CHAPTER IV. Hero-Stuff
Life was monstrous pleasant, for Lad, at the Place. And never, exceptin early puppyhood, was he lonely. Never until the Master was sofoolish as to decide in his own shallow human mind that the big colliewould 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, untilone has known and relied on the companionship of one's kind, there canbe no loneliness.
The Master made another blunder--this one on his own account and on theMistress's,--when he bought a second collie, to share Lad's realm offorest and lawn and lake. For, it is always a mistake to own two dogsat a time. A single dog is one's chum and guard and worshiper. If he berightly treated and talked to and taught, he becomes all-but human.Because he is forced to rely solely on humans, for everything. And hismind 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 everyway, as are two or more dogs. Especially if the one dog be such acollie as Sunnybank Lad. This the Master was due to discover.
On a sloppy and drippy and muggy afternoon, late in October,--one ofthose days nobody wants,--the Master came home from town; his fallovercoat showing a decided list to starboard in the shape of anegregiously 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 theMistress or the Master after an absence of any length, cavortedrapturously up to his deity. But, midway in his welcoming advance, hechecked himself; sniffing the sodden October air, and seeking to locatea new and highly interesting scent which had just assailed hissensitive nostrils.
The Master put an end to the mystery, forthwith, by reaching deep intohis overcoat's swollen pocket and fishing out a grayish golden ball ofsquirming fluff.
This handful of liveliness he set gingerly on the veranda floor; whereit revealed itself as an eight-weeks old collie pup.
"Her name is 'Lady,'" expounded the Master, as he and the Mistressgazed interestedly down upon the sprawling and wiggling puppy. "Herpedigree reads like a page in Burke's Peerage. She--"
He paused. For Lad had moved forward to where the infant collie wastrying valiantly to walk on the slippery boards. The big dog regardedthe puppy; his head on one side, his tulip ears cocked; his deep-seteyes friendily curious. This was Lad's first experience with one of theyoung of his species. And he was a bit puzzled; albeit vastlyinterested.
Experimentally, he laid one of his tiny white forepaws lightly on themite's fuzzy shoulder. Instantly, the puppy growled a falsetto warningto him to keep his distance. Lad's plumed tail began to wag at thissign of spirit in the pigmy. And, with his curved pink ribbon oftongue, he essayed to lick the shivering Lady. A second growl rewardedthis attention. And Lady sought to avoid further contact with theshaggy giant, by scrambling at top speed to the edge of the veranda.
She miscalculated the distance or else her nearsighted baby eyes failedto take account of the four-foot drop to the gravel drive below. Toolate, she tried to check her awkward rush. And, for a moment, her fatlittle body swayed perilously on the brink.
The Mistress and the Master were too far away to catch her in time toprevent a fall which might well have entailed a broken rib or awrenched shoulder. But Lad was nearer. Also, he moved faster.
With the speed of lightning, he made a dive for the tumbling Lady. Astenderly as if he were picking up a ball of needles, he caught her bythe scruff of the neck, lifting her in the air and depositing her atthe Mistress's feet.
The puppy repaid this life-saving exploit by growling still morewrathfully 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,--apraise which ordinarily threw him into transports of embarrasseddelight,--he stood over the rescued pup; every inch of his magnificentbody 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 thePlace. Always, on the advent of doubtful strangers, he interposed hisown furry bulk between her and possible kidnaping. He stood beside heras she lapped her bread-and-milk or as she chewed laboriously at herfragment of dog-biscuit.
At such times, he proved himself the mortal foe of Peter Grimm, theMistress's temperamental gray kitten, with whom he was ordinarily onvery comfortable terms. Peter Grimm was the one creature on the Placewhom Lady feared. On the day after her arrival, she essayed to worrythe haughty catkin. And, a second later, the puppy was nursing a braceof deep red scratches at the tip of her inquiring black nostrils.
