
and foolishly cruel as the average mad-dog chase.

Which is a digression; but which may or may not enable you to keep your
head, next time a mad-dog scare sweeps your own neighborhood.

Down the middle of the dusty street trotted the sick mongrel. Five
minutes earlier, he had escaped from the damp cellar in which his owner
had imprisoned him when first he fell ill. And now, his one purpose was
to leave the village behind him and to gain the leafy refuge of the
foothills beyond.

Out from a door-yard, flashed a bumptious little fox terrier. Into the
roadway he bounded; intent on challenging the bigger animal.

He barked ferociously; then danced in front of the invalid; yapping and
snapping up at the hanging head. The big mongrel, in agony, snarled and
made a lunge at his irritatingly dancing tormentor. His teeth dug
grazingly into the terrier's withers; and, with an impatient toss, he
flung the little beast to one side. Then he continued his interrupted
flight; sick wrath beginning to encompass his reeling brain, at the
annoyance he had encountered.

The yell of the slightly hurt terrier brought people to their doors.
The sound disturbed a half-breed spaniel from his doze in the dust, and
sent him out to continue the harrying his injured terrier chum had
begun.

The spaniel flew at the black dog; nipping at the plodding forepaws.
The mongrel raged; as might some painfully sick human who is pestered
when he asks only to be let alone. His dull apathy gave place to sullen
anger. He bit growlingly at the spaniel, throwing himself to one side
in pursuit of the elusive foe. And he snapped with equal rage at an
Irish terrier that had come out to add to the turmoil.

By this time, a score of people were dancing up and down inside their
door-yard fences, squalling "Mad dog!" and flinging at the black brute
any missile they could lay hand to.

A broken flower-pot cut the invalid's nose. A stone rebounded from his
ribs. The raucous human yells completed the work the first dog had
started. From a mere sufferer, the black mongrel had changed into a
peril.

The Mistress had motored over to the Hampton post-office, that
afternoon, to mail some letters. Lad, as usual, had gone with her. She
had left him in the car, while she went into the post-office.

Lad lay there, in snug contentment, on the car's front seat; awaiting
the return of his deity and keeping a watchful eye on anyone who
chanced to loiter near the machine. Presently, he sat up. Leaning out,
from one side of the seat, he stared down the hot roadway, in a
direction whence a babel of highly exciting sounds began to issue.

Apparently, beyond that kick-up of dust, a furlong below, all sorts of
interesting things were happening. Lad's soft eyes took on a glint of
eager curiosity; and he sniffed the still air for further clues as to
the nature of the fun. A number of humans,--to judge by the
racket,--were shouting and screaming; and the well-understood word,
"dog," formed a large part of their clamor. Also, there were real dogs
mixed up in the fracas; and more than one of them had blood on him. So
much the collie's uncanny senses of smell and of hearing told him.

Lad whimpered, far down in his throat. He had been left here to guard
this car. It was his duty to stay where he was, until the Mistress
should return. Yet, right behind him, there, a series of mighty
entertaining things were happening,--things that he longed to
investigate and to mix into. It was hard to do one's solemn duty as
watchdog, when so much of wild interest was astir! Not once did it
occur to Laddie to desert his post. But he could not forbear that low
whimper and a glance of appeal toward the post-office.

And now, out of the smear of flying dust, loomed a lurching black
shape;--gigantic, terrible. It was coming straight toward the car;
still almost in mid-road. Behind, less distinct, appeared running men.
And a shot was fired. Somebody had run indoors for a pistol, before
joining the chase. The same somebody, in the van of the pursuers, had
opened fire; and was in danger of doing far more damage to life than
could a dozen allegedly mad dogs.

Just then, out from the post-office, came the Mistress. Crossing the
narrow sidewalk, she neared the car. Lad stood up, wagging his plumed
tail in welcome; his tiny white forepaws dancing a jig of eagerness on
the leather seat-cushion.

On reeled the black mongrel; crazed by noise and pain. His bleared eyes
caught a flash of the Mistress's white dress, on the walk, fifteen feet
in front of him and a yard or more to one side.

In a frame of mind when every newcomer was a probable tormenter, the
mongrel resolved to meet this white-clad foe, head-on. He swerved, with
a stagger, from his bee-line of travel; growled hideously, and sprang
full at her.

The Mistress paused, for an instant, in the middle of the sidewalk, to
find out the reason for the sudden din that had assailed her ears as
she emerged from the post-office. In that brief moment, she caught the
multiple-bellowed phrase of "Mad dog!" and saw the black brute charging
down upon her.

There was no time to dart back into the shelter of the building or to
gain the lesser safety of the car. For the charging mongrel was not
five feet away.

The Mistress stood stock-still; holding her hands at a level with her
throat. She did not cry out; nor faint. That was not the Mistress's
way. Like Lad, she was thoroughbred in soul as well as in body. And
neither she nor her dog belonged to the breed of screamers. Through her
mind, in that briefest fraction of a second whizzed the consoling
thought:

"He's not mad, whatever else he is. A mad dog never swerves from his
path."

But if the Mistress remained moveless, Lad did not. Seeing her peril
even more swiftly than did she, he made one lightning dive from his
perch on the car seat.

He did not leap at random. Lad's brain always worked more quickly than
did his lithe body; flyingly rapid as were that body's motions. As he
gathered himself for the spring, his campaign was mapped out.

Down upon the charging beast swooped a furry whirlwind of burnished
mahogany-and-snow. Down it swooped with the whirring speed and unerring
aim of an eagle. Sixty-odd pounds of sinewy weight smote the lunging
mongrel, obliquely, on the left shoulder; knocking the great brute's
legs from under him and throwing him completely off his balance. Into
the dust crashed the two dogs; Lad on top. Before they struck ground,
the collie's teeth had found their goal ire the side of the larger
dog's throat; and every whalebone muscle in Lad's body was braced to
hold his enemy down.

It was a clever hold. For the fall had thrown the mongrel on his side.
And so long as Lad should be able to keep the great foaming head in
that sideways posture, the other dog could not get his feet under him
again. With his legs in their present position, he had no power to get
up; but lay thrashing and snapping and snarling; and trying with all
his cramped might to free himself from the muscular grip that held him
prostrate.

It was all over in something like two seconds. Up stormed the crowd;
the pistol-wielder at its head. Three shots were fired at point-blank
range. By some miracle none of them harmed Lad; although one bullet
scratched his foreleg on its way to the black giant's brain.

As soon as she could, the Mistress got herself and the loudly-praised
Lad into the car and set off for home. Now that the peril was over, she
felt dizzy and ill. She had seen what it is not well to see. And the
memory of it haunted her for many a night thereafter.

As for Lad, he was still atingle with excitement. The noisy praise of
those babbling humans had bothered him; and he had been glad to escape
it. Lad hated to be mauled or talked to by strangers. But the
Mistress's tremulous squeeze and her shuddering whisper of "Oh, Laddie!
LADDIE!" had shown she was proud of him. And this flattered and
delighted Lad, past all measure.

He had acted on impulse. But, from the Mistress's manner, he saw he had
made a wonderful hit with her by what he had done. And his tail thumped
ecstatically against the seat as he cuddled very close to her side.

At home, there was more praise and petting;--this time from both the
Mistress and the Master. And the Master bathed and patched the
insignificant bullet-scratch on the collie's foreleg. Altogether, it
was a gala afternoon for the young dog. And he loved it.

But, next morning, there was quite another phase of life awaiting him.
Like most Great Moments, this exploit of Lad's was not on the free
list. And Trouble set in;--grim and sinister trouble.

Breakfast was over. The Mistress and the Master were taking their
wonted morning stroll through the grounds. Lad cantered along, ahead of
them. The light bullet-scratch on his foreleg did not lame or annoy
him. He inspected everything of canine interest; sniffing expert
inquiry at holes which might prove to be rabbit warrens; glaring in
truculent threat up some tree which might or might not harbor an
impudent squirrel; affecting to see objects of mysterious import in
bush clumps; crouching in dramatic threat at a fat stag-beetle which
scuttled across his path.

There are an immense number of worth-while details for a very young
collie, in even the most casual morning walk; especially if his
Mistress and his Master chance to be under his escort. And Laddie
neglected none of these things. If a troop of bears or a band of
Indians or a man-eating elephant were lurking anywhere in the shrubbery
or behind tree-trunks, Lad was not going to fail in discovering and
routing out such possible dangers to the peace of mind of his two
adored deities.

Scent and sight presently were attracted by a feeble fluttering under a
low-limbed catalpa tree in whose branches a pair of hysterical robins
were screeching. Lad paused, his tulip ears at attention, his plumed
tail swaying. Then he pushed his long muzzle through a clump of grass
and emerged carrying a flapping and piping morsel between his mighty
jaws. The birds, on the limb above, redoubled their frenzied chirping;
and made little futile dashes at the collie's head.

Unheeding, Lad walked back to the Mistress and laid gently at her feet
the baby robin he had found. His keen teeth had not so much as ruffled
its pinfeather plumage. Having done his share toward settling the
bird's dilemma, Laddie stood back and watched in grave interest while
the Mistress lifted the fluttering infant and put it back in the nest
whence it had fallen.

"That makes the fifth baby bird Laddie has brought to me in a month,"
she commented, as she and the Master turned back toward the house. "To
say nothing of two field mice and a broken-winged bat. He seems to
think I'll know what to do for them."

"I only hope he won't happen upon a newborn rattlesnake or copperhead
and bring it to you for refuge," answered the Master. "I never saw
another dog, except a trained pointer or setter, that could handle
birds so tenderly. He--"

The bumping of a badly handled rowboat, against the dock, at the foot
of the lawn, a hundred yards below, checked his rambling words. Lad, at
sudden attention, by his master's side, watched the boat's occupant
clamber clumsily out of his scow; then stamp along the dock and up the
lawn toward the house. The arrival was a long and lean and lank and
lantern-jawed man with a set of the most fiery red whiskers ever seen
outside a musical comedy. The Master had seen him several times, in the
village; and recognized him as Homer Wefers, the newly-appointed
Township Head Constable. The Mistress recognized him, too, as the
vehement official whose volley of pistol-bullets had ended the
sufferings of the black mongrel. She shivered, in reminiscence, as she
looked at him. The memory he evoked was not pleasant.

"Morning!" Wefers observed, curtly, as the Master, with Lad beside him,
stepped forward to greet the scarlet-bearded guest. "I tried to get
over here, last night. But I guess it's soon enough, today. Has he
showed any signs, yet?" He nodded inquiringly at the impassive Lad, as
he spoke.

"'Soon enough' for what?" queried the puzzled Master.

"And what sort of 'signs' are you talking about?"

"Soon enough to shoot that big brown collie of yours," explained
Wefers, with businesslike briskness. "And I'm asking if he's showed any
signs of hydrophoby. Has he?"

"Are you speaking of Laddie?" asked the Mistress, in dismay; as the
slower-witted Master, stared and gulped. "Why should he show any signs
of hydrophobia? He--"

"If he hasn't, he will," rapped out the visitor. "Or he would, if he
wasn't put out of the way. That's what I'm here for. But I kind of
hoped maybe you folks might have done it, yourselves. Can't be too
careful, you know. 'Specially--"

"What in blue blazes are you blithering about?" roared the Master,
finding his voice and marshaling his startled wits. "Do you mean--"

"I mean," said Wefers, rebuking with a cold glare the Master's
disrespectful manner, "I mean I'm here to shoot that big collie of
yours. He was bit by a mad dog, yesterday. So was three other dogs over
in the village. I shot 'em all; before they had time to d'velop
symptoms and things; or bite anybody. One of 'em," he added,
unctuously, "one of 'em b'longed to that little crippled Posthanger
girl. She cried and begged, something pitiful, when I come for him. But
dooty is dooty. So I--"

"OH!"

The Mistress's horrified monosyllable broke in on the smug recital. She
caught Lad protectingly by the ruff and stared in mute dread at the
lanky and red-whiskered officer. Lad, reading her voice as always,
divined this nasal-toned caller had said or done something to make her
unhappy. His ruff bristled. One corner of his lip lifted in something
which looked like a smile, but which was not. And, very far down in his
throat a growl was born.

But the Master stepped in front of his wife and his dog, and confronted
the constable. Fighting for calmness, he asked:

"Do I understand that you shot those harmless little pups just because
a dog that was sick, and not rabid, happened to nip them? And that
you've come across here with an idea of doing the same thing to Lad? Is
that it?"

"That's the idea," assented Wefers. "I said so, right off, as soon as I
got here. Only, you're wrong about the dog being 'sick.' He was mad.
Had rabies. I'd ought to know. I--"

"How and why ought you to know?" demanded the Master, still battling
for perfect calm, and succeeding none too well. "How ought you to know?
Are you a veterinary? Have you ever made a study of dogs and of their
maladies? Have you ever read up, carefully, on the subject of rabies?
Have you read Eberhardt or Dr. Bennett or Skinner or any of a dozen
other authorities on the disease? Have you consulted such eminent vets
as Hopper and Finch, for instance? If you have, you certainly must know
that a dog, afflicted with genuine rabies, will no more turn out of his
way to bite anyone than a typhoid patient will jump out of bed to chase
a doctor. I'm not saying that the bite of any sick animal (or of any
sick human, for that matter) isn't more or less dangerous; unless it's
carefully washed out and painted with iodine. But that's no excuse to
go around the country, shooting every dog that some sick mongrel has
snapped at. Put such dogs under observation, if necessary; and then--"

"You talk like a fool!" snorted Wefers, in lofty contempt. "I--"

"But I am going to keep you from acting like a fool," returned the
Master, his hard-held temper beginning to fray. "You say you've come
over here to shoot my dog. If ever anyone shoots Lad, I'll be the man
to do it. And I'll have to have lots better reason for it than--"

"Go ahead, then!" vouchsafed the constable, fishing out a rusty service
pistol from his coat-tail pocket. "Go ahead and do it yourself, then;
if you'd rather. It's all one to me, so long's it's done."

With sardonic politeness, he proffered the bulky weapon. The Master
caught it from his hand and flung it a hundred feet away, into the
center of a clump of lilacs.

"So much for the gun!" he blazed, advancing an the astounded Wefers.
"Now, unless you want to follow it--"

"Dear!" expostulated the Mistress, her sweet voice atremble.

"I'm an of'cer of the law!" blustered the offended constable; in the
same breath adding:

"And resisting an of'cer in the p'soot of his dooty is a misde--"

He checked himself, unconsciously turning to observe the odd actions of
Lad.

As the Master had hurled the pistol far from him, the collie had sped
in breakneck pursuit of it. Thus, always, did he delight to retrieve
any object the Mistress or the Master might toss for his amusement. It
was one of Laddie's favorite games, this fetching back of anything
thrown. The farther it might be flung and the more difficult its
landing place, the more zest to the sport.

This time, Lad was especially glad at the diversion. From the voices of
these deities of his, Lad had gathered that the Master was furiously
angry and that the Mistress was correspondingly unhappy. Also, that the
lanky and red-bearded visitor was directly responsible for their stress
of feeling. He had been eyeing alternately the Master and Wefers;
tensely awaiting some overt act or some word of permission which should
warrant him in launching himself on the intruder.

And now, it seemed, the whole thing was a game;--a game wherein he
himself had been invited to play a merry and spectacular part.
Joyously, he flew after the hurtling lump of steel and rubber.

The Master, facing the constable, did not see his pet's performance. He
took up the thread of speech where Wefers dropped it.

"I don't know what the law does or doesn't empower you to do, in such
cases," he said, trying to force his way back to the earlier semblance
of calm. "But I doubt if it permits you to trespass on my land, without
a warrant or a court order of some sort; or to shoot a dog of mine.
And, until I find out the law in the matter, you'll get off this place
and keep off of it. As for the dog, I'll be legally responsible for
him; and I'll guarantee he'll do no damage. So--"

Like Wefers, the Master came to an abrupt halt in his harangue.

For Lad was cantering gleefully toward him, carrying something dark and
heavy between his jaws. Straight to the Master came Lad. Carefully, at
the Master's feet, he laid the rusty pistol.

Then, stepping back a pace, he looked up, eagerly, into the dumfounded
man's face, tail waving, dark eyes aglint with expectation. It had been
hard to locate the weapon, in all that tangle of lilac-stems. It had
been harder to carry the awkwardly heavy thing all the way back, in his
mouth, without dropping it. But, if this was the plaything the Master
had chosen, Lad was only too willing to continue the game.

A little choking sound made the collie shift his gaze suddenly to the
Mistress's troubled face. And the light of fun in his eyes was
quenched. The sight of her splendid dog retrieving so joyously the
weapon designed for his death, was almost too much for the Mistress's
self-control.

The effect on the Master was different.

As Wefers made as though to jump forward and grab the pistol, the
Master said sharply:

"WATCH it, Laddie!"

Instantly, Lad was on the alert. The game, it seemed, had begun again,
and along sterner lines. He was to guard this plaything;--particularly
from the bearded intruder who was snatching so avidly for it.

There was a sharp growl, a flash of fierce white teeth, a bound. One of
Lad's snowy little forepaws was on the fallen pistol. And the rest of
Lad's sinewy body was crouching above it, fangs aglint, eyes blazing
with hot menace.

