Here a rabbit had crossed the trail—not with leisurely bounds or mincing hops, but stomach to earth, in flight for very life. Here, close at the terrified bunny’s heels, had darted a red fox. Yonder, where the piling snow covered a swirl of tracks, the chase had ended.
The little ridge of snow-heaped furrow, to the right, held a basketful of cowering quail—who heard Lad’s slow step and did not reckon on his flawless gift of smell. On the hemlock tree just ahead a hawk had lately torn a blue jay asunder. A fluff of gray feathers still stuck to a bough, and the scent of blood had not been blown out of the air. Underneath, a field mouse was plowing its way into the frozen earth, its tiny paw-scrapes wholly audible to the ears of the dog above it.
Here, through the stark and drifted undergrowth, Rex and Wolf had recently swept along in pursuit of a half-grown rabbit. Even a human eye could not have missed their partly covered tracks; but Lad knew whose track was whose and which dog had been in the lead.
Yes, to humans, the forest would have seemed a deserted white waste. Lad knew it was thick-populated with the Little People of the woodland, and that all day and all night the seemingly empty and placid groves were a blend of battlefield, slaughterhouse and restaurant. Here, as much as in the cities or in the trenches, abode strenuous life, violent death, struggle, greed and terror.
A partridge rocketed upward through a clump of evergreen, while a weasel, jaws aquiver, glared after it, baffled. A shaggy owl crouched at a tree-limb hole and blinked sulkily about in search of prey and in hope of dusk. A crow, its black feet red with a slain snowbird’s blood, flapped clumsily overhead. A poet would have vowed that the still and white-shrouded wilderness was a shrine sacred to solitude and severe peace. Lad could have told him better. Nature (beneath the surface) is never solitary and never at peace.
When a dog is very old and very heavy and a little unwieldy, it is hard to walk through sixteen-inch snow, even if one moves slowly and sedately. Hence Lad was well pleased to come upon a narrow woodland track, made by a laborer who had passed and repassed through that same strip of forest during the last few hours. To follow in that trampled rut made walking much easier; it was a rut barely wide enough for one wayfarer.
More and more like an elderly squire patrolling his acres, Lad rambled along, and presently his ears and his nose told him that his two loving friends Rex and Wolf were coming toward him on their home-bound way. His plumy tail wagged expectantly. He was growing a bit lonely on this Sunday afternoon walk of his, and a little tired. It would be a pleasure to have company—especially Wolf’s.
Rex and Wolf had fared ill on their hunt. They had put up two rabbits. One had doubled and completely escaped them; and in the chase Rex had cut his foot nastily on a strip of unseen barbed wire. The sandlike snow had gotten into the jagged cut in a most irritating way.
The second rabbit had dived under a log. Rex had thrust his head fiercely through a snowbank in quest of the vanished prey; and a long briar thorn, hidden there, had plunged its needle point deep into the inside of his left nostril. The inner nostril is a hundredfold the most agonizingly sensitive part of a dog’s body, and the pain wrung a yell of rage and hurt from the big dog.
With a nostril and a foot both hurt, there was no more fun in hunting, and—angry, cross, savagely in pain—Rex loped homeward, Wolf pattering along behind him. Like Lad, they came upon the laborer’s trampled path and took advantage of the easier going.
Thus it was, at a turn in the track, that they came face to face with Lad. Wolf had already smelled him, and his brush began to quiver in welcome. Rex, his nose in anguish, could smell nothing; not until that turn did he know of Lad’s presence. He halted, sulky, and ill-tempered. The queer restlessness, the pre-springtime savagery that had obsessed him of late had been brought to a head by his hurts. He was not himself. His mind was sick.
There was not room for two large dogs to pass each other in that narrow trail. One or the other must flounder out into the deep snow to the side. Ordinarily, there would be no question about any other dog on The Place turning out for Lad. It would have been a matter of course, and so, today, Lad expected it to be. Onward he moved, at that same dignified walk, until he was not a yard away from Rex.
The latter, his brain fevered and his hurts torturing him, suddenly flamed into rebellion. Even as a younger buck sooner or later assails for mastery the leader of the herd, so the brain-sick Rex went back, all at once, to primal instincts, a maniac rage mastered him—the rage of the angry underling, the primitive lust for mastery.