Thereafter, she gave Peter Grimm a wide berth. And the cat was wont totake advantage of this dread by making forays on Lady's supper dish.But, ever, Lad would swoop down upon the marauder, as Lady coweredwhimperingly back on her haunches; and would harry the indignant cat upthe nearest tree; herding her there until Lady had licked the dishclean.
Lad went further, in his fealty to the puppy. Sacrificing his own regaldignity, he would romp with her, at times when it would have been farmore comfortable to drowse. He bore, without murmur, her growlingassaults on his food; amusedly standing aside while she annexed hissupper's choicest bits.
He endured, too, her occasional flurries of hot temper; and made noprotest when Lady chose to wreak some grievance against life by flyingat him with bristling ruff and jaws asnarl. Her keen little milk teethhurt like the mischief, when they dug into his ears or his paws, in oneof these rage-gusts. But he did not resent the pain or the indignity byso much as drawing back out of harm's way. And, afterward, when quickrepentance replaced anger and she strove to make friends with himagain, Lad was inordinately happy.
To both the Mistress and the Master, from the very outset, it was plainthat Lady was not in any way such a dog as their beloved Lad. She wasas temperamental as Peter Grimm himself. She had hair-trigger nerves, aswirlingly uncertain temper that was scarce atoned for by her charm andlovableness; and she lacked Lad's stanchness and elusive semi-humanquality. The two were as different in nature as it is possible for acouple 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 ofcredentials, by itself.
Autumn froze into winter. The trees turned into naked black ghosts; or,rather, into many-stringed harps whereon the northwest galesalternately shrieked and roared. The fire-blue lake was a sheet ofleaden ice, twenty inches thick. The fields showed sere and graylylifeless in the patches between sodden snow-swathes. Nature had flownsouth, with the birds; leaving the northern world a lifeless and emptyhusk, as deserted as last summer's robin-nests.
Lady, in these drear months of a dead world, changed as rapidly as hadthe smiling Place. From a shapeless gray-gold fuzzy baby, she grew lankand leggy. The indeterminate fuzz was buried under a shimmeringgold-and-white coat of much beauty. The muskrat face lengthened andgrew delicately graceful, with its long muzzle and exquisite profile.
Lady was emerging from clownish puppyhood into the charm of youth. Bythe time the first anemones carried God's message of spring through theforests' lingering snow-pall, she had lost her adolescent gawkiness andwas a slenderly beautiful young collie; small and light of bone, as sheremained to the day of her death, but with a slimness which carriedwith it a hint of lithe power and speed and endurance.
It was in the early spring that the Master promoted Lady from herwinter sleeping-quarters in the tool-house; and began to let her spendmore 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. AndLad was overjoyed at her admission to the domain where until now he hadruled alone. Personally, and with the gravity of an old-world host, heconducted her from room to room. He even offered her a snoozing-placein his cherished
"cave," under the piano, in the music room the spot ofall others dearest to him.
But it was dim and cheerless, under the piano; or so Lady seemed tothink. And she would not go there for an instant. She preferred thedisreputable grizzly-bear rug in front of the living room hearth. And,temporarily deserting his loved cave, Lad used to lie on this rug ather side; well content when she edged him off its downy center and ontothe bumpy edges.
All winter, Lady's sleeping quarters had been the tool-house in theback garden, behind the stables. Here, on a sweet-smelling (andflea-averting) bed of cedar shavings, she had been comfortable andwholly satisfied. But, at once, on her promotion, she appeared to lookupon the once-homelike tool-house as a newly rich daylaborer mightregard the tumbledown shack where he had spent the days of his poverty.
She avoided the tool-house; and even made wide detours to avoid passingclose to it. There is no more thoroughgoing snob, in certain ways, thana high-bred dog. And, to Lady, the tool-house evidently represented ahumiliating phase of her outlived past.
Yet, she was foredoomed to go back to the loathed abode. And her returnbefell in this way:
In the Master's study was something which Lady considered the mostenthrallingly wonderful object on earth. This was a stuffed Americaneagle; mounted, rampant and with outflung wings, on a papier-machestump.