Wefers jerked back his protruding arm, with extreme quickness; barely
avoiding a deep slash from the collie's shearing eye-teeth. And Lad,
continued to "watch" the pistol.

The dog was having a lovely time. Seldom had he been happier. All good
collies respond in semi-psychic fashion to the moods of their masters.
And, to Lad, the very atmosphere about him was thrilling just now to
waves of stark excitement. With the delightful vanity which is a part
of the collie make-up, he realized that in some manner he himself was a
prominent part of this excitement. And he reveled in it.

As Wefers pulled back his imperiled arm, the Mistress stepped forward,
before the Master could speak or move.

"Even if it were true that he could get rabies by a bite from a rabid
dog," said she, "and even if that dog, yesterday, were mad, that
wouldn't affect Laddie. For he didn't bite Laddie. He never got the
chance. Lad pinned him to the ground. And while the mongrel was
struggling to get up, you shot him. One of your bullets flicked Lad's
foreleg. But the mongrel's teeth never came within twelve inches of
him. I can testify to that."

"He was fighting with a mad dog!" reiterated Wefers, fumingly. "I saw
'em, myself. And when a dog is fighting, he's bound to get bit. I'm not
here to argue over it. I'm here to enforce the law of the sov'r'n State
of Noo Jersey, County of P'saic, Township of--"

"But the law declares a prisoner innocent, till he's proved guilty,"
urged the Mistress, restraining the Master, by a light hand on his
restless arm. "And Lad's not been proved guilty. It isn't proved he was
bitten, at all. I can testify he wasn't. My husband washed the scratch
and he can tell you it wasn't made by a bite. Any veterinary can tell
you the same thing, at a glance. We can establish the fact that Lad was
not bitten. So even if the law lets you shoot a bitten dog,--which I
don't believe it does,--it doesn't empower you to shoot Lad. Why!" she
went on, shuddering slightly, "if Lad hadn't sprung between that brute
and myself, you'd probably be wanting to shoot ME! For I'd have been
bitten, terribly, if Lad hadn't--"

"I'm not here to listen to silly nonsense!" announced Wefer, glaring at
the watchful dog and back at the man and woman, "I came here in p'soot
of my sworn dooty. I been balked and resisted by the two of you; and my
pistol's been stole from me and a savage dog's been pract'c'lly sicked
onto me. I'm an of'cer of the law. And I'm going to have the law on
both of you, for int'fering with me like you have. And I'm going to get
a court order to shoot--"

"Then you haven't a court order or any other authority to shoot him?"
the Master caught him up. "You admit that! You came over here, thinking
you could bluff us into letting you do it, just because you happen to
wear a tin badge! I thought so. Now, my pink-whiskered friend, you'll
stop shouting and making faces; and you'll listen to me, a minute. You
aren't the first officer who has exceeded his authority on the chance
that people will think he's acting within his rights. This time the
bluff fails. With no warrant or summons or other legal power to back
him, a constable has no more right on my place than any negro
trespasser. What you may or may not be able to persuade some magistrate
to do about this, I don't know. But, for the present, you'll clear out.
Get that? I've warned you, in the presence of a witness. If you know
anything of law, you know that a landowner, after such warning, may
eject a trespasser by force. Go. And keep going. That's all."

Wefers sputtered wordlessly, from time to time, during the tirade. But
before its end, he fell silent and began to fidget. He himself was none
too well versed in the matter of his legal rights of intrusion. And,
for the moment, he had no chance to execute his errand. Later, armed
with a magistrate's order, he could pay back with interest his
humiliation of this morning. In the meantime--

"Gimme my gun!" he demanded in grouchy surrender.

The Master stooped; picked up the pistol, and held it in both hands.
Lad, all eagerness, stood dancingly waiting for him to throw it again.
But it was not thrown. Instead, the Master "broke" the weapon; shaking
the greasy cartridges out on to his own palm and then transferring them
to his pockets.

"In case of accidents," he explained, pleasantly, as he handed the
pistol back to its scowling owner. "And if you'll stop at the
post-office, this afternoon, you'll find these shells in an envelope in
your letter-box. Now, chase; unless you want Lad to escort you to your
boat. Lad is fine at escorting undesirables off the Place. Want to see
him perform?"

But Wefers did not answer. Snatching the impotent pistol and shoving it
back into his coattail pocket, he strode lakeward, muttering lurid
threats as he went.

The Mistress watched his lank figure on its way down the lawn to the
dock.

"It's-it's AWFUL!" she faltered, clutching at her husband's arm. "Oh,
you don't suppose he can--can really get leave to shoot Laddie, do you?"

"I don't know," answered the Master, as uneasy as she. "A mad-dog scare
has a way of throwing everybody into a fool panic. There's no knowing
what some magistrate may let him do. But one thing is mighty certain,"
he reassured her. "If the whole National Guard of New Jersey comes
here, with a truckload of shooting-warrants, they aren't going to get
Laddie. I promise you that. I don't quite know how we are going to
prevent it. But we're going to. That's a pledge. So you're not to
worry."

As they talked they continued to watch the constable in his clumping
exit from the Place. Wefers reached the dock, and stamped out to its
extreme end, where was moored the livery scow he had commandeered for
his journey across the lake from the village.

A light wind was blowing. It had caught the scow's wide stern and had
swung it out from the dock. Wefers unhooked the chain and dropped it
clankingly into the bottom. Then, with ponderous uncertainty, he
stepped from the dock's string-piece to the prow of his boat.

A whiff of breeze slapped the loosened scow, broadside on, and sent it
drifting an inch or two away. As a result, Homer Wefers' large
shoe-sole was planted on the edge of the prow, instead of its center.
His sole was slippery from the dew of the lawn. The prow's edge was
still more slippery, from having been the scene of a recent
fish-cleaning.

The constable's gangling body strove in vain to hold any semblance of
balance. His foot slid out from its precarious perch, pushing the boat
farther into the lake. And the dignified officer flapped wildly in
mid-air.

Not being built on a lighter-than-air principle, he failed to hold this
undignified aerial pose for more than the tenth of a second. At the end
of that time he plunged splashingly into the lake, at a depth of
something like eight feet of water.

"Good!" applauded the Master, as the Mistress gasped aloud in not
wholly sorrowful surprise and as Lad ambled gayly down the lawn for a
closer view of this highly diverting sight. "Good! I hope he ruins
every stitch he has on; and then gets rheumatism and tonsilitis. He--"

The Master's babbling jaw fell slack; and the pleased grin faded from
his face.

Wefers had come to the surface, after his ducking. He was fully three
yards beyond the dock and as far from his drifting scow. And he was
doing all manner of sensational things with his lanky arms and legs and
body. In brief, he was doing everything except swim.

It was this phenomenon which had wiped away the Master's grin of pure
happiness.

Any man may fall into the water, and may present a most ludicrous
spectacle in doing so. But, on the instant he comes to the surface, his
very first motions will show whether or not he is a swimmer. It had not
occurred to the Master that anyone reared in the North Jersey
lake-country should not have at least enough knowledge of swimming to
carry him a few yards. But, even as many sailors cannot swim a stroke,
so many an inlander, born and brought up within sight of fresh water,
has never taken the trouble to grasp the simplest rudiments of
natation. And such a man, very evidently, was Homer Wefers, Township
Head Constable.

His howl of crass panic was not needed to prove this to the Master. His
every wild antic showed it. But that same terror-stricken screech was
required to set forth the true situation to the one member of the trio
who had learned from birth to judge by sound and by scent, rather than
by mere sight.

With no good grace, the Master yanked off his own coat and waistcoat,
and bent to unstrap his hiking boots. He did not relish the prospect of
a wetting, for the mere sake of saving from death this atrocious
trespasser. He knew the man could probably keep afloat for at least a
minute longer. And he was not minded to shorten the period of fear by
ripping off his own outer garments with any melodramatic haste.

As he undid the first boot-latchet, he felt the Mistress's tense
fingers on his shoulder.

"Wait!" she exhorted

Astounded at this cold-blooded counsel from his tender-hearted wife, he
looked up, and followed the direction of her eagerly pointing hand.

"Look!" she was exulting. "It'll all solve itself! See if it doesn't.
Look! He can't shoot Laddie, after--after--"

The Master was barely in time to see Lad swirl along the dock with
express-train speed and spring far out into the lake.

The dog struck water, a bare ten inches from Wefers' madly tossing
head. The constable, in his crazy panic, flung both bony arms about the
dog. And, man and collie together disappeared under the surface, in a
swirl of churned foam.

The Mistress cried aloud, at this hideous turn her pretty plan had
taken. The Master, one shoe off and one shoe on, hobbled at top pace
toward the dock.

As he reached the foot of the lawn, Lad's head and shoulders came into
view above the little whirlpool caused by the sinking bodies' suction.
And, at the same moment, the convulsed features of Homer Wefers showed
through the eddy. The man was thrashing and twisting in a way that
turned the lake around him into a white maelstrom.

As the Master set foot on the dock he saw the Collie rush forward with
an impetus that sent both shaggy mahogany shoulders far out of water.
Striking with brilliant accuracy, the dog avoided Wefers' flailing arms
and feet, and clinched his strong teeth into the back of the drowning
man's collar.

Thus, Lad was safe from the blindly clinging arms and from a kick. He
had chosen the one strategic hold; and he maintained it. A splashing of
the unwieldy body made both heads vanish under water, for a bare
half-second, as the Master poised himself on the string-piece for a
dive. But the dive was not made.

For the heads reappeared. And now, whether from palsy of fright or from
belated intelligence,--Wefers ceased his useless struggles; though not
his strangled shrieks for help. The collie, calling on all his wiry
power, struck out for the dock; keeping the man's face above water, and
tugging at his soggy weight with a scientific strength that sent the
two, slowly but steadily, shoreward.

After the few feet of the haul, Wefers went silent. Into his blankly
affrighted face came a look of foolish bewilderment. The Master,
remembering his wife's hint, and certain now of Lad's ability to
complete the rescue, stood waiting on the string-piece. Once, for a
second, Wefers' eyes met his; but they were averted in queer haste.

As Lad tugged his burden beneath the stringpiece, the Master bent down
and gripped the sodden wet shoulders of the constable. One
none-too-gentle heave, and Wefers was lying in a panting and dripping
heap on the clean dock. Lad, relieved of his heavy load, swam leisurely
around to shore. It had been a delightfully thrilling day, thus far,
for the collie. But he was just a bit tired.

By the time the dazed constable was able to sit up and peer owlishly
into the unloving faces of the Mistress and the Master, Lad had shaken
himself thrice and was pattering across the dock toward the group. From
the two humans, Wefers' gaze shifted to the oncoming dog. Then he
glanced back at the sullen depths of lake water beyond the
string-piece. Then he let his head sink on his chest. For perhaps a
whole minute, he sat thus; his eyes shut, his breath still fast and
hysterical.

Nobody spoke. The Mistress looked down at the drenched man. Then she
winked at the equally silent Master, and laid a caressing little hand
on Lad's wet head. At length, Wefers lifted his face and glowered at
the trio. But, as his eye met Lad's quizzically interested gaze, he
fidgeted.

"Well?" prompted the Master, "do you want those cartridges back?"

Wefers favored him with a scowl of utter dislike. Then, his eyes again
averted, the wet man mumbled:

"I come over here today, to do my dooty.--Dogs that get bit by mad dogs
had ought to be shot.--I come over here to do my dooty. Likewise, I
done it.--I shot that dog of yours that got bit, yest'day."

"Huh?" ejaculated the Master.

"This dog here looks some like him," went on Wefers, sulkily. "But it
ain't him. And I'll so report to the author'ties.--I done what I come
to do. The case is closed. And-and-if you folks ever want to sell your
dog, why,--well, I'll just go mortgage something and--and buy him off'n
you!"



CHAPTER III. No Trespassing!

There were four of them; two gaudily-clad damsels and two men. The men,
in their own way, were attired as gloriously as the maidens they were
escorting.  The quartet added generously to the glowing beauty of the
summer day.

Down the lake they came, in a canoe modestly scarlet except for a
single broad purple stripe under the gunwale. The canoe's tones blended
sweetly with the pink parasol and blue picture hat of one of the women.

Stolid and unshaven fishermen, in drab scows, along the canoe's route,
looked up from their lines, in bovine wonder at the vision of
loveliness which swept resonantly past them. For the quartet were
warbling. They were also doing queer musical stunts which are fondly
miscalled "close harmony."

Thus do they and their kind pay homage to a divine day on a fire-blue
lake, amid the hush of the eternal hills. Lesser souls may find
themselves speaking in few and low-pitched words, under the holy spell
of such surroundings. But to loftier types of holiday-seekers, the
benignant silences of the wilderness are put there by an all-wise
Providence for the purpose of being fractured by any racket denoting
care-free merriment;--the louder the merrier. There is nothing so
racket-breeding as a perfect day amid perfect scenery.

The four revelers had paddled down into the lake, on a day's
picnicking. They had come from far up the Ramapo river; beyond Suffern.
And the long downstream jaunt had made them hungry. Wherefore, as they
reached mid-lakes they began to inspect the wooded shores for an
attractive luncheon-site. And they found what they sought.

A half-mile to southward, a gently rolling point of land pushed out
into the lake. It was smooth-shaven and emerald-bright. It formed the
lower end of a lawn; sloping gently downward, a hundred yards or more,
from a gray old house which nestled happily among mighty oaks on a
plateau at the low hill's summit.

The point (with its patch of beach-sand at the water's edge, and with
comfortable shade from a lakeside tree or so), promised an ideal
picnic-ground. The shaven grass not only offered fine possibilities for
an after-luncheon snooze; but was the most convenient sort of place for
the later strewing of greasy newspapers and Japanese napkins and wooden
platters and crusts and chicken bones and the like.

Moreover, a severely plain "No Trespass" sign, at the lake-margin,
would serve as ideal kindling for a jolly little camp-fire. There is
always a zest in using trespass boards for picnic fires. Not only are
they seasoned and painted in a way to cause quick ignition, but people
laugh so appreciatively, when one tells, afterward, of the bit of
jovial audacity.

Yes, this point was just the place for luncheon and for siesta. It
might have been made to order. And by tacit consent the two paddlers
sent their multi-chrome canoe sweeping toward it. Five minutes later,
they had helped the girls ashore and were lifting out the lunch-basket
and various newspaper parcels and the red-and-purple cushions.

With much laughter and a snatch or two of close harmony, the lunch was
spread. One of the men picked out a place for the fire (against the
trunk of a two-century oak; perhaps the millionth noble old tree to be
threatened thus with death from care-free picnickers' fires) and the
other man sauntered across to the trespass board to annex it for
kindling.

Everything was so happy and so complete and everyone was having such a
perfect time! Into such moments Fate loves best to toss Trouble. And,
this day, Fate played true to form.

As the fire-maker's hand was laid on the trespass board, even as his
inconsequential muscles were braced to rip it loose from its post,--a
squeal from the girl in the blue picture hat and the Nile-green
georgette waist, checked his mirthful activities.

Now, there was nothing remarkable in the fact that the chromatic lass
had squealed. Indeed, she and her equally fair companion had been
squealing at intervals, all morning. But there was nothing coquettish
or gay about this particular squeal. It savored rather of a screech. In
its shrill note was a tiny thread of terror. And the two men wheeled
about, to look.

The blue-hatted girl had paused in her dainty labor of helping to
spread out the lunch; in order to peep inquisitively up the slope
toward the tree-framed house above. It might be fun, after eating, to
stroll up there and squint in through the veranda windows; or,--if no
one was at home, to gather an armful of the roses that clambered over
one end of the porch.

During that brief exploratory glance, her eye had been caught by
something moving through the woods beyond.

Behind the house, these woods ran up to the highroad, a furlong above.
A driveway led twistingly down from the gate-lodge, to the house. Along
this drive, was pacing a dog.

As the girl caught sight of him, the dog halted in his lazy stroll and
stood eagerly erect, his nose upraised, his tulip ears pricked. Sound
or scent, or both, had been arrested by some unusual presence. And he
paused to verify the warning.

As he stood there, an instant, in the shade-flecked driveway, the girl
saw he was a collie; massive, graceful, majestic; in the full strength
of his early prime; his shaggy coat of burnished mahogany-and-snow
glinting back the showers of sun-rays that filtered down through the
leaves.

Before the watching girl could take further note of him, the dog's
aspect of tense listening merged into certainty. With no further shadow
of doubt as to direction, he set off at a sweeping run past the house
and toward the point.

He ran with head down; and with tawny ruff abristle. There was
something in his lithe gallop that was as ominous as it was beautiful.
And, nervous at the great collie's approach, the girl squealed.

It had been a dull morning for Lad. The Mistress was in town for the
day. The Master was shut up in his study, hard at work. And, for once,
he had not remembered to call Lad to a resting place on the study rug;
before closing the door on the outside world. Alone and bored, the
collie had wandered into the woods; in quest of possible rabbits to
chase or squirrels to tree. Finding the sport tame, he started
homeward. Midway down the drive, his supersensitive nostrils caught the
whiff of alien humans on the Place. At the same time, he heard the
raucous gabbling of several voices. Though his near-sighted eyes did
not yet show the intruders to him, yet scent and sound made it
ridiculously easy for him to trace them.

