CHAPTER VII. The Juggernaut
Long shadows were stretching lazily athwart the lawn from the gnarledold giant trees. Over the whole drowsing world brooded the solemn hushof late summer afternoon.
An amber light hung in the sleepy air; touching with gold the fire-bluelake, the circle of lovingly protecting green hills; the emerald slopewhich billowed up from the water-edge to the red-roofed gray house inits setting of ancient oaks.
On the bare flooring, in the coolest corner of the veranda, two collieslay sprawled. They were fast asleep; which means that they were readyto come back to complete wakefulness at the first untoward sound.
Of the two slumbrous collies, one was slenderly graceful of outline;gold-and-white of hue. She was Lady; imperious and temperamental wispof thoroughbred caninity.
The second dog had been crowded out of the shadiest spot of theveranda, by his mate; so that a part of his burnished mahogany coat wasunder the direct glare of the afternoon sun. Shimmering orange tintsblazed back the reflection of the torrid light.
He was Sunnybank Lad; eighty-pound collie; tawny and powerful; withabsurdly tiny white forepaws and with a Soul looking out from hisdeep-set dark eyes. Chum and housemate he was to his two human gods;--adog, alone of all worshipers, having the privilege of looking on theface of his gods and of communing with them without the medium ofpriest or of prayer.
Lady, only, of the Place's bevy of Little People, refused from earliestpuppyhood to acknowledge Lad's benevolent rulership. She bossed andteased and pestered him, unmercifully. And Lad not only let her do allthis, but he actually reveled in it. She was his mate. More,--she washis idol. This idolizing of one mate, by the way, is far less uncommonamong dogs than we mere humans realize.
The summer afternoon hush was split by the whirring chug of amotor-car; that turned in from the highroad, two hundred yards beyondthe house, and started down through the oak grove, along the windingdriveway. Immediately, Lady was not only awake, but on her feet, and inmotion. A furry gold-white whirlwind, she flashed off of thevine-shaded veranda and tore at top speed up the hill to meet thecoming car.
No, it was not the Mistress and the Master whose approach stirred thefiery little collie to lightning activity. Lad knew the purr of thePlace's car and he could distinguish it from any other, as far as hissensitive ears could catch its sound. But to Lady, all cars were alike;and all were signals for wild excitement.
Like too many other collies, she had a mania for rushing at any motorvehicle, and for whizzing along beside it, perilously close to itsfast-moving wheels, barking and screaming hysterically and boundingupward at its polished sides.
Nor had punishment and scolding cured her of the trait. She was anaddict at car-chasing. She was wholly incurable. There are such dogs.Soon or late, many of them pay high for the habit.
In early days, Lad also had dashed after motors. But a single sharplecture from the Master had taught him that this was one of the direstbreaches of the Place's simple Law. And, thenceforth,--though he mighttremble with eagerness,--he stood statue-still when an automobile spuntemptingly past him.
More,--he had cured pup after pup, at the Place, of car-chasing. ButLady he could not cure; though he never gave up the useless attempt.
Down the drive came a delivery truck; driven fast and with none toogreat skill. Before it had covered half the distance between gate andhouse, Lady was alongside. A wheel grazed her shoulder fur as, deftly,she slipped from in front of the vehicle and sprang up at its tonneau.With a ceaseless fanfare of barks,--delirious in her excitement,--shecircled the car; springing, dodging, wheeling.
The delivery boy checked speed and shouted futile warnings to theinsane collie. As he slowed down a bit on the steep grade, Lady hurledherself in front of the machine, as though taunting it for cowardice inabating its hot pace on her account.
Again and again had she run, head on, at advancing cars. It seemed todelight her when such cars slackened speed or swerved, in order not tokill her.
Now, as she whizzed backward, her vibrant muzzle a bare six inches fromthe shiny buffer, one of her flying feet slipped in a mud rut. Herbalance gone, she tumbled.
A collie down is a collie up, in less than a second. But there wasstill less than a second's space between to overthrown Lady and thecar's front wheels.