With not so much as a growl or warning, he launched himself upon Lad. Straight at the tired old dog’s throat he flew. Lad, all unprepared for such unheard-of mutiny, was caught clean off his guard. He had not even time enough to lower his head to protect his throat or to rear and meet his erstwhile subject’s attack halfway. At one moment he had been plodding gravely toward his two supposedly loyal friends; the next, Rex’s ninety pounds of whalebone muscle had smitten him violently to earth, and Rex’s fearsome jaws —capable of cracking a beef bone as a man cracks a filbert—had found a vise-grip in the soft fur of his throat.
Down amid a flurry of high-tossed snow crashed Lad, his snarling enemy upon him, pinning him to the ground, the huge jaws tearing and rending at his ruff—the silken ruff that the Mistress daily combed with such loving care to keep it fluffy and beautiful.
It was a grip and a leverage that would have made the average opponent helpless. With a short-haired dog it would have meant the end, but the providence that gave collies a mattress of fur—to stave off the cold, in their herding work amid the snowy moors—has made that fur thickest about the lower neck.
Rex had struck in crazy rage and had not gauged his mark as truly as though he had been cooler. He had missed the jugular and found himself grinding at an enormous mouthful of matted hair—and at very little else; and Lad belonged to the breed that is never to be taken wholly by surprise and that acts by the swiftest instinct or reason known to dogdom. Even as he fell, he instinctively threw his body sideways to avoid the full jar of Rex’s impact—and gathered his feet under him.
With a heave that wrenched his every unaccustomed muscle, Lad shook off the living weight and scrambled upright. To prevent this, Rex threw his entire body forward to reinforce his throat-grip. As a result, a double handful of ruff-hair and a patch of skin came away in his jaws. And Lad was free.
He was free—to turn tail and run for his life from the unequal combat—and that his hero heart would not let him do. He was free, also, to stand his ground and fight there in the snowbound forest until he should be slain by his younger and larger and stronger foe, and this folly his almost human intelligence would not permit.
There was one chance and only one—one compromise alone between sanity and honor. And this chance Lad took.
He would not run. He could not save his life by fighting where he stood. His only hope was to keep his face to his enemy, battling as best he could, and all the time keep backing toward home. If he could last until he came within sight or sound of the folk at the house, he knew he would be saved. Home was a full half mile away and the snow was almost chest-deep. Yet, on the instant, he laid out his plan of campaign and put it into action.
Rex cleared his mouth of the impeding hair and flew at Lad once more—before the old dog had fairly gotten to his feet, but not before the line of defense had been thought out. Lad half wheeled, dodging the snapping jaws by an inch and taking the impact of the charge on his left shoulder, at the same time burying his teeth in the right side of Rex’s face.
At the same time Lad gave ground, moving backward three or four yards, helped along by the impetus of his opponent. Home was a half mile behind him, in an oblique line, and he could not turn to gauge his direction. Yet he moved in precisely the correct angle.
(Indeed, a passer-by who witnessed the fight, and the Master, who went carefully over the ground afterward, proved that at no point in the battle did Lad swerve or mistake his exact direction.
Yet not once could he have been able to look around to judge it, and his footprints showed that not once had he turned his back on the foe.)
The hold Lad secured on Rex’s cheek was good, but it was not good enough. At thirteen, a dog’s “biting teeth” are worn short and dull, and his yellowed fangs are blunted; nor is the jaw by any means as powerful as once it was. Rex writhed and pitched in the fierce grip, and presently tore free from it and to the attack again seeking, now to lunge over the top of Lad’s lowered head to the vital spot at the nape of the neck, where sharp teeth may pierce through to the spinal cord.
Thrice Rex lunged, and thrice Lad reared on his hind legs, meeting the shock with his deep, shaggy breast, snapping and slashing at his enemy and every time receding a few steps between charges. They had left the path now, and were plowing a course through deep snow. The snow was scant barrier to Rex’s full strength, but it terribly impeded the steadily backing Lad. Lad’s extra flesh, too, was a bad handicap; his wind was not at all what it should have been, and the unwonted exertion began to tell sharply on him.