From early puppyhood, Lad had been the official guardian of the Place.
He knew the limits of its thirty acres; from lake to highroad; from
boundary fence to boundary fence. He knew, too, that visitors must not
be molested as long as they were on the driveway; but that no stranger
might be allowed to cross the land, by any other route; or to trespass
on lawn or oak-grove.

And now, apparently, strangers were holding some sort of unlicensed
revelry, down on the point. His sense of smell told him that neither
the Master nor anyone else belonging to the Place was with them. True
watchdog indignation swelled up in Lad's heart. And he ran at top speed.

The girl's three companions, turning at sight of her gesturing hand,
beheld a mahogany-and-white thunderbolt whizzing down the hundred-yard
slope toward them.

It chanced that both the men had served long apprenticeship as
dog-fanciers; and that both of them knew collies. Thus, no second look
was needed. One glimpse of the silently charging Lad told them all they
needed to know. Not in this way does a blatant or bluffing watchdog
seek to shoo off trespassers. This giant collie, with his lowered head
and glinting fangs and ruffling hackles, meant business. And the men
acted accordingly.

"Run for it!" bellowed one of them; setting a splendid example by
reaching the beached canoe at a single scrambling bound. The second man
was no whit behind him. Between them, the canoe, at one shove, was
launched. The first man grabbed one of the girls by the arm and
propelled her into the wobbling craft; while the other shoved off. The
remaining girl,--she of the azure headgear and the verdant
waist,--slipped on the grassy bank, in her flight, and sat down very
hard, at the water's edge. Already the canoe was six feet from shore;
and both men were doing creditable acrobatic stunts to keep it from
turning turtle.

"Stand perfec'ly still," one of them exhorted the damsel, as he saw
with horror that she had been left ashore in the tumbling flight.
"Stand still and don't holler! Keep your hands high. It's likely he
won't bother you. These highbred collies are pretty gentle with women;
but some of 'em are blue murder to strange men. He--"

The man swayed for balance. His fellow-hero had brought the canoe
about, in an effort to smite with uplifted paddle at the oncoming dog
without venturing too close to the danger-line.

In the same moment, Lad had gained the brink of the lake. Ignoring the
panic-struck woman on the bank, he flashed past her and galloped,
body-deep, into the water; toward the swaying canoe.

Here he paused. For Lad was anything but a fool. And, like other wise
collies, he had sense enough to realize that a swimming dog is one of
the most helpless creatures in the universe; when it comes to
self-defense.

Ashore, or in water shallow enough to maneuver his powerful body, Lad
could give excellent account of himself against any normal foe. But,
beyond his depth, he would fall easy victim to the first well-aimed
paddle-stroke. And he knew it. Thus, hesitant, his snarling teeth not
two yards from the canoe, he stood growling in futile indignation at
the cranky craft's crankier occupants.

The girl who remained on shore plucked up enough panic-courage to catch
her gaudy pink parasol by the ferule and to swing its heavy handle with
all her fear-driven strength at Lad's skull. Luckily, the aim was as
bad as it was vehement. The handle grazed the dog's shoulder, then
struck the lake with a force that snapped the flimsy parasol in two.
Whereat the girl shrieked aloud; and scuttled back as Lad spun around
to face her.

But she might as well have spared herself the scream. She was in no
danger. True, the collie had whirled to seek and resent this new source
of attack. But, seeing only a yelling and retreating woman behind him,
he contented himself with a menacing growl, and turned again toward the
canoe.

One of the men, poising himself, had swung aloft his paddle. Now, with
full strength, he  brought down the edged blade at the dog's head.

But it is one thing to aim a blow, from a tilting canoe; and quite
another to make that blow land in the spot aimed for.

The whizzing paddle-blade missed Lad, clean. Not only because the dog
veered sharply aside as it descended, but because the canoe, under the
jarring heave of the striker's body, proceeded to turn turtle.

Into the water plopped the two men. Into the water, with them, splashed
their rescued companion. This gentle soul had not ceased screaming,
from the time she was hauled aboard. But now, submergence cut short her
cries. A second later, the lamentations recommenced; in higher if more
liquid volume. For, the shore, at the point sloped very gradually out
to deeper water. And immediately, she and the two men had regained
their foothold.

There, chest deep the trio stood or staggered. And, there, between them
and the beach, raged Lad. None of the three cared to risk wading
shoreward, with such an obstacle between themselves and land. The girl
on the bank added her quota of squalls to those of her semi-engulfed
friend; and one of the men began to reach far under water for a rock to
throw at the guard dog.

The first shrill cry had reached the Master, as he sat at work in his
study. Down the slope he came running; and stopped in slack-jawed amaze
at the tableau in front of him.

On the bank hopped and wriggled a woman in vivid garments,--a woman who
waved a broken parasol and seemed to be practicing an Indian war-howl.
Elbow deep in the placid waters of the lake floundered another woman
almost as wonderfully attired as the first, and quite as vocal. On
either side of her was a drenched and gesticulating man. In the
background bobbed an upset canoe. Between the two disrupted factions of
the happy picnic party stood Lad.

The collie had ceased to growl; and, with head on one side, was looking
in eager inquiry at the Master. Lad had carried this watchdog exploit
to a point where the next move was hard to figure out. He was glad the
Master had arrived, to take charge of the situation. It seemed to call
for human, rather than canine, solution. And Lad was profoundly
interested as to the sequel. All of which showed as clearly in the
collie's whimsically expressive face as ever it could have been set
forth in print.

Both men began to talk at once; with lurid earnestness and vast wealth
of gesture. So did the women.

There was no need. The Master, already, had caught sight of the
half-spread lunch on the grass. And it was by no means his first or his
tenth experience with trespassers. He understood. Snapping his fingers,
to summon Lad to his side, he patted the dog's silken head; and strove
not to laugh.

"And just as we was sitting down, peaceful, to eat, and not harming no
one at all and minding our own business," came a fragment of one man's
oration, above the clamor of the others, "that big dark-sable collie of
yours came tearing down on us and--"

The triple opposition of outcry and complaint blurred the rest of his
enraged whine. But the Master looked out at him in new interest. The
man had used the term, "dark-sable collie"; which, by the way, was the
technical phrase for Lad's coloring. Not one non-collie-man in a
thousand would have known the meaning of the term; to say nothing of
using it by instinct. The Master stared curiously at the floundering
and sputtering speaker.

"Aren't you the manager of the Lochaber Collie Kennels, up at
Beauville?" he asked, speaking loud enough to be heard above the
subsiding din. "I think I've seen you at Westminster and at some of the
local shows. Higham is your name, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," returned the kennel man, truculent, but surprised almost
into civility. "And this is my assistant, Mister Rice. And these two
young lady friends of ours are--Say!" he broke off, furiously,
remembering his plight and swinging back to rage, as he began to wade
shoreward. "We're going to have the law on you, friend! Your collie
tackled us when we was peaceably-"

"When you were peaceably ignoring this trespass sign of mine?" finished
the Master. "Don't forget that. If you didn't have these girls with
you, I'd keep my hands off Lad's collar and let him hold you out in the
lake till it freezes for the winter. As it is, one of you men can swim
out for your canoe and tow it in; and then the rest of you can bundle
aboard it and finish your picnic on somebody else's land."

"Well!" shrilled the wet damsel, striding shoreward like some sloppily
overdressed Venus rising from the sea. "Well! I MUST say! Nice
neighborly, hospitable way to treat poor unfortunate--!"

"Trespassers?" suggested the Master, as she groped for a climax word.
"You're right. It is no way to treat a woman who has fallen into the
lake; trespasser or not. If you and this other young lady care to go up
to the kitchen, the maids will see that your clothes are dried; and
they'll lend you other clothes to go home in. Lad won't hurt you. And
in this hot weather you're in no danger of catching cold. While you're
gone, Higham and Rice can get hold of the canoe and right it and bail
it out. And, by the way, I want one of you two men to clear that litter
of food and greasy paper off my lawn. Then--"

"Into the kitchen!" snorted the wet maid. "Into the KITCHEN? I'm a
lady! I don't go into kitchens. I--"

"No?" queried the Master, trying once more not to laugh. "Well, my wife
does. So does my mother. I spoke of the kitchen because it's the only
room with a fire in it, in this weather. If you'd prefer the barn or--"

"I won't step one foot in your house!" declaimed the girl. "Nor yet I
didn't come here to be insulted. You've gone and spoiled our whole day,
you big brute! Boys, go get that canoe! We won't lower ourselves by
staying another minute on his rotten land. Afterward, our lawyer'll see
what's the penalty for treating us like this! Hurry up!"

Rice had clumped along shore until he found a dead branch washed up in
a recent rainstorm. Wading back into deeper water he was just able to
reach the gunwale of the drifting canoe with the forked end of the
bough and, by careful jockeying, to haul it within hand-grasp.

Aided by Higham, he drew the overturned craft to the beach and righted
it. All the time, both men maintained a half-coherent diatribe, whose
language waxed hotter and hotter and whose thunderbolts centered about
the Master and his dog;--particularly about Lad;--and about the dire
legal penalties which were to be inflicted on them.

The Master, still holding Lad's ruff, stood to one side during the work
of salvaging the canoe; and while Rice replaced the paddles and
cushions in it. Only when the two women were helped sputteringly aboard
did he interfere.

"One minute!" he said. "I think you've forgotten your lunch. That and
the ream or two of newspapers you've strewn around: and a few wooden
dishes. I--"

"I picked up all the lunch that was worth saving," grunted Rice. "Your
mangy collie trampled the rest of it, when he ran down here at us. I
wisht it'd had strychnia in it and he'd et it! We'll go eat our dinner
over to the village. And, before we go, I got this much more to say to
YOU:--If--"

"Before you go," interrupted the Master, shifting himself and Lad
between Higham and the canoe, "before you go, let me remind you that
you've left a lot of litter on my clean lawn; and that I asked you to
clean it up."

"Go clean it up, yourself!" snapped Rice, from the boat. "This upstage
talk about 'trespassing' makes me sick! As soon as a guy has a
three-dollar patch of bum land (with a mortgage eating it up, most
likely), he always blats about 'trespassing' whenever decent folks
happens to walk on it. Go clean up the papers, yourself! We ain't your
slaves. You're due to hear a lot from us, later, too. Clean it,
yourself!"

The ladies applauded these stirring proletariat sentiments right
vigorously. But Higham did not applaud. Rice and the women were in the
canoe. Higham had gone back to the picnic site for an overlooked
cushion. On returning toward the beach, he had found the Master and Lad
standing in his way. Loftily, he made as though to skirt them and reach
the canoe.

"WATCH him, Laddie!" whispered the Master, loosing his hold on the
dog's ruff.

This, in the midst of Rice's tirade. Higham stood extremely still. As
the others applauded, he began, very fervently, to swear.

"Higham," suggested the Master, "I've no personal objection to your
blasphemy. If the women of your party can stand it, I can. But aren't
you wasting a good deal of time! These papers have all got to be picked
up, you know; and the camp nicely policed. Get busy."

Higham glowered on him in murderous hate; then at the tensely watching
dog. Lad's upper lip curled. The man took a tentative step toward the
beach. Lad crouched, panther-like; and a low growl parted still further
his writhing lips.

Higham was enough of a collie man to foresee the inevitable next move.
He stood stock still. The Master put his hand once more on Lad's ruff;
but none too tightly. And he nodded toward the clutter of newspapers
and wooden plates. Higham's language soared spoutingly to high heaven.
But he turned back and, with vicious grabs, cleared the lawn of its
unsightly litter.

"Take it into the boat with you." said the Master. "That's all.
Goodbye. See you at the Beauville show."

Waiting only for the canoe and its four vociferous occupants to start
safely from shore, the Master returned to the house; Lad at his heels;
pursued by a quadruple avalanche of abuse from the damp trespassers.

"There'll be a comeback of some kind to this, Laddie," he told the
collie, as they moved on. "I don't know just what it'll be. But those
two worthy youths didn't look at all lovingly at us. And there's
nothing else in country life so filthily mean as an evicted trespasser.
Don't let's say anything to the Mistress about it, Lad. It'd only worry
her! And--and she'll think I ought to have invited all those
panhandlers up to the house to get dry. Perhaps she'd be right, too.
She generally is."

A week later, Lad received a summons that made his heart sink. For he
knew precisely what it foretold. He was called to the bathroom; where
awaited him a tub half full of warm water.

Now, baths were no novelty to Lad. But when a bath tub contained
certain ingredients from boxes on the dog-closet shelf,--ingredients
that fluff the coat and burnish it and make all its hairs stand out
like a Circassian Beauty's, that meant but one thing.

It meant a dog-show was at hand.

And Lad loathed dog-shows, as he loathed tramps and castor oil and
motorcycles.

After a single experience, he had never been taken to one of those
canine ordeals known as "three-or-more-day shows." But the Mistress and
the Master rejoiced at his triumphs at such local one-day shows as were
within pleasant driving distance of the Place. These exhibitions
entailed no great strain or danger. Lad's chief objection to them was
that he hated to be chirped to and pawed and stared upon by an army of
strangers.

Such a one-day event was the outdoor Charity Dogshow at the Beauville
Country Club, forty miles to northeast of the Place; an easy two-hour
drive. It was to be a "specialty show"; at which the richness and
variety of prizes were expected to atone for the lack of A. K. C.
points involved.

A premium-list of the show had been mailed to the Place; and one of its
"specials" had caught the Mistress's quick eye and quicker imagination.
The special was offered by Angus McGilead, an exiled Scot whose life
fad was the Collie; and whose chief grievance was that most American
breeders did not seem able to produce collies with the unbelievable
wealth of outer-and-undercoat displayed by the oversea dogs. This
particular special was offered in the following terms:

Embossed Sterling Silver Cup, 9 Inches High (Genuine Antique) For The
Best-Coated Collie Shown.

Now, Lad's coat was the pride of the Mistress's heart. By daily
brushings she kept it in perfect condition and encouraged its luxuriant
growth. When she read of McGilead's eccentric offer, she fell to
visualizing the "embossed sterling silver cup, 9 inches high (genuine
antique)" as it would loom up from the hedge of dog-show prizes already
adorning the living room trophy-shelves.

Summer is the zero hour for collies' coats. Yet, this year, Lad had not
yet begun to shed his winter raiment; and he was still in full bloom.
This fact decided the Mistress. Not one collie in ten would be in
anything like perfect coat. And the prize cup grew clearer and nearer,
to her mental vision. Hence the series of special baths and brushings.
Hence, too, Laddie's daily-increasing gloom.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the show, the Mistress and the
Master, with Lad stretched forlornly on the rear seat of the car, set
forth up the Valley on the forty-mile run to Beauville. On the tonneau
floor, in front of Lad, rested a battered suitcase, which held his
toilet appurtenances;--brushes, comb, talcum, French chalk, show-leash,
sponge, crash towel, squeaking rubber doll (this to attract his bored
interest in the ring and make him "show") and a box of liver cut in
small bits and fried stiff.

Lad blinked down at the suitcase in morose disapproval. He hated that
bag. It spelt "dogshow" to him. Even the presence of the delicious
fried liver and of the mildly dramatic squeaking doll could not atone
for the rest of its contents and for all they implied.

As the car sent the miles slipping behind and as the Mistress and the
Master glanced back less and less often for a pat or a cheery word to
their sulking chum, Lad's dislike for that pestilential bag grew
sharper. True, it held squares of fried liver;--liver whose heavenly
odor penetrated through the musty leather smell of the suitcase and to
the dog's acute senses. Also, it held a doll which exuded thrilling
squeaks when gently bitten. But these things, he knew full well, were
designed as show-ring baits; not as free gifts.

No, the bag was his enemy. And, unlike his few other natural foes, Lad
had never been bidden to leave it unmolested. This memory came to him,
in the midst of his blues. He eyed the loathsome suitcase through
quizzical half-shut eyes, as it rocked and careened at his feet with
every jounce of the car. And into his brain shot the devil of mischief.

Bending down his shapely head, he took the handle of the case between
his teeth. Then, bracing his little white forepaws on the slippery
leather seat, he heaved with all the mighty strength of his back and
shoulders. Under such urgence, the light suitcase swung high in air. A
sideways toss of the muscular throat, and the suitcase whirled clear of
the car door and of the running-board beneath. Then Lad let go; and
settled himself back smugly in the seat. The luckless suitcase smote
the road dust and rolled into a grassy ditch. The car sped on. Lad, for
the moment, was nearly happy. If he were not able to dodge the show
itself, at least he had gotten rid of the odious thing which held so
much he detested and which was always an inseparable part of the
ordeals he was taken to.

Arrived at the country club whose grounds had been fitted for the
charity show, Lad was benched in the shade. And there, all the rest of
the morning, he remained. For Loder, judge of the collies and Old
English Sheepdogs and of two other breeds, had missed a train from
Canada; and had not yet arrived. His various classes were held up,
pending his advent.