The boy slammed on the emergency brake. Through his mind ran theformless thought of his fate at the hands of his employer when heshould return to the store with tidings that he had run over and killeda good customer's costly collie; and on the customer's own grounds.
In that single breathless instant, a huge mahogany-and-snow shapeflashed forward, into the path of the machine.
Lad, following his mate, had tried to shoulder her aside and to herdher too far back from the drive for any possible return to the dangerzone, until the car should have passed. More than once, at other times,had he done this. But, today, she had eluded his mighty shoulder andhad flung herself back to the assault.
As she fell, she rolled over, twice, from her own momentum. The secondrevolution left her directly in front of the skidding wheels. One ofthem had actually touched her squirming spine; when white teeth grippedher by the scruff of the neck. Those teeth could crush a mutton-bone asa child cracks a peanut. But, on Lady, today, their power was exertedonly to the extent of lifting her, in one swift wrench, clear of theground and high in air.
The mischievous collie flew through space like a lithe mass of goldenfluff; and came to earth, in a heap, at the edge of the drive; wellclear of the menacing wheels. With Lad, it fared otherwise.
The great dog had braced himself, with all his might, for themuscle-wrenching heave. Wherefore, he had no chance to spring clear, intime to avoid the car. This, no doubt, he had realized, when he sprangto his adored mate's rescue. For Lad's brain was uncanny in itscleverness. That same cleverness, more likely than mere chance,--nowcame to his own aid.
The left front wheel struck him and struck him fair. It hit his massiveshoulder, dislocating the joint and knocking the eighty-pound dog proneto earth, his ruff within an inch of the wheel. There was no time togather his feet under him or to coerce the dislocated shoulder intodoing its share toward lifting him in a sideways spring that shouldcarry him out of the machine's way. There was but one thing Lad coulddo. And he did it.
His body in a compact bunch, he rolled midway between the wheels;making the single revolution at a speed the eye could scarce follow,--aspeed which jerked him from under the impending left wheel whichalready had smitten him down.
Over him slid the wheel-locked car, through the mud of a recent rain;while the boy clung to the emergency brake and yelled.
Over him and past him skidded the car. It missed the prostratedog,--missed him with all four wheels; though the rear axle's housingsmeared his snowy ruff with a blur of black grease.
On went the machine for another ten feet, before it could halt. Then achalk-faced delivery boy peered backward in fright,--to see Lad gettingpainfully to his feet and holding perplexedly aloft his tiny rightforepaw in token of the dislocated shoulder.
The delivery boy saw more. In a swirl of black bad temper, Lady hadgathered herself up from the ditch where Lad's toss had landed her.Without a moment's pause she threw herself upon the luckless dog whoserough toss had saved her life. Teeth aglint, growling ferociously, shedug her fangs into the hurt shoulder and slung her whole weight forwardin the bite.
Thus was it the temperamental Lady's wont to punish real or fanciedinjuries from the Place's other animals,--and from humans as well,except only the Mistress and the Master. She charged first, and did herthinking afterward. Apparently, her brain, just then, could hold noimpression except that her interfering mate had picked her up by theneck-scruff and had thrown her, head over heels, into a ditch. And suchtreatment called for instant penalty.
Under her fifty-pound impact, poor Lad's three-cornered balance gaveway. Down he went in an awkward heap; while Lady snarled viciously andsnapped for his momentarily exposed throat. Lad
turned his head asideto guard the throat; but he made no move to resent this ungratefulonslaught; much less to fight back. Which was old Lad's way,--with Lady.
Dislocated shoulder or not, he would have flown at any male dog thatassailed him; and would have made the aggressor fight for dear life.But his mate was sacred. And he merely protected his throat and let hernip agonizingly at his ears and paws; until her brief flurry of wrathshould be past.
A shout from the veranda,--whither the racket had drawn the Master fromhis study,--put a sudden stop to Lady's brainstorm. Obedience was thefirst and foremost rule drilled into the Little People of the Place.And, from puppy days, the collies were taught to come,--and to come ata run,--at call from the Mistress or the Master.