Why the eagle should have fascinated Lady more than did theleopard-or-bear rugs or other chase-trophies, in the various downstairsrooms, only Lady herself could have told. But she could not keep hereyes off of it. Tiptoeing to the study door, she used to stand for halfan 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 thesacred trophy; and had shouldered her gently but with much firmness outof the room; disregarding her little swirl of temper at theinterference.
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 awayfrom the alluring bird. Snarling slightly at Lad, as she passed him inthe doorway, she stalked out of the room and went out on the veranda tosulk.
"I'm glad I happened to be here when she went for the eagle," said theMaster, at lunch that day. "If I hadn't, she might have tackled itsometime, when nobody was around. And a good lively collie pup couldput 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 hisexperiences in teaching Lad the simple Law of the Place. Lad was one ofthe rare dogs to whom a single command or prohibition was enough to fixa lesson in his uncannily wise brain for life. Lady was not. As theMaster soon had occasion to learn.
Late one afternoon, a week afterward, the Mistress had set forth on around of neighborhood calls. She had gone in the car; and had taken Ladalong. 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 lowerhall.
A few minutes before the Mistress was due to return for dinner, a whiffof 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 theback of a rural householder's brain. A vagrant breath of smoke, in thenight, is more potent to banish sleep and to start such a man toinvestigating his house and grounds than would be any and every otheralarm known to mortals.
Even now, in broad daylight, the faint reek was enough to bring theMaster'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 andthe roof and the windows of the house showing no sign of smoke, heexplored farther; and presently located the odor's origin in a smallbrush-fire at some distance behind the stables. Two of the men wereraking pruned vine-suckers and leaves onto the blaze. The wind set awayfrom the house and stables. There was nothing to worry over. Ashamed ofhis own fussiness, the Master went back to his work.
As he passed the open study window, on his way indoors, a motion insidemade 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 merrilyoutstretched jaws from closing on the bird. As it was, the impactknocked the eagle and the papier-mache stump to the floor; with muchclatter and dust.
The Master vaulted in through the window; arriving on the study flooralmost as soon as did the overthrown bird. Lady was slinking out intothe hall; crestfallen and scared. The Master collared her and broughther back to the scene of her mischief.
The collie had disobeyed him. Flagrantly she had sinned in assailingthe bird; after his injunction of "Let it alone!" There could be nodoubt, from her wriggling aspect of guilt, that she knew she was doingwrong. Worse, she had taken sneaky advantage of his absence in order tospring at the eagle. And disgust warred with the Master's normalindignation.
Speaking as quietly as he could bring himself to speak, he told Ladywhat she had done and what a rotten thing it had been. As he talked tothe utterly crestfallen pup, he was ransacking a drawer of his desk insearch of a dogwhip he had put there long ago and had never hadoccasion to use.
Presently, he found it. Pointing to the overthrown trophy, he broughtthe lash down across the shrinking collie's loins. He did not strikehard. But he struck half a dozen times; and with glum knowledge that itwas the only course to take.
Never before in her eight foolish months of life, had Lady known themeaning of a blow. While the whip-slashes were too light to do morethan sting her well-mattressed back, yet the humiliation of them seareddeep into her sensitive nature. No sound did she utter. But she coweredflat to the floor; and trembled as if in a hard chill.
The whipping was over, in a few seconds. Again the Master explained toher what it had been inflicted for. Then, calling her to follow, he ledthe way out of doors and toward the stables. Stomach to earth, theshamed and miserable Lady writhed along, close at his heels.
The Master passed the stables and walked toward the brush fire, wherethe two men were still at work. But he did not go within a hundred feetof the fire. Turning, after he had left the stables behind him, he madefor 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-housedoor, the Master opened it and whistled to the unhappy young collie.Lady was nowhere in sight. At a second summons, she appeared fromaround the corner of the stables; moving close to the ground, and withmany wriggles of protest. Twice, she stopped; and looked appealingly atthe man.