"Loder's a lucky man, at that," commented the Toy Breeds judge, with
whom the Master chanced to be talking. "And he'll be still luckier if
he misses the whole show. You 'small exhibitors' have no notion of the
rotten deal handed to a dog-show judge;--though lots of you do more
than your share toward making his life a burden. Before the judging
begins, some of the exhibitors act as if they wanted to kiss him.
Nothing's too good for him. He wades chin-deep through flattery and
loving attentions. Then, after the judging is over, he is about as
popular with those same exhibitors as a typhoid germ. No one can say
bad enough things about him. He's 'incompetent,' he's 'a
grafter,--'he's 'afraid of the big kennels,'--he's 'drunk.' He's any of
these things; or all of them put together. Nobody's satisfied.
Everybody has had a raw deal. Everybody's hammer is out for the poor
slob of a judge. Well, not everybody's, of course. There are some real
sportsmen left crawling on the surface of the earth. But the big
majority pan him, all the way home; and then some of them roast him in
print. The Income Tax man is a popular favorite, compared with a
dog-show judge."

"But--"

"Then, again," pursued the Toy Breeds man, "he's got to leave his heart
at home, if he doesn't want it to ache when he has to 'gate' the
second-rate mutts shown by outsiders who never exhibited before and who
think their pet dog ought to get every prize because he's so cunning
and friendly. I hate to--"

The Mistress came hurrying up from a careful inspection of the line of
collies. Drawing her husband aside, she whispered, excitedly:

"There's only one other collie here, whose coat can anywhere near equal
Laddie's. The rest are all in shabby summer coat. Come across and let
me show him to you. I'm--I'm afraid he has a gorgeous coat. Not that
_I_ think it's half as good as Lad's," she added, loyally, as she
piloted the Master between the double lines of clamorous dogs.
"But--oh, I'm so afraid the judge may think it is! You see, he doesn't
know Laddie as we do."

She stopped before a bench whereon lay a pale golden sable collie;
almost corn-colored; who boasted a wealth and magnificence of coat that
made the Master open his eyes wide.

The dog was smaller and slighter of frame than was Lad. Nor, in head
and expression, was he Lad's equal. But his coat was every bit as
luxuriant. Indeed, there was perhaps a shade more of it than Lad
carried.

A collie's coat, as a rule, takes about seven months to grow. Thus,
each year, it comes into full bloom a little later than on the year
before. And, in course of time, it is prone to reach its climax of
excellence in summer. This was the lot of both Lad and the paler-hued
dog.

"Lochaber King," read the Master, from his catalog. "H'm! That's
Colonel Osbourne's greatest pup. Remember, we saw him at Westminster?
It's nip-and-tuck, between him and Lad; with a little in this dog's
favor. Tough luck!"

"Oh, this has been just one of those days nobody wants!" mourned the
Mistress. "First, our forgetting to bring along Laddie's suitcase,
though I could have sworn I saw you lift it aboard,--and then the judge
not being here; and now this horrid collie with his wonderful coat!
What next, I wonder?"

Like a well-staged bit of mechanism, the reply to her rhetorical
question came down to her from heaven. It came in the shape of a
thunder-roll that began far off and reverberated from mountain to
mountain; then muttered itself into silence in the more distant hills.
The Mistress, like everyone else, looked skyward.

The hazy blue of the summer noon was paling to dirty gray and black. Up
from the Hudson, a fast-mounting array of dun and flame-shot clouds
were butting their bullying way. No weather-prophet was needed to tell
these hillcountry folk that they were in for a thunderstorm;--and for
what one kennel-man described as "a reg'lar ol'  he-one," at that.

Now, under right conditions, an open-air dogshow is a thing of beauty
and of joy. At such places as Tuxedo and one or two others it is a
sight to be remembered. But in rainy weather,--especially in a
tumultuous thunderstorm, it has not one redeeming feature.

The Beauville Show Committee,--like all experts in such matters, had
taken this chance into account. Down the aisles of benches and through
the questioning and scared groups of exhibitors ran attendants and
officials; shouting that the Country Club polo stables and the wide
spaces under the clubhouse verandas had been fitted up for emergency
quarters, where the dogs might be housed, dry and safe, until the
passing of the storm.

Up to the Master hurried a club page-boy.

"This way, sir!" he panted. "I saved a special box stall, in the first
stable, for your collie."

"YOU saved it?" queried the puzzled Master, while the Mistress began to
unfasten Lad's leash. "How did you happen to do that?"

"I was told to, sir," answered the boy. "A--a gentleman told me to,
just now. One of the of'cers of the club. I don't know his name. He
showed me the stall; and he told me to take your dog there."

"That's mighty, decent; whoever did it," said the Master, whistling the
freed dog to him and setting forth in the boy's wake, toward the
welcoming stables. "I wish you knew his name. I'd like to thank him."

The stable was dim-lit, at best. Now, the gathering storm made it as
dark as twilight. The box stall to which Lad was led was almost pitch
black; its shuttered window being closed. Still, it was shelter.
Leaving the Master and the Mistress to consign Lad to his new quarters,
the boy scuttled of to a harness-room. There, an eagerly-questioning
man was awaiting him.

"Yep," broke in the boy, through a volley of inquiries. "I done it, all
right, all right, Mr. Higham. They're moorin' him in Stall Five, right
now. How about those two soft dollars? Hey?"

"You earned 'em, O. K.," grinned Higham. "Here you are. Two,--count
'em, two. And now, chase along, sonny. I'm busy."

He turned to a large bowl in which he had been mixing the contents of
three or four bottles. And the boy saw his fingers were fiery red.

"What's the matter?" demanded the youngster, in high excitement.
"That's blood, ain't it?"

"No," denied Higham. "Blood's light red. This is crimson. Remember the
time we run in that joke on Daddy Price, by dipping his prize white
leghorns in crimson dye, just before the Madison Square Garden Poultry
Show? Well, this is the same stuff."

"Do I remember it?" snickered the boy. "He was ragin', for fair.
Couldn't get it off, to save him. It stayed, that color, on 'em, till
they'd shed the last one of last year's crop of feathers. Sure, I
remember. Why wouldn't I? Didn't I git a dollar for holdin' 'em for
you? And another dollar for keepin' my mouth shut? But what are you
lottin' to do with the stuff, this time? No chickens here;  or--"

"Nope," assented Higham. "No chickens here. Hold on, a second!"

He stood, musing. Then he spoke.

"I was going to play a lone hand, on this," he said, presently. "I
didn't even dare let Rice in on it. He'd be dead-sure to tell that
gabby girl he's going to marry. And it'd get all over the country in a
week. And that'd lose me my job, if the boss heard of it. I was going
to play it alone. That's why I left Rice and Willett to put up the dogs
for me. But,--I'm blest if I know how I'm to hold him and dye him at
the same time. He's as strong as an ox. You--you're a good,
close-tongued kid, Harry. You kept your mouth shut about Price's
chickens. Could you keep it shut,--for another dollar,--about this? If
you'll do that, and lend me a hand--How about it?"

"What's the main idea?" asked the boy, much intrigued by the beauty of
the dye on Higham's fingers; and squirming with embarrassed
self-importance at the man's flattering tone. "I'll help out, all
right. Only,--"

"Here's the notion," said Higham, coming out of momentary
self-communion. "And if you ever spill it, your mail will be sent to
you at the hosp't'l, for a spell. You saw that big dark sable collie I
had you steer into Stall Five? It cost me another two dollars to get
Abrams to let me have the use of that stall. The idea come to me, in a
jolt, first crack of thunder I heard. Well, I'm due to 'get' that dog
and the mucker who owns him, too. Them and I had a run-in, once; and I
been honing for a chance to square things, ever since. I've seen 'em at
shows and I've asked folks about 'em, too. He sets more store by that
dog than he'd set by most humans. He's pleased as Punch, every time the
collie hauls down a cup at one of these neighborhood shows. Well, that
dog ain't going to be fit to go to another show, for a year. He ain't
going to be fit to look at, for that long. He's going to be a laughing
stock. His owners won't brag any more about him, neither. They'll be
glad enough to keep him out of sight."

The boy, listening with ever-widening eyes, chanced to shift his gaze
to the big bowl of new-mixed dye. And a light broke on him.

"You--you're aimin' to soak him with that stuff?" he whispered, in awe
at such combined courage and genius.

"Uh-uh," assented Higham. "I don't know what color the crimson stuff
will turn the dark part of his coat. But whatever color it is, it'll be
as funny as a box of three-tailed snakes. I've put a glass of ammonia
into the dye, to make it 'set' quicker. It--"

"Gee, but you're a wonder!" sighed the worshiping boy. "D'ye s'pose
I'll ever git to be as smart as you are?"

"It all depends on how you make use of your brains," returned Higham,
complacently. "But I was some smarter than you to begin with. I--"

"But--"

Higham went on, more briskly:

"I've got this bag to put over his head when I open the stall door.
That'll put him out of the biting business, till it's peeled away from
his jaws, after he's got a real good rubbing. But he'll likely wriggle,
a lot. And I'll need you to sit on his head. Likewise to carry this
bowl and the sponge, while I'm opening the door and getting the bag
over his head. Are you game?"

"I sure am!" breathed the enraptured boy.

"Come 'long, then. The stuff's ready; and we don't want to waste any
time. Go ahead and see if there's anyone in that end of the stable."
Two minutes later, the pair groped their way through the dense gloom,
to Stall Five. They walked with exaggerated care; though the roar of
the storm would have deadened the sound of a cavalry charge. Handing
over the bowl and sponge to his assistant, Higham produced from under
his coat a thick burlap bag with a drawstring at its neck. Then, he
opened the door of the box stall, a few inches and stared in.

By straining his eyes, he could just see the vague outline of the big
collie. The dog arose from a bundle of straw, stretched himself fore
and aft, and walked gravely forward to welcome the visitors who were so
kindly easing his loneliness. He was barely visible, in the dimness.

But there was light enough for Higham's purpose. With practiced hand,
he shoved the bag over the beautiful silken head, as the collie stepped
majestically toward him. Then, deftly, he threw the indignant and
struggling dog to the floor, and bade the boy come in; and shut the
gate behind him.

With the passing of another hour, the rain ceased; and a glory of
afternoon sunlight bathed the freshened world. At about the same time,
the belated collie judge arrived at the clubhouse. Word was sent forth
that all dogs were to be returned to their benches and that the judging
of the collies and of certain other breeds would begin at once.

There was a general hustle and confusion, as exhibitors led forth their
dogs from shelter; benching them and plying brush and chalk and towel
in frantic haste.

Higham summoned Rice and another of the kennel men and bade them bring
forth the Lochaber dogs. Instead of helping them with his task, Higham
himself ran to the top of the clubhouse steps, from which he could
survey not only the benches but also the stables and the lawn between.
There, quivering with hard-held excitement, he stood; with the air of
one who has chosen a grandstand seat for some thrilling event. He wore
a pair of thick gloves. As he had discarded the linen duster which he
had worn during the dyeing process, there was no betraying splash of
color on his severely correct garb.

People were trooping out from the shelter of the clubhouse. With half
an eye, Higham observed these; chuckling at thought of the
everincreasing number of spectators to his rare comedy. Of a sudden,
the chuckle changed to a gasp.

Out through the doorway, and onto the veranda, strolled Colonel
Osbourne, owner of the Lochaber Collie Kennels. With him walked the
Mistress and the Master.

At the Mistress's side paced Lad.

"It was so careless of us to leave the suitcase at home!" the Mistress
was saying. "I don't know how we could have groomed him, Colonel, if
you hadn't come to our rescue by turning that kit bag's heaven-sent
contents over to us. Besides, it gave us the excuse to bring Laddie up
into the house; instead of leaving him all alone in that black stall.
He hates thunderstorms, and--"

A yell, from somewhere, interrupted her. The yell was caught up. It
merged into a multiple roar of inextinguishable laughter. The Mistress
saw a hundred faces all turned in one direction, The faces were
convulsed with mirth. A hundred derisively wondering fingers were
pointing. She ran to the veranda rail and looked down.

Across the patch of greensward, from the stables, a man and a dog were
advancing. The man was shaking his fist at the world at large and
fairly dancing with rage.

But it was the dog, and not he, that caused the Homeric gusts of
merriment and the gobbling chorus of amazed questions. The dog was a
collie; noble of aspect, massive of coat.

But that same coat vied with the setting sun in garish brilliancy of
hue. Never since the birth of time, had such a beast been seen by
mortals. From the tip of his aristocratic nose to the plume of his
sweeping tail, the collie was one blazingly vivid mass of crimson! He
fairly irradiated flaring red lights. His coat was wet and it hung
stickily to his lean sides, as if he had just come from a swim. And it
was tinted like a chromo of a prairie fire.

Following more slowly to the veranda's edge, Colonel Osbourne had begun
a reply to the Mistress's half-finished speech of gratitude for his
hospitality.

"I was only too glad to be of service," said he. "That's a grand dog
you have. It was a real pleasure to help in his grooming. Besides, I
profited by it. You see, my Lochaber King was quartered in a muddy
corner under the veranda. So I took the liberty of telling my man,
Rice, to put him in that comfortable big stall of Lad's. I am the chief
gainer by the--"

His courtly speech became a gurgle of horror. For, his eyes fell on the
ragingly advancing Rice. And, by deduction, he recognized the crimson
monstrosity at Rice's heels as his beloved Lochaber King.

Before the apoplectic Colonel could speak, Lad created a diversion on
his own account. He had been sniffing the air, reminiscently, for a few
seconds. Now, his eyes verified what his nostrils had told him. A
pallidly glaring and shaking man, leaning against the veranda rail for
support, had an oddly familiar scent and appearance to Laddie.

The collie stepped forward to investigate. The nerve-smashed Higham saw
him coming; and thrust out one gloved hand in frightened rebuff.

The flicking gesture was unpleasantly like a blow. As the menacing hand
slapped toward his jaws, Lad caught at it, in wary self-defense.

He recalled this man, now. He remembered he had been bidden to "watch"
him. He did not spring at his assailant. But a warning snap answered
the frenzied thrust of the hand. His teeth closed lightly on the
glove-fingers, just as Higham, in fear, jerked back his arm.

The loose glove came away in the dog's mouth.

Colonel Osbourne, wheeling about to demand some explanation of his
kennel-manager, beheld a bare hand as vividly crimson as Lochaber
King's ruined coat.

"Laddie," observed the Mistress, that evening, as she placed on the top
trophy-shelf an embossed silver cup, antique, and nine inches high, and
stood back pride fully, to note the effect. "Laddie, I know--I just
KNOW,--you'd have won it, even if poor Lochaber King had competed.
But,--oh, I wish I could make head or tail of any of the things that
have happened, today! How do you suppose it all started, anyhow, dear?"
she asked, turning to her husband for help in the riddle.

"I'd be willing to bet a year's pay it 'all started' about six feet
from shore in this lake," responded the Master, "and about a fortnight
ago."

But he spoke it in the depths of his own guiltily exultant heart.
Outwardly, he merely grinned; and said with vacuous conviction:

"Laddie, you're a grand dog. And,--if you didn't win that cup from
Lochaber King in one way, you certainly won it in another!"



CHAPTER IV. Hero-Stuff

Life was monstrous pleasant, for Lad, at the Place. And never, except
in early puppyhood, was he lonely. Never until the Master was so
foolish as to decide in his own shallow human mind that the big collie
would be happier with another collie for comrade and mate.

After that, loneliness more than once crept into Laddie's serene life;
and into the dark sorrowful eyes behind which lurked a soul. For, until
one has known and relied on the companionship of one's kind, there can
be no loneliness.

The Master made another blunder--this one on his own account and on the
Mistress's,--when he bought a second collie, to share Lad's realm of
forest and lawn and lake. For, it is always a mistake to own two dogs
at a time. A single dog is one's chum and guard and worshiper. If he be
rightly treated and talked to and taught, he becomes all-but human.
Because he is forced to rely solely on humans, for everything. And his
mind and heart respond to this. There is no divided allegiance.

One dog in a home is worth ten times as much to his owners, in every
way, as are two or more dogs. Especially if the one dog be such a
collie as Sunnybank Lad. This the Master was due to discover.

On a sloppy and drippy and muggy afternoon, late in October,--one of
those days nobody wants,--the Master came home from town; his fall
overcoat showing a decided list to starboard in the shape of an
egregiously bulged side-pocket.

The Mistress and Lad, as ever, came forth to greet the returning man.
Lad, with the gayly trumpeting bark which always he reserved for the
Mistress or the Master after an absence of any length, cavorted
rapturously up to his deity. But, midway in his welcoming advance, he
checked himself; sniffing the sodden October air, and seeking to locate
a new and highly interesting scent which had just assailed his
sensitive nostrils.

The Master put an end to the mystery, forthwith, by reaching deep into
his overcoat's swollen pocket and fishing out a grayish golden ball of
squirming fluff.

This handful of liveliness he set gingerly on the veranda floor; where
it revealed itself as an eight-weeks old collie pup.

"Her name is 'Lady,'" expounded the Master, as he and the Mistress
gazed interestedly down upon the sprawling and wiggling puppy. "Her
pedigree reads like a page in Burke's Peerage. She--"

He paused. For Lad had moved forward to where the infant collie was
trying valiantly to walk on the slippery boards. The big dog regarded
the puppy; his head on one side, his tulip ears cocked; his deep-set
eyes friendily curious. This was Lad's first experience with one of the
young of his species. And he was a bit puzzled; albeit vastly
interested.