Under the lead-hued skies and the drive of the snow the fight swirled and eddied. The great dogs reared, clashed, tore, battered against tree trunks, lost footing and rolled, staggered up again and renewed the onslaught. Ever Lad maneuvered his way backward, waging a desperate “rearguard action.” In the battle’s wage was an irregular but mathematically straight line of trampled and blood-spattered snow.
Oh, but it was slow going, this ever-fighting retreat of Lad’s, through the deep drifts, with his mightier foe pressing him and rending at his throat and shoulders at every backward step! The old dog’s wind was gone; his once-superb strength was going, but he fought on with blazing fury—the fury of a dying king who will not be deposed.
In sheer skill and brainwork and generalship, Lad was wholly Rex’s superior, but these served him ill in a death grapple. With dogs, as with human pugilists, mere science and strategy avail little against superior size and strength and youth. Again and again Lad found or made an opening. Again and again his weakening jaws secured the right grip only to be shaken off with more and more ease by the younger combatant.
Again and again Lad “slashed” as do his wolf cousins and as does almost no civilized dog but the collie. But the slashes had lost their one-time lightning speed and prowess. And the blunt “rending fangs” scored only superficial furrows in Rex’s fawn-colored hide.
There was meager hope of reaching home alive. Lad must have known that. His strength was gone. It was his heart and his glorious ancestry now that were doing his fighting—not his fat and age-depleted body. From Lad’s mental vocabulary the word quit had ever been absent. Wherefore—dizzy, gasping, feebler every minute—he battled fearlessly on in the dying day; never losing his sense of direction, never turning tail, never dreaming of surrender, taking dire wounds, inflicting light ones.
There are many forms of dogfight. Two strange dogs, meeting, will fly at each other because their wild forebears used to do so. Jealous dogs will battle even more fiercely. But the deadliest of all canine conflicts is the “murder-fight.” This is a struggle wherein one or both contestants have decided to give no quarter, where the victor will fight on until his antagonist is dead and will then tear his body to pieces. It is a recognized form of canine mania.
And it was a murder-fight that Rex was waging, for he had gone quite insane. (This is wholly different, by the way, from “going mad.”)
Down went Lad, for perhaps the tenth time, and once more—though now with an effort that was all but too much for him—he writhed to his feet, gaining three yards of ground by the move. Rex was upon him with one leap, the frothing and bloody jaws striking for his mangled throat. Lad reared to block the attack. Then suddenly, overbalanced, he crashed backward into the snowdrift.
Rex had not reached him, but young Wolf had.
Wolf had watched the battle with a growing excitement that at last had broken all bounds. The instinct, which makes a fluff-headed college boy mix into a scrimmage that is no concern of his, had suddenly possessed Lad’s dearly loved son.
Now, if this were a fiction yarn, it would be edifying to tell how Wolf sprang to the aid of his grand old sire and how he thereby saved Lad’s life. But the shameful truth is that Wolf did nothing of the sort. Rex was his model, the bully he had so long and so enthusiastically imitated. And now Rex was fighting a most entertaining bout, fighting it with a maniac fury that infected his young disciple and made him yearn to share in the glory.
Wherefore, as Lad reared to meet Rex’s lunge, Wolf hurled himself like a furry whirlwind upon the old dog’s flanks, burying his white teeth in the muscles of the lower leg.
The flank attack bowled Lad completely over. There was no chance now for such a fall as would enable him to spring up again unscathed. He was thrown heavily upon his back, and both his murderers plunged at his unguarded throat and lower body.
But a collie thrown is not a collie beaten, as perhaps I have said once before. For thirty seconds or more the three thrashed about in the snow in a growling, snarling, right unloving embrace. Then, by some miracle, Lad was on his feet again.
His throat had a new and deep wound, perilously close to the jugular. His stomach and left side were slashed as with razor blades. But he was up. And even in that moment of dire stress—with both dogs flinging themselves upon him afresh—he gained another yard or two in his line of retreat.