Lady, with no good grace, desisted from her punitive task, and gallopeddown the drive to the house. Lad, rising with difficulty, followed; asfast as a three-legged gait would permit. And behind them chugged thedelivery boy, bawling explanations.
A sharp word of reproof sent Lady skulking into a corner; angerforgotten in humiliation at the public rebuke. The Master paid no heedto her. Running up the drive, he met Lad, and picked up the sufferingcollie in his arms. Carrying him into the study, the Master gave firstaid to the serious dislocation; then phoned for the nearest good vet.
As he left the study, to telephone, he encountered Lady, very woebegoneand cringing, at the door. When he returned, he beheld the remorsefullittle gold-and-white vixen licking her mate's hurt shoulder andwagging a propitiatory tail in plea for forgiveness from the dog shehad bitten and from the Master whose Law she had broken by her attackon the car.
Always, after her brief rages, Lady was prettily and genuinelyrepentant and eager to make friends again. And, as ever, Lad wasmeeting her apologies more than half-way;--absurdly blissful at herdainty attentions.
In the days that followed, Lady at first spent the bulk of her timenear her lame mate. She was unusually gentle and affectionate with him;and seemed trying to make up to him for the enforced idleness ofstrained sinews and dislocated joint. In her friendliness andattention, Lad was very, very happy.
The vet had bandaged his shoulder and had anointed it with pungentlysmelly medicines whose reek was disgusting and even painful to thethoroughbred's supersensitive nostrils. Moreover, the vet had leftorders that Lad be made to keep quiet until the hurt should heal; andthat he risk no setback by undue exertion of any sort. It was sweet tolie in the Master's study,--one white forepaw or the great shapely headlaid lovingly on the man's hiking boot; and with an occasional pat or afriendly word from his deity, as the latter pounded away on a clickytypewriter whose jarring noise Lad had long ago taught himself totolerate.
Sweeter it was to be made much of and "poored" by the Mistress; and tohave her light hands adjust his bandages; and to hear her tell him whata dear dog he was and praise his bravery in rescuing Lady.
Perhaps sweetest of all, in those early days of convalescence, was theamazing solicitude of Lady herself; and her queerly maternal tendernesstoward him.
But, as the summer days dreamed themselves away and Lad's splendidhealth brought him nearer and nearer to recovery, Lady waxed restiveunder the long strain of indolence and of good temper. Lad had been hercompanion in the early morning rambles through the forest, back of thePlace; in rabbit quests; in swims in the ice, cool lake at the foot ofthe lawn; in romps on the smooth green grass and in a dozen of theactive pursuits wherein country-bred collies love to squander theoutdoor days.
Less and less did Lady content herself with dull attendance on theconvalescent. More and more often did she set forth without him onthose cross-country runs that had meant so much to them both. Lad wouldwatch her vanish up the drive,--their fiery little son, Wolf, canteringgleefully at her side. Then, his dark eyes full of sorrow, he wouldgaze at the Master and, with a sigh, would lie back on his rug--andwait.
There was something so human,--so uncomplainingly wretched,--in lookand in sigh,--that the Master was touched by the big dog's lonelinessand vexed at the flighty Lady's defection. Stooping down, at one suchtime, he ran his hand over the beautiful silky head that rested againsthis knee; and said in lame attempt at comfort:--
"Don't let it get under your skin, Laddie! She isn't worth it. One ofyour honest paws is worth more than her whole fly-away body.--Not thatanyone ever was loved because he or she was worthy!--You're up againstthe penalty that is bound to get everybody with a soul, who is foolenough to love something or somebody without one . . . . We're goingover for the mail,--the Mistress and I. Want to come along?"
At once the melancholy in Lad's deep eyes gave place to puppy-likeexultance.
While, naturally, he did not understand one word in ten of the Master'sfrequent prosy homilies to him, or of the Mistress's more melodiousspeech, yet, from puppyhood, he had been talked to by both of them.And, as ever with a highbred collie, such constant conversation hadborne ample fruit;--not only in giving the dog a startlingcomprehension of voice-meanings, but also in teaching him to understandmany simple words and phrases.