Experimentally, he laid one of his tiny white forepaws lightly on the
mite's fuzzy shoulder. Instantly, the puppy growled a falsetto warning
to him to keep his distance. Lad's plumed tail began to wag at this
sign of spirit in the pigmy. And, with his curved pink ribbon of
tongue, he essayed to lick the shivering Lady. A second growl rewarded
this attention. And Lady sought to avoid further contact with the
shaggy giant, by scrambling at top speed to the edge of the veranda.

She miscalculated the distance or else her nearsighted baby eyes failed
to take account of the four-foot drop to the gravel drive below. Too
late, she tried to check her awkward rush. And, for a moment, her fat
little body swayed perilously on the brink.

The Mistress and the Master were too far away to catch her in time to
prevent a fall which might well have entailed a broken rib or a
wrenched shoulder. But Lad was nearer. Also, he moved faster.

With the speed of lightning, he made a dive for the tumbling Lady. As
tenderly as if he were picking up a ball of needles, he caught her by
the scruff of the neck, lifting her in the air and depositing her at
the Mistress's feet.

The puppy repaid this life-saving exploit by growling still more
wrathfully and by snapping in helpless menace at the big dog's nose.
But Lad was in no wise offended. Deaf to the praise of the Mistress,--a
praise which ordinarily threw him into transports of embarrassed
delight,--he stood over the rescued pup; every inch of his magnificent
body vibrant with homage and protectiveness.

From that hour, Lad was the adoring slave of Lady.

He watched over her, in her increasingly active rambles about the
Place. Always, on the advent of doubtful strangers, he interposed his
own furry bulk between her and possible kidnaping. He stood beside her
as she lapped her bread-and-milk or as she chewed laboriously at her
fragment of dog-biscuit.

At such times, he proved himself the mortal foe of Peter Grimm, the
Mistress's temperamental gray kitten, with whom he was ordinarily on
very comfortable terms. Peter Grimm was the one creature on the Place
whom Lady feared. On the day after her arrival, she essayed to worry
the haughty catkin. And, a second later, the puppy was nursing a brace
of deep red scratches at the tip of her inquiring black nostrils.

Thereafter, she gave Peter Grimm a wide berth. And the cat was wont to
take advantage of this dread by making forays on Lady's supper dish.
But, ever, Lad would swoop down upon the marauder, as Lady cowered
whimperingly back on her haunches; and would harry the indignant cat up
the nearest tree; herding her there until Lady had licked the dish
clean.

Lad went further, in his fealty to the puppy. Sacrificing his own regal
dignity, he would romp with her, at times when it would have been far
more comfortable to drowse. He bore, without murmur, her growling
assaults on his food; amusedly standing aside while she annexed his
supper's choicest bits.

He endured, too, her occasional flurries of hot temper; and made no
protest when Lady chose to wreak some grievance against life by flying
at him with bristling ruff and jaws asnarl. Her keen little milk teeth
hurt like the mischief, when they dug into his ears or his paws, in one
of these rage-gusts. But he did not resent the pain or the indignity by
so much as drawing back out of harm's way. And, afterward, when quick
repentance replaced anger and she strove to make friends with him
again, Lad was inordinately happy.

To both the Mistress and the Master, from the very outset, it was plain
that Lady was not in any way such a dog as their beloved Lad. She was
as temperamental as Peter Grimm himself. She had hair-trigger nerves, a
swirlingly uncertain temper that was scarce atoned for by her charm and
lovableness; and she lacked Lad's stanchness and elusive semi-human
quality. The two were as different in nature as it is possible for a
couple of well-brought-up thoroughbred collies to be. And the humans'
hearts did not go out to Lady as to Lad. Still, she was an ideal pet,
in many ways. And, Lad's utter devotion to her was a full set of
credentials, by itself.

Autumn froze into winter. The trees turned into naked black ghosts; or,
rather, into many-stringed harps whereon the northwest gales
alternately shrieked and roared. The fire-blue lake was a sheet of
leaden ice, twenty inches thick. The fields showed sere and grayly
lifeless in the patches between sodden snow-swathes. Nature had flown
south, with the birds; leaving the northern world a lifeless and empty
husk, as deserted as last summer's robin-nests.

Lady, in these drear months of a dead world, changed as rapidly as had
the smiling Place. From a shapeless gray-gold fuzzy baby, she grew lank
and leggy. The indeterminate fuzz was buried under a shimmering
gold-and-white coat of much beauty. The muskrat face lengthened and
grew delicately graceful, with its long muzzle and exquisite profile.

Lady was emerging from clownish puppyhood into the charm of youth. By
the time the first anemones carried God's message of spring through the
forests' lingering snow-pall, she had lost her adolescent gawkiness and
was a slenderly beautiful young collie; small and light of bone, as she
remained to the day of her death, but with a slimness which carried
with it a hint of lithe power and speed and endurance.

It was in the early spring that the Master promoted Lady from her
winter sleeping-quarters in the tool-house; and began to let her spend
more and more time indoors.

Lady had all the promise of becoming a perfect housedog. Fastidious,
quick to learn, she adapted herself almost at once to indoor life. And
Lad was overjoyed at her admission to the domain where until now he had
ruled alone. Personally, and with the gravity of an old-world host, he
conducted her from room to room. He even offered her a snoozing-place
in his cherished "cave," under the piano, in the music room the spot of
all others dearest to him.

But it was dim and cheerless, under the piano; or so Lady seemed to
think. And she would not go there for an instant. She preferred the
disreputable grizzly-bear rug in front of the living room hearth. And,
temporarily deserting his loved cave, Lad used to lie on this rug at
her side; well content when she edged him off its downy center and onto
the bumpy edges.

All winter, Lady's sleeping quarters had been the tool-house in the
back garden, behind the stables. Here, on a sweet-smelling (and
flea-averting) bed of cedar shavings, she had been comfortable and
wholly satisfied. But, at once, on her promotion, she appeared to look
upon the once-homelike tool-house as a newly rich daylaborer might
regard the tumbledown shack where he had spent the days of his poverty.

She avoided the tool-house; and even made wide detours to avoid passing
close to it. There is no more thoroughgoing snob, in certain ways, than
a high-bred dog. And, to Lady, the tool-house evidently represented a
humiliating phase of her outlived past.

Yet, she was foredoomed to go back to the loathed abode. And her return
befell in this way:

In the Master's study was something which Lady considered the most
enthrallingly wonderful object on earth. This was a stuffed American
eagle; mounted, rampant and with outflung wings, on a papier-mache
stump.

Why the eagle should have fascinated Lady more than did the
leopard-or-bear rugs or other chase-trophies, in the various downstairs
rooms, only Lady herself could have told. But she could not keep her
eyes off of it. Tiptoeing to the study door, she used to stand for half
an hour at a time staring at the giant bird.

Once, in a moment of audacity, she made a playful little rush at it.
Before the Master could intervene, Lad had dashed between her and the
sacred trophy; and had shouldered her gently but with much firmness out
of the room; disregarding her little swirl of temper at the
interference.

The Master called her back into the study. Taking her up to the eagle,
he pointed at it, and said, with slow emphasis:

"Lady! Let it ALONE! Let--it--ALONE!"

She understood. For, from babyhood, she had learned, by daily practice,
to understand and interpret the human voice. Politely, she backed away
from the alluring bird. Snarling slightly at Lad, as she passed him in
the doorway, she stalked out of the room and went out on the veranda to
sulk.

"I'm glad I happened to be here when she went for the eagle," said the
Master, at lunch that day. "If I hadn't, she might have tackled it
sometime, when nobody was around. And a good lively collie pup could
put that bit of taxidermy out of commission in less than five seconds.
She knows, now, she mustn't touch it."

He spoke smugly; his lore on the subject being bounded by his
experiences in teaching Lad the simple Law of the Place. Lad was one of
the rare dogs to whom a single command or prohibition was enough to fix
a lesson in his uncannily wise brain for life. Lady was not. As the
Master soon had occasion to learn.

Late one afternoon, a week afterward, the Mistress had set forth on a
round of neighborhood calls. She had gone in the car; and had taken Lad
along. The Master, being busy and abhorring calls, had stayed at home.
He was at work in his study; and Lady was drowsing in the cool lower
hall.

A few minutes before the Mistress was due to return for dinner, a whiff
of acrid smoke was wafted to the man's nostrils.

Now, to every dweller in the country, there is one all-present peril;
namely, fire. And, the fear of this is always lurking worriedly in the
back of a rural householder's brain. A vagrant breath of smoke, in the
night, is more potent to banish sleep and to start such a man to
investigating his house and grounds than would be any and every other
alarm known to mortals.

Even now, in broad daylight, the faint reek was enough to bring the
Master's mind back to earth and the Master's body to its feet.
Sniffing, he went out to find the cause of the smell. The chimneys and
the roof and the windows of the house showing no sign of smoke, he
explored farther; and presently located the odor's origin in a small
brush-fire at some distance behind the stables. Two of the men were
raking pruned vine-suckers and leaves onto the blaze. The wind set away
from the house and stables. There was nothing to worry over. Ashamed of
his own fussiness, the Master went back to his work.

As he passed the open study window, on his way indoors, a motion inside
made him stop. He was just in time to see Lady trot into the room,
crouch playfully, and then spring full at the stuffed eagle.

His shout deflected the young dog's leap, and kept her merrily
outstretched jaws from closing on the bird. As it was, the impact
knocked the eagle and the papier-mache stump to the floor; with much
clatter and dust.

The Master vaulted in through the window; arriving on the study floor
almost as soon as did the overthrown bird. Lady was slinking out into
the hall; crestfallen and scared. The Master collared her and brought
her back to the scene of her mischief.

The collie had disobeyed him. Flagrantly she had sinned in assailing
the bird; after his injunction of "Let it alone!" There could be no
doubt, from her wriggling aspect of guilt, that she knew she was doing
wrong. Worse, she had taken sneaky advantage of his absence in order to
spring at the eagle. And disgust warred with the Master's normal
indignation.

Speaking as quietly as he could bring himself to speak, he told Lady
what she had done and what a rotten thing it had been. As he talked to
the utterly crestfallen pup, he was ransacking a drawer of his desk in
search of a dogwhip he had put there long ago and had never had
occasion to use.

Presently, he found it. Pointing to the overthrown trophy, he brought
the lash down across the shrinking collie's loins. He did not strike
hard. But he struck half a dozen times; and with glum knowledge that it
was the only course to take.

Never before in her eight foolish months of life, had Lady known the
meaning of a blow. While the whip-slashes were too light to do more
than sting her well-mattressed back, yet the humiliation of them seared
deep into her sensitive nature. No sound did she utter. But she cowered
flat to the floor; and trembled as if in a hard chill.

The whipping was over, in a few seconds. Again the Master explained to
her what it had been inflicted for. Then, calling her to follow, he led
the way out of doors and toward the stables. Stomach to earth, the
shamed and miserable Lady writhed along, close at his heels.

The Master passed the stables and walked toward the brush fire, where
the two men were still at work. But he did not go within a hundred feet
of the fire. Turning, after he had left the stables behind him, he made
for the tool-house.

Lady saw whither he was bound. She ceased to follow. Wheeling about,
she trotted stealthily back toward the stables. Reaching the tool-house
door, the Master opened it and whistled to the unhappy young collie.
Lady was nowhere in sight. At a second summons, she appeared from
around the corner of the stables; moving close to the ground, and with
many wriggles of protest. Twice, she stopped; and looked appealingly at
the man.

The Master hardened his soul against the prettily pathetic appeal in
her eyes and actions; and called her to him again. His own momentary
anger against the luckless youngster was gone,--the more so since the
eagle had not been damaged by its fall,--but he knew it was needful to
impress strongly on Lady the fact of her punishment. This for her own
sake as much as for his; since a housedog is worthless until it learns
that each and every indoor object must be respected and held sacred
from mutilation.

Wherefore, he was minded to spare Lady from any future punishment by
making this present lesson sink deep into her brain. Disregarding her
manifest aversion for the tool-house, he motioned her into it and shut
the door behind her.

"You'll stay there, till morning," he told her, as he closed the window
and glanced in at the forlorn little wisp of fur and misery. "You'll be
comfortable. And the open spaces under the roof will give you all the
air you want. I don't dare leave this window open, for fear you might
be able to jump out. You've had your supper. And there's a pan of fresh
water in there. You'll be no worse off there than you were all winter.
A night in jail may teach you to be a decent, house-broke dog; and not
a mutt."

As he was on the way back to his study, in the sunset, the car came
down the drive, bearing the Mistress. Lad was seated in solemn joy on
the front seat, at her side. The big collie loved motoring. And, as a
rule, he was relegated to the back seat. But when the Mistress went out
alone, his was the tremendously-enjoyed privilege of sitting in front,
beside her.

"I had to lick Lady," reported the Master, shamefacedly, as he helped
his wife from the car. "She went for the eagle in my study. You
remember how I scolded her for that, last week, don't you? Well, that's
all the good it did. And I had to whip her. I hated to. I'm glad you
weren't here to look unhappy about it. Then I shut her up for the night
in the tool-house. She--"

He broke off, to look at Lad.

As the collie had jumped down from the car and had started toward the
house, he had struck Lady's trail; and he had followed it. It had led
him to the tool-house. Finding Lady was locked inside and unhappy, he
had come galloping back to the Master.

Standing in front of the man, and whining softly, he was scanning the
faces of his two deities with troubled eagerness. Evidently, he
considered that Lady had been locked in by mistake; and he was pleading
for her release. As these humans did not seem to catch the idea his
eyes and expression conveyed, he trotted a few steps toward the
tool-house and then paused to look invitingly back at them.

Twice he did this. Then, coming up to the Master, he caught the
latter's coat-hem lightly between his teeth and tugged on it as he
backed toward the tool-house.

"No, old friend," said the Master, petting the silken head so
appealingly upraised to him. "I know what you're getting at. But I
can't let her out. Tomorrow morning. Not till then. Come on up to
dinner."

Unwillingly and with wistful backward looks, Lad followed the Mistress
and the Master to the house and into the dining room and to his wonted
place on the floor at the Master's left side. But, more than once
during the meal, the man caught the collie's eyes fixed on him in
worried supplication; and was hard put to it not to grant the plea
which fairly clamored in his chum's mute gaze.

After dinner, when the Mistress and the Master set off on their usual
evening walk, Lad was not on hand to accompany them. As a rule, he was
all around them and in front and behind, in a series of gay rushes, as
they started on these walks. But not until the Master called him,
tonight, did he appear. And then he came up dolorously from the
tool-house.

Lad did not understand, at all, what was wrong. He knew only that Lady
had been shut up in a place she detested and that she was horribly
unhappy and that the Master would not let her out. It perplexed him;
and it made him increasingly wretched. Not only did he miss his
playfully capricious young mate, but her unhappiness made him heartsick.

Vainly, he tried to plead with the Master for her release, as the walk
began; and again at its end.

There were such a lot of things in the world that even the cleverest
collie could not make head or tail of! And most of these things were
sad.

That night, when the house was shut, Lad crept as usual into his cave
under the piano. And he lay down with a sigh, his great head between
his two absurdly small white forepaws. As a rule, before going to sleep
for the night, Lad used to spend much time in licking those same snowy
forepaws into shining cleanliness. The paws were his one gross vanity;
and he wasted more than an hour a day in keeping them spotlessly white.
But tonight he was too depressed to think of anything but the
whimpering little dog imprisoned down in the tool-house.

After a while, he fell asleep.

A true watchdog sleeps with all his senses or the very edge of
wakefulness. And when he wakens, he does not waken as do we
humans;--yawningly, dazedly, drunk with slumber. At one moment he is
sound asleep. At the next he is broad awake; with every faculty alert.

So ever it was, with Lad. So it was with him, this night. An hour
before dawn, he woke with sharp suddenness; and at once he was on his
feet; tense, on guard. He did not know what had roused him. Yet, now
that he was awake, two of his senses recorded something which banished
from him all thought of further sleep.

To his ears came a far-off muffled wail;--a wail which held more than
unhappiness;--a wail which vibrated with real terror. And he knew the
voice for Lady's.

To his sensitive nostrils, through the intervening distance and the
obstructing walls and windows, drifted a faint reek of smoke.

Now, the smoke-smell, by itself, meant nothing whatever to Lad. All
evening a trace of it had hung in the air; from the brush fire. And, in
any case, this whiff was too slight to have emanated from the house or
from any spot near the house. Yet, taken together with Lady's cry of
fear--

Lad crossed to the front door, and scratched imperiously at it. The
locked door did not yield to his push. Too sensible to keep on at a
portal he could not open, he ran upstairs, to the closed door of the
Master's room. There, again he scratched; this time harder and more
loudly. Twice and thrice he scratched; whining under his breath.

At last the deep-slumbering Master heard him. Rousing himself, and
still three-quarters asleep, he heard not only the scratching and the
whimper but, in the distance, Lady's wail of fear. And, sleep-drugged,
he mumbled:

"Shut up, Laddie!--I hear her.--Let her howl.--If she's lonely, down
there, she'll--she'll remember the lesson--all the better. Go
downstairs and--be quiet!"