He might have gained still more ground. For his assailants, leaping at the same instant, collided and impeded each other’s charge. But, for the first time the wise old brain clouded, and the hero heart went sick, as Lad saw his own loved and spoiled son ranged against him in the murder fray. He could not understand. Loyalty was as much a part of himself as were his sorrowful brown eyes or his tiny white forepaws. And Wolf’s amazing treachery seemed to numb the old warrior, body and mind.
But the second of dumfounded wonder passed quickly—too quickly for either of the other dogs to take advantage of it. In its place surged a righteous wrath that, for the instant, brought back youth and strength to the aged fighter.
With a yell that echoed far through the forest’s sinister silence, Lad whizzed forward at the advancing Rex. Wolf, who was nearer, struck for his father’s throat—missed and rolled in the snow from the force of his own momentum. Lad did not heed him. Straight for Rex he leaped. Rex, bounding at him, was already in mid-air. The two met, and under the berserk onset Rex fell back into the snow.
Lad was upon him at once. The worn-down teeth found their goal above the jugular. Deep and raggedly they drove, impelled by the brief flash of power that upbore their owner.
Almost did that grip end the fight and leave Rex gasping out his life in the drift. But the access of false strength faded. Rex, roaring like a hurt tiger, twisted and tore himself free. Lad, realizing his own bolt was shot, gave ground, backing away from two assailants instead of one.
It was easier now to retreat. For Wolf, unskilled in practical warfare, at first hindered Rex almost as much as he helped him, again and again getting in the bigger dog’s way and marring a rush. Had Wolf understood “teamwork,” Lad must have been pulled down and slaughtered in less than a minute.
But soon Wolf grasped the fact that he could do worse damage by keeping out of his ally’s way and attacking from a different quarter, and thereafter he fought to more deadly purpose. His favorite ruse was to dive for Lad’s forelegs and attempt to break one of them. That is a collie maneuver inherited direct from Wolf’s namesake ancestors.
Several times his jaws reached the slender white forelegs, cutting and slashing them and throwing Lad off his balance. Once he found a hold on the left haunch and held it until his victim shook loose by rolling.
Lad defended himself from this new foe as well as he might, by dodging or by brushing him to one side, but never once did he attack Wolf, or so much as snap at him. (Rex, after the encounter, was plentifully scarred. Wolf had not so much as a scratch.)
&nb
sp; Backward, with ever-increasing difficulty, the old dog fought his way, often borne down to earth and always staggering up more feebly than before. But ever he was warring with the same fierce courage, despite an ache and bewilderment in his honest heart at his son’s treason.
The forest lay behind the fighters. The deserted highroad was passed. Under Lad’s clawing and reeling feet was the dear ground of The Place—The Place where for thirteen happy years he had reigned as king, where he had benevolently ruled his kind and had given worshipful service to his gods.
But the house was still nearly a furlong off, and Lad was well-nigh dead. His body was one mass of wounds. His strength was turned to water. His breath was gone. His bloodshot eyes were dim. His brain was dizzy and refused its office. Loss of blood had weakened him full as much as had the tremendous exertion of the battle.
Yet—uselessly now—he continued to fight. It was a grotesquely futile resistance. The other dogs were all over him —tearing, slashing, gripping, at will—unhindered by his puny effort to fend them off. The slaughter-time had come. Drunk with blood and fury, the assailants plunged at him for the last time.
Down went Lad, helplessly beneath the murderous avalanche that overwhelmed him. And this time his body flatly refused to obey the grim command of his will. The fight was over—the good, good fight of a white-souled paladin against hopeless odds.
The living-room fire crackled cheerily. The snow hissed and slithered against the glass. A sheet of frost on every pane shut out the stormy twilight world. The screech of the wind was music to the comfortable shut-ins.
The Mistress drowsed over her book by the fire. Bruce snored snugly in front of the blaze. The Master had awakened from his nap and was in the adjoining study, sorting fishing tackle and scouring a rusted hunting knife.
Then came a second’s lull in the gale, and all at once Bruce was wide awake. Growling, he ran to the front door and scratched imperatively at the panel. This is not the way a well-bred dog makes known his desire to leave the house. And Bruce was decidedly a well-bred dog.
Lad: A Dog Page 24