For example, he recognized, as readily as would any five-year-oldchild, this invitation to go motoring. And it banished the memory ofLady's fickleness.
This morning, for the first time since his accident, Lad was able tospring into the car-tonneau, unaided. His hurt was all-but well.Enthroning himself in the precise center of the rear seat, he preparedto enjoy every inch of the ride.
No matter how long or how tedious were these jaunts, Lad never went tosleep or ceased to survey with eager attention the myriad details ofthe trip. There was something half-laughable, half-pathetic, in his airof strained interest.
Only when the Mistress and the Master both chanced to leave the car atthe same time, at market or bank or postoffice, would Lad cease fromthis genial and absorbed inspection of everything in sight. Left alonein the machine, he always realized at once that he was on guard. Headon paws he would lie, intently scanning anyone who might chance topause near the auto; and, with a glint of curved white fang beneathsharply upcurled lip, warning away such persons as ventured too close.
Marketing done, today, the trio from the Place started homeward. Lessthan a quarter-mile from their own gateway, they heard the blaring honkof a motor horn behind them.
Within a second thereafter, a runabout roared past, the cut-out makingechoes along the still road; and a poisonously choking cloud of dustwhirling aloft in the speedster's wake.
The warning honk had not given the Mistress time to turn out. Luckilyshe was driving well on her own side of the none-too-wide road. As itwas, a sharp little jar gave testimony to the light touch of mudguards.And the runabout whizzed on.
"That's one of the speed-idiots who make an automobile an insult toeverybody except its owner! The young fool!" stormed the Master,glowering impotently at the other car, already a hundred yards ahead;and at the back of its one occupant, a sportily-clad youth in the earlytwenties.
A high-pitched yelping bark,--partly of dismay, partly ofwarning,--from Lad, broke in on the Master's fuming remonstrance. Thebig dog had sprung up from his rear seat cushion and, with forepawsgripping the back of the front seat, he was peering forward; his headand shoulders between the Mistress and the Master.
Never before in all his rides had Lad so transgressed the rules ofmotoring behavior as to thrust himself forward like this. A word ofrebuke died on the Master's tongue; as the Mistress, with a gasp offear, pointed ahead, in the path of the speeding runabout.
Lady and Wolf had had a jolly gallop through the summer woodlands. Andat last they had turned their faces homeward; for the plunge in thecool lake which was wont to follow a hot weather run. Side by side theyjogged along, to the forest edge--and into the sixteen-acre meadow thatstretches from forest to highway.
A few rods on the far side of the road which separated the meadow fromthe rest of the Place, Wolf paused to investigate a chipmunk hole. Ladywas more interested just then in splashing her hot body in the chill ofthe lake than in exploring for hypothetical chipmunks
.
Moreover, her keen ears caught a sound which rapidly swept nearer andnearer. A motor-car with the muffler cut out was approaching, at a mostgratifyingly high speed.
The noise was as martial music to Lady. The speed promised exhilaratingsport. Her trot merged into a headlong run; and she dashed out into theroad.
The runabout was a bare fifty yards ahead of her, and it was coming onwith a speed which shook even Lady's excitement-craving nerves. Here,evidently, was a playmate which it would be safer to chase than toconfront head-on.
It was at this juncture, by the way, that Lad lurched forward from therear seat and that the Mistress pointed in terror at the endangeredcollie.
Lady, for once overawed by speed, leaped to one side of the road. Notfar, but leaving ample space for the driver to miss her by at least ayard. He had honked loudly, at sight of her. But, he had abated not anatom of his fifty-mile-an-hour pace.
Whether the man was rattled by the collie's antics,--whether he actedin sudden rage at her for startling him, whether he belonged to thefilthy breed of motorist who recites chucklingly the record of hiskills,--he did not hold his midroad course.
Instead,--still without checking speed,--he veered his machine slightlyto the right; aiming the flying juggernaut directly at themischievously-poised little collie who danced in imagined safety at theroad-edge.
The rest was horror.