He fell sound asleep again. Obedient to the slumbrous mandate, Lad
turned and pattered mournfully away. But, he was not content to return
to his own nap, with that terror-cry of Lady's echoing in his ears. And
he made a second attempt to get out.

At each side of the piano, in the music room, was a long French window.
Often, by day, Lad used to pass in or out of these door-like windows.
He knew that they, as well as the doors, were a recognized means of
exit. Now, with eagerly scratching paw, he pushed at the nearest of
them.

The house was but carelessly locked at night. For Lad's presence
downstairs was a better burglar-preventive than the best bolts ever
forged. Tired and drowsy, the Master, this night, had neglected to bar
the French windows.

The window gave, at Lad's vehement scratch; and swung outward on its
hinges. A second later, the big dog was running at top speed toward the
tool-house.

Now, the ways of the most insignificant brushfire are beyond the exact
wisdom of man. Especially in droughty weather. When they knocked off
work for the day, the two laborers had gone back to the blaze beyond
the tool-house and conscientiously had scattered and stamped on its
last visible remnants. The Master, too, coming home from his evening
walk, had glanced toward the back garden and had seen no telltale spark
to hint at life in the trampled fire.

Nevertheless, a scrap of ember, hidden from the men's gaze beneath a
handful of dead leaves had refused to perish with its comrade-sparks.
And, in the course of five hours, an industrious little flicker had
ignited other bits of brush and of dried leafage and last year's weed
stumps. The wind was in the north. And it had guided the course of the
crawling thread of red. The advancing line had thrown out tendrils of
scarlet, as it went.

Most of these had died, in the plowed ground. One had not. It had crept
on, half-extinguished at times and again snapping merrily, until it had
reached the tool-house. The shed-like room stood on low joists, with a
clear space ten inches high between its flimsy board floor and the
ground. And, in this space, the leaves of the preceding autumn had
drifted in windrows. The persevering spark did the rest.

Lady woke from a fitful doze, to find herself choking from smoke. The
boards of the floor were too hot for endurance. Between their cracks
thin wavery slices of smoke were pouring upward into the room. The
leaves had begun to ignite the floor-boards and the lower part of the
ramshackle building's thin walls.

While the pain and humiliation of her whipping had not been able to
wring a sound from the young thoroughbred, yet fright of this sort was
afar different thing. Howling with panic terror, she dashed about the
small enclosure, clawing frantically at door and scantling. Once or
twice she made half-hearted effort to spring up at the closed window.
But, from lack of running-space as well as from lack of nerve to make
the high leap, she failed.

Across the lawn and door-yard and around the end of the stables
thundered Lad. With the speed of a charging bull he came on. Before he
reached the burning shack, he knew more of his mate's plight and peril
than any human could have known.

Around the small building he whirled, so close to it that the flames at
its base seared his mighty coat and blistered and blackened his white
paws.

Then, running back a yard or so, he flung his eighty-pound weight
crashingly at the fastened door. The door, as it chanced, was well-nigh
the only solid portion of the shack. And it held firm, under an impact
that bruised the flying dog and which knocked him breathless to the
fire-streaked ground.

At sound of her mate's approach, Lady had ceased wailing. Lad could
hear her terrified whimpers as she danced frantically about on the
red-hot boards. And the knowledge of her torture drove him momentarily
insane.

Staggering up from his fall, he flung his splendid head back and, with
muzzle to the clouded skies, he tore to shreds the solemn silences of
the spring night with a wolf-howl; hideous in its savage grief,
deafeningly loud.

As though the awesome yell had cleared his brain, he sprang to his feet
amid the stinging embers; steady, alert, calm; with no hint of despair
or of surrender.

His smarting eyes fixed themselves on the single dusty window of the
tool-house. Its sill was a full five feet above ground. Its four small
panes were separated by a wide old-fashioned cross-piece of hardwood
and putty. The putty, from age, was as solid as cement. The whole
window was a bare sixteen by twenty inches.

Lad ran back, once more, a few feet; his gaze fixed appraisingly on the
window and measuring his distance with the sureness of a sharpshooter.

The big collie had made up his mind. His plan was formed. And as he was
all-wise, with the eerie wisdom of the highest type of collie, there
can be scant doubt he knew just what that plan entailed.

It was suicide. But, oh, it was a glorious suicide! Compared to it the
love-sacrifices of a host of Antonys and Abelards and Romeos are but
petty things. Indeed, its nearest approach in real life was perhaps
Moore's idiotically beautiful boast:

  Through the fiery furnace your steps I'll pursue;
  To find you and save you:--or perish there, too!

The great dog gathered himself for the insane hero-deed. His shaggy
body whizzed across the scarlet pattern of embers; then shot into the
air. Straight as a flung spear he flew; hurtling through the
flame-fringed billows of smoke.

Against the shut window he crashed, with the speed of a catapult.
Against it he crashed; and clean through it, into the hell of smoke and
fire and strangulation inside the shack.

His head had smashed the strong cross-piece of wood and dried putty and
had crumpled it like so much wet paper. His giant shoulders had ripped
the window-frame clean of its screws. Into the burning room spun Lad,
amid a hail of broken glass and splintered wood.

To the fire-eaten floor he was hurled, close to his cowering and
whimpering mate. He reeled to his feet, and stood there, shoulder to
shoulder with Lady. His work was done.

And, yet, it was not in Sunnybank Lad's nature to be such a fool as is
the usual melodrama hero. True, he had come to share Lady's fate, if he
could not rescue her. Yet, he would not submit tamely to death, until
every resource had been tried.

He glanced at the door. Already he had found by harsh experience that
his strength availed nothing in the battering down of those strong
panels. And he peered up, through the swirling red smoke, toward the
oblong of window, whereby he had made his tumultuous entrance to the
death-trap.

Again, he must have known how hopeless of achievement was the feat he
was about to try. But, as ever, mere obstacles were not permitted to
stand in Lad's way.

Wheeling, he seized Lady by the nape of the neck. With a mighty heave,
he swung her clear of the hot floor. Gathering all his fierce strength
into one sublime effort, he sprang upward toward the window; his mate
hanging from his iron jaws.

Yes, it was a ridiculous thing to attempt. No dog, with thrice Lad's
muscular strength, could have accomplished the impossibility of
springing out through that high, narrow window, carrying a weight of
fifty pounds between his teeth.

Lad's leap did not carry him half the distance he had aimed for. Back
to the floor he fell, Lady with him.

Maddened by pain and by choking and by stark terror, Lady had not the
wit to realize what Lad was attempting. All she knew was that he had
seized her roughly by the neck, and had leaped in air with her; and had
then brought her bangingly down upon the torturing hot boards. And her
panic was augmented by delirious rage.

At Lad's face she flew, snarling murderously. One slash of her curving
eyetooth laid bare his cheek. Then she drove for his throat.

Lad stood stock still. His only move was to interpose his shaggy
shoulder to her ravening jaws. And, deep into the fur and skin and
flesh of his shoulder her furious teeth shore their way.

It would have been child's play for him to have shaken her off and to
have leaped to safety, alone, through the sash-less window.

Yet he stood where he was; his sorrowful eyes looking tenderly down
upon the maddened youngster who was tearing into him so ferociously.

And that was the picture the Master beheld; as he flung open the door
and blinked gaspingly through the smoke for the dog he had locked in.

Brought out of bed, on the jump, by Lad's unearthly wolf howl, he had
smelt the smoke and had run out to investigate. But, not until he
unbarred the tool-house door did he guess that Lady was not the burning
shack's only prisoner.

"It'll be another six months before your wonderful coat grows out
again, Laddie dear," observed the Mistress, next day, as she renewed
the smelly wet cloths on Lad's burned and glass-cut body. "Dr. Hopper
says so. But he says the rest of you will be as well as ever, inside of
a fortnight. And he says Lady will be well, before you will. But,
honestly, you'll never look as beautiful, again, to me, as you do this
very minute. He--he said you look like a scarecrow. But you don't. You
look like a--like a--a-What gorgeously splendid thing DOES he look
like, dear?" she appealed to her husband.

"He looks," replied the Master, after deep thought, "he looks like LAD.
And that's about the highest praise I know how to give him;--or give to
anyone."



CHAPTER V. The Stowaway

There were but three collies on the Place, in those days. Lad; his
dainty gold-and-white mate, Lady; and their fluffy and fiery wisp of a
son, little Wolf.

When Wolf was a spoiled and obstreperous puppy of three months or so,
Lady was stricken with distemper and was taken to a veterinary
hospital. There, for something more than three months she was nursed
through the scourging malady and through the chorea and pneumonia which
are so prone to follow in distemper's dread wake.

Science amuses itself by cutting up and otherwise torturing helpless
dogs in the unholy name of vivisection. But Science has not yet
troubled itself to discover one certain cure or preventive for the
distemper which yearly robs thousands of homes of their loved canine
pets and guards. Apparently it is pleasanter for scientists to watch a
screaming dog writhe under the knife in a research laboratory than to
trouble about finding a way to abolish distemper; and thus of ridding
the dog world of its worst scourge.

This is a digression from our story. But perhaps it is worth your
remembering,--you who care about dogs.

Altogether, Lady was away from the Place for fifteen weeks.

And, in her absence, the unhappy Lad took upon himself the task of
turning little Wolf from a pest into something approaching a decent
canine citizen. It was no sinecure, this educating of the hot-tempered
and undisciplined youngster. But Lad brought to it an elephantine
patience and an uncannily wise brain. And, by the time Lady was brought
back, cured, the puppy had begun to show the results of his sire's
stern teachings.

Indeed, Lady's absence was the best thing that could have befallen
Wolf. For, otherwise, his training must needs have devolved upon the
Mistress and the Master. And no mere humans could have done the job
with such grimly gentle thoroughness as did Lad. Few dogs, except
pointers or setters or collies, will deign to educate their puppies to
the duties of life and of field and of house. But Lad had done the work
in a way that left little to be asked for.

When Lady came home, her flighty brain seemed to have forgotten the
fact that young Wolf was her once-adored son. Of her earlier capricious
devotion to him, no trace remained. She sniffed in stand-offish inquiry
at him; as at a stranger. And the scatterbrain pup remembered her no
better than she remembered him. There is a wide gulf in intelligence
between a three-month puppy and one six months old.

Yet,--perhaps because they were both excitable and mischievous and
loved romping,--and because each was a novelty to the other--mother and
son quickly formed a new friendship. From the more sedate and
discipline-enforcing Lad, the youngster turned eagerly to chum-ship
with this flighty gold-white stranger. And Lady, for similar reason,
seemed to find ten times as much congeniality and fun in romping with
Wolf as in playing with the less galvanically agile Lad.

In brief, Lady and little Wolf became inseparable companions;--this to
the semi-exclusion of Lad.

The great collie did not resent this exclusion; nor did he try to
regain his fast-slipping hold on Wolf's affections. Yet, in fashion
that was more pathetic than ludicrous, he sought to win back Lady's
waning affection. A bit clumsily, he tried to romp and gambol with her,
as did Wolf. He tried to interest her, as of yore, in following his
lead in break-neck forest gallops after rabbits or in gloriously
exhilarating swims in the fire-blue lake at the foot of the lawn. To
the pityingly on-looking Mistress and Master, he seemed like some
general or statesman seeking to unbend in the games and chatter of a
party of high school boys and girls.

But it was no use.

True, in the cross-country runs or the swirling charges after rabbits,
neither Lady nor Wolf could keep up with Lad's flying stride. And a
long swim, which scarce breathed Lad, would exhaust either or both of
them.

But, they were young; and he was middle-aged. And, as in human
relationships, that one sentence told the whole tragic story.

As well expect a couple of flyaway children to give up a game of tag in
order to listen to the solemn discourse of an elderly uncle; as to make
the fun-loving Lady and Wolf widen their selfish comradeship to include
in it the steadier and older and infinitely wiser Lad.

Perforce, Lad was thrown more and more on the society of the Mistress
and the Master. And, in their friendship, he was happy;--until he would
chance to see his mate and his little son playing in wild ecstasy with
a stick or ball, and would frisk bulkily over to join them. In a bare
second or two, the demeanor of both showed him just what a grossly
unwelcome interloper he was.

Whereat, after a wistfully miserable glance from one to the other of
the exclusive pair, Lad would trot slowly back to his human deities;
and, with a queerly sobbing little sigh, he would curl up at the
Mistress's feet.

"It's a shame, Laddie!" declared the Mistress, at one such time. "It's
a SHAME! Why, you are worth a million of those crazy playdogs! You're a
million times wiser and beautifuller and more lovable. Why do you
bother with them? Master and I are ever so much better company for you;
and we love to have you with us. Stay right here, and forget them."

Lad, perhaps, understood the actual meaning of one word in ten of the
advice. But he understood and loved the Mistress's sweet voice and the
caress of her cool little hand; and the sympathy in her tone. It all
meant much to Laddie. Very much indeed. And he laid his mighty head
against her knee; happy in the comfort of touch and voice.

Nevertheless, that wistful glint was ever lurking in his deep-set eyes,
nowadays. And his gayly trumpeting bark rang out less often and less
jubilantly than of old. He took to moping. And he spent more time than
before in his beloved "cave," under the music-room piano.

Moping and solitude are no more beneficial to dogs than to humans. The
Master racked his brain for some way of bringing the splendid collie
back to his olden spirits.

Luck, or fate, took the matter out of his hands.

The Mistress and the Master were invited to spend a week with some
friends whose house stood in an ultra-restricted residential park, high
up in the Catskills. By leaving the Place at sunrise, they could reach
the Park, by motor, in time for afternoon tea.

At dawn, the car was brought to the door. Its tonneau was piled with
luggage; and all was ready for a start as soon as the unappetizingly
early breakfast could be swallowed.

Wolf and Lady, after following the car from the garage to the door,
wearied of the uninspiring wait; and set forth at a hand-gallop for the
woods. There, at dawning, the dew would lie heavy. And wet ground ever
holds scent better than does dry. It would be easy to pick up and
follow rabbit trails, through the damp.

Lad made as though to follow them. He ran out of the house and half-way
up the drive in pursuit of their flashing gold-and-white flight.
Neither turned a head at sound of his following steps. Neither
slackened pace to include him in the hunt.

Always abnormally sensitive, the big collie noted this aloofness. And
he came to an irresolute halt. For a moment, he stared after the two
vanishing runaways; his plumed tail swaying ever so little, in
groundless expectation of an invitingly glance or yelp from Lady. Then,
tail and crest adroop, he turned slowly back toward the house.

From puppyhood, an odd trait of Lad's had caused amusement at the
Place. Whenever he was unhappy or considered himself ill-treated, it
was his way to hunt for something wherewith he might comfort himself.
For instance, as a pup, a scolding for some petty misdeed would send
him in search of his cherished flannel doll or his squeaking ball. In
later years, the car had taken the place of these babyhood comforters.

Lad cared more for motoring than for any other amusement. In moments of
stress he sometimes ran to the garage and curled himself up in the
tonneau; as though in hope someone might take pity on his unhappiness
and give him a drive. And, usually, somebody did.

Now, turning back, rebuffed, from the forest gallop, he caught sight of
the car. Not in the garage, either; but at the front door; where its
presence could mean nothing except an immediate ride.

With one high spring, Lad had cleared the ground and was over the
closed tonneau door and amid a ruck of luggage and rugs. The rear seat
was filled by a steamer-trunk, strapped tightly in place there. And the
bottom of the car was annoyingly crowded by bumpy bags and other gear.

Still, by the simple and ancestral process of turning himself around
several times, Lad was able to clear enough space on the floor to
permit of his lying down; albeit in a very compact bunch.

He settled himself into place on the floor with a satisfied jounce
which loosened a car-rug draped over the trunk. Down slithered the rug;
and fell athwart the dog's shaggy back and one of the bags. It was not
heavy enough to annoy Lad or hurt his feelings. And its draped folds
served as the top of a sort of cave for him. On the whole, Lad rather
enjoyed the rug's descent. It made his narrow resting-place snugger and
warmer on this chilly early morning. Patiently, Lad lay there; waiting
for the car to start.

He did not have long to wait. In another minute or two, the Mistress
and the Master came out from breakfast; and got into the front seat.
Then the car was breasting the winding slope of the drive, in first
speed; the faint jar of the engine sending undulations over the
mahogany-and-white coat of the stowaway dog. And, in a minute more,
they were out on the smooth highway, headed for the distant Catskills.

Now, Lad had not the remotest notion he was a stowaway. On the few
times when it had not been convenient to take him on drives, the Master
had always bidden him stay at home. And when, at such times, the dog
chanced already to be its the car, he had been ordered back to earth.
There, was no way for Lad to know, this morning, that neither of the
car's other occupants had seen him as he lay curled up on the floor,
three-quarters hidden under the fallen rug. The luggage had been
arranged in the tonneau, before breakfast. And nobody had given a
second glance at it since then.