The Master hardened his soul against the prettily pathetic appeal inher eyes and actions; and called her to him again. His own momentaryanger against the luckless youngster was gone,--the more so since theeagle had not been damaged by its fall,--but he knew it was needful toimpress strongly on Lady the fact of her punishment. This for her ownsake as much as for his; since a housedog is worthless until it learnsthat each and every indoor object must be respected and held sacredfrom mutilation.
Wherefore, he was minded to spare Lady from any future punishment bymaking this present lesson sink deep into her brain. Disregarding hermanifest aversion for the tool-house, he motioned her into it and shutthe door behind her.
"You'll stay there, till morning," he told her, as he closed the windowand glanced in at the forlorn little wisp of fur and misery. "You'll becomfortable. And the open spaces under the roof will give you all theair you want. I don't dare leave this window open, for fear you mightbe able to jump out. You've had your supper. And there's a pan of freshwater 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 nota mutt."
As he was on the way back to his study, in the sunset, the car camedown the drive, bearing the Mistress. Lad was seated in solemn joy onthe front seat, at her side. The big collie loved motoring. And, as arule, he was relegated to the back seat. But when the Mistress went outalone, his was the tremendously-enjoyed privilege of sitting in front,beside her.
"I had to lick Lady," reported the Master, shamefacedly, as he helpedhis wife from the car. "She went for the eagle in my study. Youremember how I scolded her for that, last week, don't you? Well, that'sall the good it did. And I had to whip her. I hated to. I'm glad youweren't here to look unhappy about it. Then I shut her up for the nightin the tool-house. She--"
He broke off, to look at Lad.
As the collie had jumped down from the car and had started toward thehouse, he had struck Lady's trail; and he had followed it. It had ledhim to the tool-house. Finding Lady was locked inside and unhappy, hehad come galloping back to the Master.
Standing in front of the man, and whining softly, he was scanning thefaces of his two deities with troubled eagerness. Evidently, heconsidered that Lady had been locked in by mistake; and he was pleadingfor her release. As these humans did not seem to catch the idea hiseyes and expression conveyed, he trotted a few steps toward thetool-house and then paused to look invitingly back at them.
Twice he did this. Then, coming up to the Master, he caught thelatter's coat-hem lightly between his teeth and tugged on it as hebacked toward the tool-house.
"No, old friend," said the Master, petting the silken head soappealingly upraised to him. "I know what you're getting at. But Ican't let her out. Tomorrow morning. Not till then. Come on up todinner."
Unwillingly and with wistful backward looks, Lad followed the Mistressand the Master to the house and into the dining room and to his wontedplace on the floor at the Master's left side. But, more than onceduring the meal, the man caught the collie's eyes fixed on him inworried supplication; and was hard put to it not to grant the pleawhich fairly clamored in his chum's mute gaze.
After dinner, when the Mistress and the Master set off on their usualevening walk, Lad was not on hand to accompany them. As a rule, he wasall around them and in front and behind, in a series of gay rushes, asthey started on these walks. But not until the Master called him,tonight, did he appear. And then he came up dolorously from thetool-house.
Lad did not understand, at all, what was wrong. He knew only that Ladyhad been shut up in a place she detested and that she was horriblyunhappy and that the Master would not let her out. It perplexed him;and it made him increasingly wretched. Not only did he miss hisplayfully capricious young mate, but her unhappiness made him heartsick.
Vainly, he tried to plead with the Master for her release, as the walkbegan; and again at its end.
There were such a lot of things in the world that even the cleverestcollie could not make head or tail of! And most of these things weresad.
That night, when the house was shut, Lad crept as usual into his caveunder the piano. And he lay down with a sigh, his great head betweenhis two absurdly small white forepaws. As a rule, before going to sleepfor the night, Lad used to spend much time in licking those same snowyforepaws 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 thewhimpering 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 ofwakefulness. And when he wakens, he does not waken as do wehumans;--yawningly, dazedly, drunk with slumber. At one moment he issound 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 hourbefore dawn, he woke with sharp suddenness; and at once he was on hisfeet; tense, on guard. He did not know what had roused him. Yet, nowthat he was awake, two of his senses recorded something which banishedfrom him all thought of further sleep.