Merciful in its mercilessness, the hard-driven right front wheel smotethe silky golden head with a force that left no terrible instant offear or of agony. More lucky by far than the myriad innocent andfriendly dogs that are left daily to scream out their lives writhinglyin the wake of speeding motor-cars, Lady was killed at a single stroke.
The fluffy golden body was hurled far in front of its slayer; and thewheels struck it a second time. The force of the impact caused therunabout to skid, perilously; and the youthful driver brought it to ajarring and belated halt. Springing to the ground, he rolled the deadcollie's impeding body into the shallow wayside ditch, clear of hiswheels. Then, scrambling aboard again, he jammed down the accelerator.
Lad had made a flying leap over the door of the Master's car. He struckground with a force which crumpled his healing right shoulder underhim. Heedless of the pain, he hurled himself forward, on three legs, atan incredible speed; straight for the runabout. His great head low, hisformidable teeth agleam beneath drawn-back lips, his soft eyesa-smolder with red flame, Lad charged.
But, for all his burst of speed, he was too late to avenge; even as hehad been too late to save. By the time he could reach the spot whereLady lay crumpled and moveless in the ditch, the runabout had gatheredfull speed and was disappearing down the bend of the highway.
After it flew Lad, silent, terrible,--not stopping to realize that thefleetest dog,--even with all four of his legs in commission,--cannothope to overhaul a motor-car driven at fifty miles an hour.
But, at the end of a furious quarter-mile, his wise brain took chargeonce more of his vengeance-craving heart. He halted, snarled hideouslyafter the vanished car, and limped miserably back to the scene of thetragedy.
There, he found the Mistress sitting in the roadside dust, Lady's headin her lap. She was smoothing lovingly the soft rumpled fur; and wastrying hard not to cry over the inert warm mass of gold-and-whitefluffiness which, two minutes earlier, had been a beautifulthoroughbred collie, vibrant with life and fun and lovableness.
The Master had risen from his brief inspection of his pet's fatalinjuries. Scowling down the road, he yearned to kick himself for hisstupidity in failing to note the Juggernaut's number.
Head and tail a-droop, Lad toiled back to where Lady was lying. A queerlow sound, strangely like a human sob, pulsed in his shaggy throat, ashe bent down and touched his dead mate's muzzle with his own. Then,huddling close beside her, he reverted all at once to a trait of hisancestors, a thousand generations back.
Sitting on his haunches and lifting his pointed nose to the summer sky,he gave vent to a series of long-drawn wolf howls; horrible to hear.There was no hint of a housebred twentieth century dog in his lament.It was the death-howl of the primitive wolf;--a sound that sent aninvoluntary shiver through the two humans who listened aghast to theirchum's awesome mourning for his lost mate.
The Master made as though to say something,--in comfort or incorrection. The Mistress, wiser, motioned to him not to speak.
In a few seconds, Lad rose wearily to his feet; the spasm of primalgrief having spent itself. Once more he was himself; sedate, wise, calm.
Limping over to where the car had halted so briefly, he cast about theground, after the manner of a bloodhound.
Presently, he came to an abrupt halt. He had found what he sought. Asmotionless as a bird-dog at point, he stood there; nose to earth,sniffing.
"What in blazes--?" began the Master, perplexed.
The Mistress was keener of eye and of perception. She understood. Shesaw the Lad's inhalingly seeking muzzle was steady above a faint markin the road-dust;--the mark of a buckskin shoe's print. Long andcarefully the dog sniffed. Then, with heavy deliberation he moved on tothe next footprint and the next. The runabout's driver had taken lessthan a half dozen steps in all; during his short descent to the ground.But Lad did not stop until he had found and identified each and everystep.
"He knows!" marveled the Mistress. "He saw the brute jump down from hiscar. And he has found his footsteps. He'll remember them, too."