The sun was rising over a new-made world, alive with summer glory and
thrilling with bird-songs. The air, later in the day, would be warm.
But, at sunrise, it was sharp and bracing. The mystic wonder and the
hush of dawn were still brooding over the earth. The hard white road
stretched out, like a winding river, between banks of dew-gleaming
verdure. The mountain-tops were glowing with the touch of the sun. In
the deeper valleys floated a shimmering dusk.

The car sped swiftly along the empty highway; slowing down only as it
spun through half-awakened villages; or checked its pace to allow a
sleepy boy to drive a straggling bunch of cows across the road to
pasturage.

For an hour or more, Lad lay cuddled under the rug in contented
laziness. Then the recumbent posture tired him; and he sat up. As a
rule, one or the other of his deities was wont to turn around, at
intervals, and speak to him or pet him. Today, neither of them paid him
the slightest attention. Still, the ride was a joy. And the surrounding
country was new and interesting. So Lad had a good time, in spite of
human neglect. After another hour or so, he curled up again, among the
bags, and fell to drowsing.

A six-hour run, over good roads, brought the car to Kingston, at the
gateway to the Catskills. Here, at a hotel entrance, the machine came
to a standstill. The Master got out, and turned to help the Mistress to
alight. It was the place they had decided on for luncheon. Another
three hours, at most, would carry them to their destination.

A negro boy, loafing aimlessly at the street corner, had begun to
whistle industriously to himself as the car slowed down. And he had
wakened into active motion. Apparently, he remembered all at once an
important mission on the other side of the street. For he set off at a
swinging pace.

His course took him so near the back of the car that he had to turn
out, a step or so, to avoid collision with it. He accompanied this
turning-out maneuver by another which was less ostentatious, but more
purposeful. Timing his steps, so as to pass by the rear of the car just
as the Master was busy helping his wife to descend, the youth thrust an
arm over the side of the tonneau, with the speed of a striking snake.
His hand closed on the handle of a traveling bag, among the heap of
luggage. Never slackening his pace, the negro gave a fierce yank at his
plunder, to hoist it over the closed door.

In that tourist-ridden city, bag-stealing offered much profit. In the
rare chance of detection when he was at work, the boy had only to plead
over-zeal in trying to earn an honest dime by helping lift the luggage
to the sidewalk.

It was a pretty bit of theft; and it betokened long and careful
practice. Thus,--from the thief's standpoint,--it was almost a pity the
brilliant effort was wasted. For wasted it was.

This young negro prided himself on his powers of speed and of silence,
in plying his trade. And, today, though he proceeded to excel in the
first of these qualities, he disgraced himself most woefully as
regarded the second.

For he jerked his hand out of the tonneau far faster than he had thrust
it in. As he did so, he woke the echoes with the most blood-curdling
screech his leathern lungs could compass.

As his dusky fingers had closed on the bag, something viselike and
relentless had fastened upon those same expert fingers; breaking two of
them, and rending the flesh of the lower hand.

Lad, in rising to his feet, after his pleasant nap, at the slowing of
the car, had been aware of that predatory hand; as it groped for the
bag. Now, from puppyhood, Lad had been taught to regard everything in
the car as under his own careful guardianship. Hence, he lunged forward
and sank his terrible white teeth deep into the groping fingers.

By main force the youth tore free. With a second screech, he reeled
back from the unseen peril which had assailed him. But Lad would not
have it so.

There was a harsh-breathed growl, from down in the tonneau; and, on the
instant, a tawny giant shape came catapulting over the top of the shut
door and hurled itself upon the staggering negro.

The Master, turning at sound of the yell, was just in time to see the
attack. The collie,--supposedly ninety miles away, and peacefully
guarding the Place,--was hurtling through the air and crashing against
the chest of a gray-faced and pop-eyed young negro. To earth went the
two; in a cloud of dust; a second before the Master's sharp call
brought Lad reluctantly away from his prey, and just as a policeman and
a score of idlers came running up.

The thief did not wait to explain. No sooner did he see the Master
catch the infuriated dog by the ruff than he scrambled to his feet;
ducked under the policeman's arm and set off, around a corner, in
something better than record time. Somehow, the encounter had deprived
him of the nerve and the pluck to stand his ground and to explain that
he had merely been trying to help with the luggage. His only desire,
just then, was to put as many thousand miles as possible between
himself and the tawny demon that had assaulted him.

"Laddie!" gasped the Mistress, unbelieving, as the policeman and most
of the little crowd set off after the fugitive. "LADDIE! What in the
world--?"

"He--he must have been in the car, all the time," gabbled the Master,
brilliantly. "He must have jumped in, while we were at breakfast. See,
he's cleared a space for himself between two of the bags. He's been
there, all the time, and we never--"

"If he hadn't been there," suggested the Mistress, "we'd be looking now
for one or two pieces of luggage that had disappeared. When the Grays
went through here, one of their suitcases was--"

"But what in blazes are we going to do with him?" broke in the Master,
worriedly. "We can't take him all the way home. And I won't trust to
sending him by express. He might get backed onto a siding and be kept
there for days, without food or water. Besides, they won't let a dog go
by express unless he's in a crate. What are we to do?"

"Why," said the Mistress, stooping to stroke the silken head that
rested against her knee, "Why, Laddie seems to have settled that for
us, by coming along. He's surely paid his way. We'll have to take him
the rest of the trip. The Harmons will be glad to see him, I'm sure.
Everybody's always glad to see Laddie, wherever we go. Let's take him.
It's the only thing to do. We can explain to them how it happened."

And so, after more discussion, it was settled. Even as most things had
a way of being settled when the Mistress proposed them.

Three hours later, the car stopped before the entrance of a roomily
beautiful house in a roomily beautiful residence park, in the upper
Catskills.

The welcoming smiles on the faces of host and hostess suffered sudden
eclipse; as a huge mahogany-and-white collie stepped majestically from
the car at the heels of the two guests.

"This is Lad," introduced the Mistress. "I hope you don't mind our
bringing him. I can promise he won't be a bit of trouble to anybody. We
didn't mean to bring him. It just happened. This was the way:--"

While she was recounting the adventure to Mrs. Harmon, their host drew
the Master to one side.

"Say, old man," began Harmon, with visible discomfort, "please don't
misunderstand me or anything. But I'm a little bothered about just what
to do. This is the idea: There was a mad dog scare here in Daylight
Park, last month, when a Pom puppy snapped at some kids that were
teasing it. Then, a day or so later, a Persian cat had fits and chased
old Mrs. Cratchitt across a lawn and gave her a spell of palpitation of
the heart. And the next day an Angora goat that the Varian children had
as a pet got loose and chewed up several hundred dollars' worth of
lingerie off a line. Then the Clives' spaniel took to barking under
Rutherford Garretse's study window. And--"

"You needn't be afraid of Lad's doing any of those fool things,"
bragged the Master. "He behaves as well as any human. Better than most
of them. He--"

"That isn't the point," said his host, with growing uneasiness. "You
see, Daylight Park is run as a club. Home government and all that sort
of thing. Well, these livestock fracases raised such a row that the
club's Board of Governors has passed an ordinance, forbidding the
keeping of any pet animals in the whole park. Nothing bigger than a
canary bird can be harbored here. It's a hard-and-fast rule. It seemed
the only way to save our whole summer colony from disruption. You know
a livestock squabble can cause more ructions in a small community
than--"

"I see," mused the Master, staring glumly after Lad who was just
vanishing into the house in the wake of the Mistress and the unhappy
Mrs. Harmon. "I see. H'm!"

He pondered for an instant, while his host shifted from foot to foot
and looked apologetic. Then the Master spoke again.

"The only way out, that I see," he hazarded, "is for me to drive back
home with Lad; and leave him there and come on here, tomorrow. I can--"

"Nothing of the sort!" protested Harmon, "There's an easier way than
that. Wittsville is only a mile or so from the Park gates. They've got
a fine boarding kennel there. Several of the Park's dogs were exiled to
it, when our ordinance went into effect. Jump into the car, and we'll
take your collie there in ten minutes. He'll be well treated. And you
and your wife can go to see him, every day you're here. Come along.
I--I hate to seem inhospitable about this thing. But you see for
yourself how it is. We--"

"Certainly," assented the Master. "I'll go in and get him and explain
to my wife. Don't let it make you feel uncomfortable. We both
understand."

Which accounts for the fact that Lad, within the next half hour, was
preparing to spend his first night away from home and from the two
people who were his gods. He was not at all happy. It had been an
interesting day. But its conclusion did not please Laddie, in any
manner.

And, when things did not please Lad, he had a very determined fashion
of trying to avoid them;--unless perchance the Mistress or the Master
had decreed otherwise.

The Master had brought him to this obnoxious strange place. But he had
not bidden Lad stay there. And the collie merely waited his chance to
get out. At ten o'clock, one of the kennelmen made the night rounds. He
swung open the door of the little stall in which Lad had been locked
for the night. At least, he swung the door halfway open. Lad swung it
the rest of the way.

With a plunge, the collie charged out through the opening portal,
ducked between the kennelman's legs, reached the open gate of the
enclosure in two more springs; and vanished down the road into the
darkness.

As soon as he felt the highway under his feet, Lad's nose drooped
earthward; and he sniffed with all his might.  Instantly, he caught the
scent he was seeking;--a scent as  familiar to him as that of his own
piano cave; the scent of the Place's car-tires.

It had taken Harmon and the Master the best part of ten minutes to
drive through the park and to the boarding kennels. It took Lad less
than half that time to reach the veranda of the Harmon house. Circling
the house and finding all doors shut, he lay down on the mat; and
settled himself to sleep there in what comfort he might, until the
Mistress and the Master should come down in the morning and find him.

But the Harmons were late risers. And the sun had been up for some
hours before any of the household were astir.

If Lad had been the professionally Faithful Hound, of storybooks, he
would doubtless have waited on the mat until someone should come to let
him in. But, after lying there until broad daylight, he was moved to
explore this new section of the world. The more so, since house after
house within range of his short vision showed signs of life and
activity.

Several people passed and repassed along the private roadway in front
of the Harmons' door; and nearly all of these paused to peer at Lad, in
what seemed to the collie a most flattering show of interest.

At last, the dog got to his feet, stretched himself fore-and-aft, in
true collie fashion; and trotted down the paved walk to the road. There
for a moment, he stood hesitant. As he stood, he was surveying the
scene;--not only with his eyes, but with those far stronger sense
organs, his ears and his nostrils. His ears told him nothing of
interest. His nose told him much. Indeed, before he had fairly reached
the road, these nostrils had telegraphed to his brain an odor that not
only was highly interesting, but totally new to him. Lad's experience
with scents was far-reaching. But this smell lay totally outside all
his knowledge or memory.

It was a rank and queer smell;--not strong enough, out there in the
open, to register in a human-brain; but almost stingingly acute to the
highly sensitized dog. It was an alluring scent; the sort of odor that
roused all his curiosity and seemed to call for prompt investigation.

Nose to ground, Lad set off to trace the smell to its source. Strong as
it was, it grew stronger and fresher at every step. Even a mongrel
puppy could have followed it. Oblivious to all else, Lad broke into a
canter; nose still close to earth; pleasurably excited and keenly
inquisitive.

He ran along the private road for perhaps a hundred yards. Then, he
wheeled in at another paved walk and ran up a low flight of veranda
steps. The front door of a house stood invitingly open to the cool air
of the morning. In through the doorway went Lad; unheeding the gobbling
call of a maid-servant who was sweeping the far end of the veranda.

Lad did not know he was committing trespass. To him an open door had
always meant permission to enter. And the enticingly rank scent was
tenfold stronger indoors than out. Across a hallway he trotted, still
sniffing; and up a flight of stairs leading to the second story of the
house.

At the stairhead, a room door stood wide. And into this room led the
odor. Lad went in. He was in a large and sunlit room; but in the most
disorderly room he had ever set eyes on. The room needed airing, too.
For all its four windows were closed, except one which was open for
perhaps six inches from the top.

Lad circled the room, twice; from door to windows, and thence to center
table and around the walls; pausing at one window sill and again at the
threshold; picking his way daintily over heaps of litter on the floor.
Yes, the room was full of the scent. But, whence the scent emanated,
Lad could not, for the life of him, tell. The room gave him no clew.
And, after a few minutes of futile investigation, he turned to depart.

At the stairhead, he came upon the same servant he had seen sweeping
the veranda. She cried: "Shoo!" at him and brandished her broom. Lad,
in offended dignity, stalked past her and out of the house.

His quest having proven vain, he betook himself to the Harmons',
arriving there as the Mistress and the Master emerged upon the veranda
in company with their hosts. In wild delight, Lad scampered up to the
Mistress; his whole stately body wriggling in eager welcome, his tiny
white forepaws patting at her feet, his muzzle thrusting itself into
her cupped hand.

"Why, Lad!" she cried. "Laddie! We were so worried about you. They just
phoned from the kennels that you had gotten away. I might have known
you'd find your way to us. We--"

She got no further. Up the walk, from the road, came running an
apoplectically red and puffing man of late middle age;--a man whose
face bore traces of lather; and who was swathed in a purple bathrobe.
Flapping slippers ill-covered his sockless feet.

The Master recognized the fast-advancing newcomer. He recognized him
from many pictures in newspapers and magazines.

This was Rutherford Garretse, world-famed author and collector; the
literary lion and chief celebrity of the summer colony at Daylight
Park. But what eccentricity of genius could account for his costume and
for this bellicose method of bearing down upon a neighbor's home, was
more than the Master could guess.

Nor did the visitor's first words clear up the mystery. Halting at the
foot of the steps, Rutherford Garretse gesticulated in dumb anguish,
while he fought for breath and for coherent speech. Then, disregarding
Harmon's wondering greeting, the celebrity burst into choking staccato
speech.

"That dog!" he croaked. "That--that--DOG! The maid saw him go into the
house. Saw him go up to my study. She was afraid to follow, at first.
But in a few minutes she did. She saw him coming out of my study!
COME!!! I demand it. All of you. COME!"

Without another word, he wheeled and made off down the road, pausing
only to beckon imperiously. Marveling, the group on the veranda
followed. Deaf to their questions, he led the way. Lad fell into line
behind the perplexed Mistress.

Down the road to the next house, stalked Rutherford Garretse. At the
doorway, he repeated his dramatic gesture and commanded:

"COME!"

Up the broad stairs he stamped. Behind him trailed the dumfounded
procession; Laddie still pattering happily along with the Mistress. At
the open door of a large room at the stairhead, the author stood aside
and pointed in silent despair through the doorway.

"What's up?" queried Harmon, for perhaps the tenth time. "Is
anything--?"

His question ended in a grunt. And, like the others, he stared aghast
on the scene before him.

The room, very evidently, was a study. But much of its floor, just now,
was heaped, ankle high, with hundreds of pages of torn and crumpled
paper.

The desk-top and a Sheraton cabinet and table were bare of all
contents. On the floor reposed countless shattered articles of glass
and porcelain; jumbled together with blotters an pastepot and shears
and ink-stand and other utensils. Ink had been poured in grotesque
pattern on rugs and parquetry and window curtains.

In one corner lay a typewriter, its keys twisted and its carriage
broken. Books--some of them in rare bindings,--lay gutted and
ink-smeared, from one end of the place to the other.

Through the daze of general horror boomed the tremblingly majestic
voice of Rutherford Garretse.

"I wanted you to see!" he declaimed. "I ordered everything left as it
was. That mess of papers all over the floor is what remains of the
first draft of my book. The book I have been at work on for six months!
I--"

"And it was the dog, there!" sputtered the maid-servant; emotion riding
over discipline. "I c'n swear the room was neat and all dusted. Not a
blessed thing out of place; and all the paper where Mr. Garretse had
stacked 'em in his portfolio, yonder. I dusted this study and then the
dining room. And then I went out to sweep the veranda; like I always
do, before breakfast. And maybe ten minutes later I see this brute trot
out of Mr. Harmon's place, and along the road, and come, asnuffing up
the steps and into the house. And when I followed him upstairs and
scatted him out, I saw the room looking like it is, now; and I yells to
Mr. Garretse, and he's shaving, and--"

"That will do, Esther!" snapped the author. "And, now, sir--"

"But, Mr. Garretse," put in the Mistress, "Lad never did such a thing
as this, in all his life! He's been brought up in the house. Even as a
puppy, he was--"

"The evidence shows otherwise," interrupted Garretse, with a visible
struggle at self-control. "No human, unless he were a maniac, would
have done such a wantonly destructive thing. No other animal has been
here. The dog was seen entering and leaving this room. And my work of
six months is not only destroyed by him, but many of the very best
pieces in my glass-and-porcelain cabinet."