To his ears came a far-off muffled wail;--a wail which held more thanunhappiness;--a wail which vibrated with real terror. And he knew thevoice for Lady's.
To his sensitive nostrils, through the intervening distance and theobstructing walls and windows, drifted a faint reek of smoke.
Now, the smoke-smell, by itself, meant nothing whatever to Lad. Allevening a trace of it had hung in the air; from the brush fire. And, inany case, this whiff was too slight to have emanated from the house orfrom any spot near the house. Yet, taken together with Lady's cry offear--
Lad crossed to the front door, and scratched imperiously at it. Thelocked door did not yield to his push. Too sensible to keep on at aportal he could not open, he ran upstairs, to the closed door of theMaster's room. There, again he scratched; this time harder and moreloudly. Twice and thrice he scratched; whining under his breath.
At last the deep-slumbering Master heard him. Rousing himself, andstill three-quarters asleep, he heard not only the scratching and thewhimper 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, downthere, she'll--she'll remember the lesson--all the better. Godownstairs and--be quiet!"
He fell sound asleep again. Obedient to the slumbrous mandate, Ladturned and pattered mournfully away. But, he was not content to returnto his own nap, with that terror-cry of Lady's echoing in his ears. Andhe 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 ofexit. Now, with eagerly scratching paw, he pushed at the nearest ofthem.
The house was but carelessly locked at night. For Lad's presencedownstairs was a better burglar-preventive than the best bolts everforged. Tired and drowsy, the Master, this night, had neglected to barthe French windows.
The window gave, at Lad's vehement scratch; and swung outward on itshinges. A second later, the big dog was running at top speed toward thetool-house.
Now, the ways of the most insignificant brushfire are beyond the exactwisdom of man. Especially in droughty weather. When they knocked offwork for the day, the two laborers had gone back to the blaze beyondthe tool-house and conscientiously had scattered and stamped on itslast visible remnants. The Master, too, coming home from his eveningwalk, had glanced toward the back garden and had seen no telltale sparkto hint at life in the trampled fire.
Nevertheless, a scrap of ember, hidden from the men's gaze beneath ahandful of dead leaves had refused to perish with its comrade-sparks.And, in the course of five hours, an industrious little flicker hadignited other bits of brush and of dried leafage and last year's weedstumps. The wind was in the north. And it had guided the course of thecrawling thread of red. The advancing line had thrown out tendrils ofscarlet, as it went.
Most of these had died, in the plowed ground. One had not. It had crepton, half-extinguished at times and again snapping merrily, until it hadreached the tool-house. The shed-like room stood on low joists, with aclear space ten inches high between its flimsy board floor and theground. And, in this space, the leaves of the preceding autumn haddrifted in windrows. The persevering spark did the rest.
Lady woke from a fitful doze, to find herself choking from smoke. Theboards of the floor were too hot for endurance. Between their cracksthin wavery slices of smoke were pouring upward into the room. Theleaves had begun to ignite the floor-boards and the lower part of theramshackle building's thin walls.
While the pain and humiliation of her whipping had not been able towring a sound from the young thoroughbred, yet fright of this sort wasafar different thing. Howling with panic terror, she dashed about thesmall enclosure, clawing frantically at door and scantling. Once ortwice 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 makethe high leap, she failed.
Acros
s the lawn and door-yard and around the end of the stablesthundered Lad. With the speed of a charging bull he came on. Before hereached the burning shack, he knew more of his mate's plight and perilthan any human could have known.
Around the small building he whirled, so close to it that the flames atits base seared his mighty coat and blistered and blackened his whitepaws.
Then, running back a yard or so, he flung his eighty-pound weightcrashingly at the fastened door. The door, as it chanced, was well-nighthe only solid portion of the shack. And it held firm, under an impactthat bruised the flying dog and which knocked him breathless to thefire-streaked ground.