"But--"

"I consented to stay on at Daylight Park, only on the solemn assurance
of the Governors that no animal should be allowed again within the Park
precincts. I detest animals. Particularly dogs. And now I see my
dislike is not mere prejudice. May I ask what the owners and--and the
harborer--of the cur mean to do about this outrage? Notice, please,
that I am speaking with studied moderation, in asking this vital
question. I--"

"It is my fault,--or rather, it is a mistake,--that Lad is in the
Park," spoke up the Master. "Mr. Harmon is wholly innocent in the
matter. I can testify to that. If there is any fine or other penalty in
connection with my dog's being here, I'm ready to settle for it. But if
you expect me to believe that Laddie did all this weird damage to your
manuscript and your collection and your room,--why, that's absurd!
Utterly absurd! Lad, never in his life,--"

"The courts will think otherwise!" blazed Garretse, losing a fraction
of his hard-held selfmastery. "And the case shall go through every
court in the land, since you persist in this idiotic denial of a proven
fact. I warn you, I shall--Look there!" he broke off, furiously,
leveling a shakily vehement forefinger at Lad. "Watch him! He's
prowling around, even now, in search of more things to injure. He--"

The author finished his sentence by catching up a heavy metal
paperweight and drawing it back as if for a throw. His muscles flexed.
The Mistress moved, as by accident, between the raging man and the dog.

The Master, for the moment, lacked presence of mind to do even that
much for his canine chum's safety. He was too much taken up in glaring
unbelievingly at Lad.

The sedate collie, after following the bevy of excited humans upstairs,
had stood gravely, just inside the threshold; looking with keen
interest from one to the other of the gesticulating and noisy group.
Then, as a sharp whiff of that same baffling scent assailed his nose,
he began a new tour of the room.

The odor was fresher than before. And Lad's curiosity was roused to the
full. He sniffed to right and left, exploring the floor rubbish with
inquiring muzzle, and circling the despoiled writing desk.

It was then that Garretse called attention to him. And it was then that
Lad's nose suddenly pointed skyward. In another moment, he had bounded
eagerly toward one of the windows,--the window that was slightly open
from the top.

From that direction, the scent now came; and it was more potent than at
any earlier time in his quest.

Even as the astonished eyes of the group followed Lad window-ward,
those same eyes were attracted by a partial darkening of the open space
at the window's top.

Into the room, through the narrow aperture wiggled a hairy form, moving
with eel-like speed.

Thence, it leaped to the floor. For the fraction of a second, the
intruder crouched there; peering about, to determine into what company
his jump had landed him.

He was a gray monkey, small, infinitely aged and withered of aspect.
His paws and forearms were black with half-dry ink. Here and there, all
over his fuzzy gray body, ink-blobs were spattered. In one skinny paw
he still clutched the splintered fragment of a Satsuma vase.

By the time the gaping humans could get a single good look at the
monkey, Lad was at him. Here at last was the solution of that
mysterious scent, so new to the collie.

Lad galloped toward the wizened and malodorous gray bunch; more intent
on investigation than on attack. The monkey did not wait for him. With
an incredibly agile leap, he was on the spattered window curtains and
swarming up to the rod at the top. There he squatted, well out of
reach; grimacing horribly and chattering in simian wrath.

"It's--it's a devil!" stammered Rutherford Garretse; his nearsighted
eyes squinting as he sought to take in the motley details of the
creature's appearance. "I--"

"It's Mrs. McMurdle's pest of a monkey, sirs" blithered the maid.
"Asking your pardon. The one she made such a fuss about sending away,
last month, when all beastees was barred from the Park. It must 'a'
strayed back from where she sent it to, the crafty little nuisance!
It's--"

"Incidentally," said the Master, "it is the creature that wrecked your
room. See the ink on it. And that bit of porcelain it's brandishing at
us looks like a match for some of these smashed bits on the floor. It
got in here, I suppose, through that window, earlier,--and--"

"No," corrected the Mistress, wiser at deduction. "Through the doorway,
downstairs. From somewhere outside. Probably while the maid was dusting
the dining-room. It came in here and began destroying things; as
monkeys love to. And Laddie struck its trail and followed it up here.
It heard Lad coming and it got out through the window. Then, just now,
something outside scared it; and it climbed back in again. I wonder
if--"

As she talked, the Mistress had moved toward the nearest window.

"See?" she finished, in triumph, as she pointed out and down.

On the patch of back lawn, below, stood a very much flustered old lady,
her worried gaze upraised to the study. In one hand she carried a
leash, in the other a half-peeled banana.

"It's Mrs. McMurdle!" exclaimed Harmon. "The maid was right. She must
have disobeyed the ordinance and had the miserable monkey hidden in her
house all the time. It must have gotten out, this morning; and she
hunted around till she saw it perched on the top of the window cornice.
I suppose it dived back in here, at sight of her. She--"

"Come on, Laddie!" whispered the Mistress, under cover of a new
outbreak of multiple talk. "YOU'RE acquitted, anyhow. And the rest of
the scene is really no business of ours. The sooner we get you to the
boarding kennels again, the less chance there is of trouble. And Master
and I will come to see you there, every single day, till we go back
home."

A week later, the car turned in again at the gates of the Place. This
time, Lad rode in state atop the flat trunk on the rear seat. As the
car halted at the veranda, he sprang to earth without waiting for the
tonneau door to be opened.

For, dashing toward him from the direction of the lake, Lady hove in
sight. Behind her, and trotting more leisurely, came Wolf. At sight and
scent of her returned mate, Lady fairly squealed with delight. She
whirled up to Lad, frantically licking his face and spinning about him
with little staccato yelps of joy.

Lad was deliriously happy. Not only was he at home again; but Lady was
welcoming him with an effusion that she had not shown him for many a
sorrowful month. He could not understand it. Nor did he try to. He was
content to accept the miracle; and to rejoice in it with all his great
honest heart.

Knowing nothing of feminine psychology, he could not realize that a
week of Puppy Wolf's sole and undiluted companionship had bored Lady
horribly and had begun to get on her nerves;--nor that she had learned
to miss and yearn for the big, wise, ever-gentle mate whom she had so
long neglected.

It was enough for Lad to know that he was no longer a neglected
outsider, in the Place's canine family; but that his worshiped mate was
wild with joy to see him again.

"Look!" said the Master. "The old chap has forgiven her for every bit
of her rottenness to him. He's insanely happy, just because she chooses
to make much of him, once more."

"Yes," assented the Mistress, cryptically "Sometimes dogs are
pitifully--human!"



CHAPTER VI. The Tracker

The child's parents were going to Europe for three months, that winter.
The child himself was getting over a nervous ailment. The doctors had
advised he be kept out of school for a term; and be sent to the country.

His mother was afraid the constant travel from place to place, in
Europe, might be too much for him. So she asked leave of the Mistress
and the Master,--one of whom was her distant relative,--for the
convalescent to stay at the Place during his parents' absence.

That was how it all started.

The youngster was eleven years old; lank and gangling, and blest with a
fretful voice and with far less discipline and manners than a
three-month collie pup. His name was Cyril. Briefly, he was a pest,--an
unspeakable pest.

For the first day or two at the Place, the newness of his surroundings
kept Cyril more or less in bounds. Then, as homesickness and novelty
alike wore off, his adventurous soul expanded.

He was very much at home; far more so than were his hosts, and
infinitely more pleased than they with the situation in general. He had
an infinite genius for getting into trouble. Not in the delightfully
normal fashion of the average growing boy; but in furtively crafty ways
that did not belong to healthy childhood.

Day by day, Cyril impressed his odd personality more and more on
everything around him. The atmosphere of sweet peace which had brooded,
like a blessing, over the whole Place, was dispersed.

The cook,--a marvel of culinary skill and of long service, gave tearful
warning, and departed. This when she found the insides of all her
cooking utensils neatly soaped; and the sheaf of home-letters in her
work-box replaced by cigar-coupons.

One of the workmen threw over his job with noisy blasphemy; when his
room above the stables was invaded by stealth and a comic-paper picture
of a goat's head substituted for his dead mother's photograph in the
well-polished little bronze frame on his bureau.

And so on, all along the line.

The worst and most continuous sufferer from Cyril's loathed presence on
the Place was the massive collie, Lad.

The child learned, on the first day of his visit, that it would be
well-nigh as safe to play with a handful of dynamite as with Lad's
gold-and-white mate, Lady. Lady did not care for liberties from anyone.
And she took no pains to mask her snappish first-sight aversion to the
lanky Cyril. Her fiery little son, Wolf, was scarce less formidable
than she, when it came to being teased by an outsider. But gallant old
Lad was safe game.

He was safe game for Cyril, because Lad's mighty heart and soul were
miles above the possibility of resenting anything from so pitifully
weak and defenseless a creature as this child. He seemed to realize, at
a glance, that Cyril was an invalid and helpless and at a physical
disadvantage. And, as ever toward the feeble, his big nature went out
in friendly protection to this gangling wisp of impishness.

Which was all the good it did him.

In fact, it laid the huge collie open to an endless succession of
torment. For the dog's size and patience seemed to awaken every atom of
bullying cruelty in the small visitor's nature.

Cyril, from the hour of his arrival, found acute bliss in making Lad's
life a horror. His initial step was to respond effusively to the
collie's welcoming advances; so long as the Mistress and the Master
chanced to be in the room. As they passed out, the Mistress chanced to
look back.

She saw Cyril pull a bit of cake from his pocket and, with his left
hand, proffer it to Lad. The tawny dog stepped courteously forward to
accept the gift. As his teeth were about to close daintily on the cake,
Cyril whipped it back out of reach; and with his other hand rapped Lad
smartly across the nose.

Had any grown man ventured a humiliating and painful trick of that sort
on Lad, the collie would have been at the tormentor's throat, on the
instant. But it was not in the great dog's nature to attack a child.
Shrinking back, in amaze, his abnormally sensitive feelings jarred, the
collie retreated majestically to his beloved "cave" under the
music-room piano.

To the Mistress's remonstrance, Cyril denied most earnestly that he had
done the thing. Nor was his vehemently tearful denial shaken by her
assertion that she had seen it all.

Lad soon forgave the affront. And he forgave a dozen other and worse
mal-treatments which followed. But, at last, the dog took to shunning
the neighborhood of the pest. That availed him nothing; except to make
Cyril seek him out in whatsoever refuge the dog had chosen.

Lad, trotting hungrily to his dinner dish, would find his food
thick-strewn with cayenne pepper or else soaked in reeking gasoline.

Lad, seeking peace and solitude in his piano cave, would discover his
rug, there, cleverly scattered with carpet tacks, points upward.

Lad, starting up from a snooze at the Mistress's call, would be deftly
tripped as he started to bound down the veranda steps, and would risk
bruises and fractures by an ugly fall to the driveway below.

Wherever Lad went, whatever Lad did, there was a cruel trick awaiting
him. And, in time, the dog's dark eyes took on an expression of puzzled
unhappiness that went straight to the hearts of the two humans who
loved him.

All his life, Lad had been a privileged character on the Place. Never
had he known nor needed whip or chain. Never had he,--or any of the
Place's other dogs,--been wantonly teased by any human. He had known,
and had given, only love and square treatment and stanch friendliness.
He had ruled as benevolent monarch of the Place's Little People; had
given loyal service to his two deities, the Mistress and the Master;
and had stood courteously aloof from the rest of mankind. And he had
been very, very happy.

Now, in a breath, all this was changed. Ever at his heels, ever waiting
to find some new way to pester him, was a human too small and too weak
to attack;--a human who was forever setting the collie's high-strung
nerves on edge or else actively hurting him. Lad could not understand
it. And as the child gained in health and strength, Lad's lot grew
increasingly miserable.

The Mistress and the Master were keenly aware of conditions. And they
did their best,--a useless best,--to mitigate them for the dog. They
labored over Cyril, to make him leave Lad alone. They pointed out to
him the mean cowardice of his course of torture. They even threatened
to send him to nearer relatives until his parents' return. All in vain.
Faced with the most undeniable proofs, the child invariably would lie.
He denied that he had ever ill-used Lad in any way; and would weep, in
righteous indignation, at the charges. What was to be done?

"I thought it would brighten up the house so, to have a child in it
again!" sighed the Mistress as she and her husband discussed the
matter, uselessly, for the fiftieth time, after one of these scenes. "I
looked forward so much to his coming here! But he's--oh, he isn't like
any child I ever heard of before!"

"If I could devote five busy minutes a day to him," grunted the Master,
"with an axe-handle or perhaps a bale-stick--"

"You wouldn't do it!" denied his wife. "You wouldn't harm him; any more
than Lad does. That's the trouble. If Cyril belonged to us, we could
punish him. Not with a--a balestick, of course. But he needs a good
wholesome spanking, more than anyone else I can think of. That or some
other kind of punishment that would make an impression on him. But what
can we do? He isn't ours--"

"Thank God!" interpolated the Master, piously.

"And we can't punish other people's child," she finished. "I don't know
what we CAN do. I wouldn't mind half so much about the other sneaky
things he does; if it wasn't for the way he treats Laddie. I--"

"Suppose we send Lad to the boarding kennels, at Ridgewood, till the
brat is gone?" suggested the Master. "I hate to do it. And the good old
chap will be blue with homesickness there. But at least he'll get kind
treatment. When he comes over to me and looks up into my eyes in that
terribly appealing way, after Cyril has done some rotten thing to
him,--well, I feel like a cur, not to be able to justify his faith that
I can make things all right for him. Yes, I think I'll send him to the
boarding kennels. And, if it weren't for leaving you alone to face
things here, I'd be tempted to hire a stall at the kennels for myself,
till the pest is gone."

The next day, came a ray of light in the bothered gloom. And the
question of the boarding kennels was dropped. The Mistress received a
letter from Cyril's mother. The European trip had been cut short, for
business reasons; and the two travelers expected to land in New York on
the following Friday.

"Who dares say Friday is an unlucky day?" chortled the Master in glee,
as his wife reached this stage of the letter.

"And," the Mistress read on, "we will come out to the Place, on the
noon train; and take darling Cyril away with us. I wish we could stay
longer with you; but Henry must be in Chicago on Saturday night. So we
must catch a late afternoon train back to town, and take the night
train West. Now, I--"

"Most letters are a bore," interpolated the Master. "Or else they're a
bother. But this one is a pure rapture. Read it more slowly, won't,
you, dear? I want to wallow in every blessed word of hope it contains.
Go ahead. I'm sorry I interrupted. Read on. You'll never have such
another enthusiastic audience."

"And now," the Mistress continued her reading, "I am going to ask both
of you not to say a single word to precious Cyril about our coming home
so soon. We want to surprise him. Oh, to think what his lovely face
will be like, when he sees us walking in!"

"And to think what MY lovely face will be like, when I see him walking
out!" exulted the Master. "Laddie, come over here. We've got the
gorgeousest news ever! Come over and be glad!"

Lad, at the summons, came trotting out of his cave, and across the
room. Like every good dog who has been much talked to, he was as adept
as any dead-beat in reading the varying shades of the human voice. The
voices and faces alike of his two adored deities told him something
wonderful had happened. And, as ever, he rejoiced in their gladness.
Lifting his magnificent head, he broke into a salvo of trumpeting
barks; the oddly triumphant form of racket he reserved for great
moments.

"What's Laddie doing?" asked Cyril, from the threshold. "He sounds as
if he was going mad or something."

"He's happy," answered the Mistress.

"Why's he happy?" queried the child.

"Because his Master and I are happy," patiently returned the Mistress.

"Why are YOU happy?" insisted Cyril.

"Because today is Thursday," put in the Master. "And that means
tomorrow will be Friday."

"And on Friday," added the Mistress, "there's going to be a beautiful
surprise for you, Cyril. We can't tell you what it is, but--"

"Why can't you tell me?" urged the child. "Aw, go ahead and tell me! I
think you might."

The Master had gone over to the nearest window; and was staring out
into the gray-black dusk. Mid-winter gripped the dead world; and the
twilight air was deathly chill. The tall naked treetops stood gaunt and
wraithlike against a leaden sky.

To the north, the darkness was deepest. Evil little puffs of gale
stirred the powdery snow into myriads of tiny dancing white devils. It
had been a fearful winter, thus far; colder than for a score of years;
so cold that many a wild woodland creature, which usually kept far back
in the mountains, had ventured down nearer to civilization for forage
and warmth.

Deer tracks a-plenty had been seen, close up to the gates of the Place.
And, two days ago, in the forest, half a mile away, the Master had come
upon the half-human footprints of a young bear. Starvation stalked
abroad, yonder in the white hills. And need for provender had begun to
wax stronger among the folk of the wilderness than their inborn dread
of humans.

"There's a big snowstorm coming up," ruminated the Master, as he
scanned the grim weather-signs. "A blizzard, perhaps. I--I hope it
won't delay any incoming steamers. I hope at least one of them will
dock on schedule. It--"

He turned back from his musings, aware for the first time that a right
sprightly dialogue was going on. Cyril was demanding for the eighth
time:

"WHY won't you tell me? Aw, I think you might! What's going to happen
that's so nice, Friday?"

"Wait till Friday and see," laughed the Mistress.

"Shucks!" he snorted. "You might tell me, now. I don't want to wait and
get s'prised. I want to know, NOW. Tell me!"

Under her tolerant smile, the youngster's voice scaled to an impatient
whine. He was beginning to grow red.

"Let it go at that!" ordained the Master. "Don't spoil your own fun, by
trying to find out, beforehand. Be a good sportsman."

"Fun!" snarled Cyril. "What's the fun of secrets? I want to know--"

"It's snowing," observed the Mistress, as a handful of flakes began to
drift past the windows, tossed along on a puff of wind.

"I want to KNOW!" half-wept the child; angry at th

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