At sound of her mate's approach, Lady had ceased wailing. Lad couldhear her terrified whimpers as she danced frantically about on thered-hot boards. And the knowledge of her torture drove him momentarilyinsane.
Staggering up from his fall, he flung his splendid head back and, withmuzzle to the clouded skies, he tore to shreds the solemn silences ofthe 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 feetamid the stinging embers; steady, alert, calm; with no hint of despairor of surrender.
His smarting eyes fixed themselves on the single dusty window of thetool-house. Its sill was a full five feet above ground. Its four smallpanes were separated by a wide old-fashioned cross-piece of hardwoodand putty. The putty, from age, was as solid as cement. The wholewindow was a bare sixteen by twenty inches.
Lad ran back, once more, a few feet; his gaze fixed appraisingly on thewindow 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 wasall-wise, with the eerie wisdom of the highest type of collie, therecan be scant doubt he knew just what that plan entailed.
It was suicide. But, oh, it was a glorious suicide! Compared to it thelove-sacrifices of a host of Antonys and Abelards and Romeos are butpetty things. Indeed, its nearest approach in real life was perhapsMoore'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 shaggybody whizzed across the scarlet pattern of embers; then shot into theair. Straight as a flung spear he flew; hurtling through theflame-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 andfire and strangulation inside the shack.
His head had smashed the strong cross-piece of wood and dried putty andhad crumpled it like so much wet paper. His giant shoulders had rippedthe 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 andwhimpering mate. He reeled to his feet, and stood there, shoulder toshoulder with Lady. His work was done.
And, yet, it was not in Sunnybank Lad's nature to be such a fool as isthe usual melodrama hero. True, he had come to share Lady's fate, if hecould not rescue her. Yet, he would not submit tamely to death, untilevery resource had been tried.
He glanced at the door. Already he had found by harsh experience thathis strength availed nothing in the battering down of those strongpanels. And he peered up, through the swirling red smoke, toward theoblong of window, whereby he had made his tumultuous entrance to thedeath-trap.
Again, he must have known how hopeless of achievement was the feat hewas about to try. But, as ever, mere obstacles were not permitted tostand 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 strengthinto one sublime effort, he sprang upward toward the window; his matehanging from his iron jaws.
Yes, it was a ridiculous thing to attempt. No dog, with thrice Lad'smuscular strength, could have accomplished the impossibility ofspringing out through that high, narrow window, carrying a weight offifty pounds between his teeth.
Lad's leap did not carry him half the distance he had aimed for. Backto the floor he fell, Lady with him.
Maddened by pain and by choking and by stark terror, Lady had not thewit to realize what Lad was attempting. All she knew was that he hadseized her roughly by the neck, and had leaped in air with her; and hadthen brought her bangingly down upon the torturing hot boards. And herpanic was augmented by delirious rage.
At Lad's face she flew, snarling murderously. One slash of her curvingeyetooth laid bare his cheek. Then she drove for his throat.
Lad stood stock still. His only move was to interpose his shaggyshoulder to her ravening jaws. And, deep into the fur and skin andflesh of his shoulder her furious teeth shore their way.
It would have been child's play for him to have shaken her off and tohave leaped to safety, alone, through the sash-less window.
Yet he stood where he was; his sorrowful eyes looking tenderly downupon the maddened youngster who was tearing into him so ferociously.
And that was the picture the Master beheld; as he flung open the doorand 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 hadsmelt the smoke and had run out to investigate. But, not until heunbarred the tool-house door did he guess that Lady was not the burningshack's only prisoner.
"It'll be another six months before your wonderful coat grows outagain, Laddie dear," observed the Mistress, next day, as she renewedthe smelly wet cloths on Lad's burned and glass-cut body. "Dr. Hoppersays so. But he says the rest of you will be as well as ever, inside ofa 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 thisvery minute. He--he said you look like a scarecrow. But you don't. Youlook like a--like a--a-What gorgeously splendid thing DOES he looklike, 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 toanyone."
Further Adventures of Lad Page 4