"Little good it will do the poor chap!" commented the Master. "He can'ttrack him, that way. Get aboard, won't you?" he went on. "I'll make Ladgo back into the tonneau again, too. Drive down to the house; and takeLad indoors with you. Better telephone to the vet to come over and haveanother look at his shoulder. He's wrenched it badly, in all that run.Anyway, please keep him indoors till--"
He finished his sentence by a glance at Lady. At the Master's order,Lad with sore reluctance left the body of his mate; whither he hadreturned after his useless finding of the footmarks. He had just curledup, in the ditch, pressing close to her side; and again that unnaturalsobbing sound was in his throat. On the Master's bidding, Lad crossedto the car and suffered himself to be lifted aboard. The Mistressstarted down the drive. As they went, Lad ever looked back, withsuffering despair in his dark eyes, at that huddle of golden fur at thewayside.
The Master carried the pitifully light armful to a secluded spot farbeyond the stables; and there he buried it. Then, satisfied that Ladcould not find his mate's grave, he returned to the house.
His heart was heavy with helpless wrath. Again and again, in the courseof their drives, he and the Mistress had sickened at sight of mutelyeloquent little bodies left in mid-road or tossed in someditch,--testimony to the carelessness and callous hoggishness ofautoists. Some few of these run-over dogs,--like poor Lady,--had ofcourse tempted fate; spurred on by that strange craving which goadedthem to fly at cars. But the bulk of them had been strolling peacefullyalong the highways or crossing to or from their own dooryards, when thejuggernauts smashed them into torture or into instant death.
The Master reflected on the friendly country folk who pay taxes for thescenery and for the fine roads which make motoring so pleasant;--and onthe reward so many motorists bestow upon these rural hosts of theirs bywanton or heedless murder of pet animals. For the first time, he couldunderstand how and why farmers are tempted to strew glass or tacks inthe road to revenge the slaying of a beloved dog.
For the next few days, until his shoulder was again in condition tobear his eighty-pound weight on it, Lad was kept indoors or on theveranda. As soon as he was allowed to go out alone, the big collie wentstraight to the spot where last he had seen Lady's body. Thence, he amade a careful detour of the Place,--seeking for--something. It was twodays before he found what he sought.
In the meantime,--as ever, since his mate's killing,--he atepractically nothing; and went about in a daze.
"He'll get over it presently," prophesied the Master, to soothe hiswife's worry.
"Perhaps s
o," returned the Mistress. "Or perhaps not. Remember he's acollie, and not just a human."
On the third day, Lad's systematic quartering of the Place brought himto the tiny new mound, far beyond the stables. Twice, he circled it.Then he lay down, very close beside it; his mighty head athwart theridge of upflung sod.
There,--having seen him from a distance,--the Master came across tospeak to him. But at sight of the man, the collie got up from hisresting place and moved furtively away.
Time after time, during the next week, the Master or the Mistress foundhim lying there. And always, at their approach, he would get up anddepart. Nor did he go direct to the mound, on these pilgrimages; but bydevious paths; as though trying to shake off possible pursuit. Nolonger did he spend the nights, as from puppyhood, in his beloved"cave" under the piano in the music room. On one pretext or another, hewould manage to slip out of the house, during the evening. Twice, ingray dawn, the Master found him crouched beside the mound, where,sleepless, he had lain all night.
The Mistress and the Master grew seriously troubled over their colliechum's continued grief. They thought, more than once, of sending himaway to boarding kennels or to some friend, for a month or two; toremove him from the surroundings which made him so wretched. Oddlyenough, his heartbreak struck neither of them as absurd.
They had made a long study of collie nature in all its million queerand half-human phases. They knew, too, that a grieving dog is upheld bynone of the supports of Faith nor of Philosophy; and that he lacks thewisdom which teaches the wondrous anaesthetic powers of Time. Asorrowing dog sorrows without hope.
Nor did Lad's misery seem ridiculous to the Place's many kindlyneighbors; with whom the great dog was a favorite and who wererighteously indignant over the killing of Lady.
Then in a single minute came the cure.
On Labor Day afternoon, the finals in a local tennis tournament were tobe played at the mile distant country club. The Mistress and the Masterwent across to the tournament; taking Lad along. Not that there couldbe anything of the remotest interest to a dog in the sight of flanneledyoung people swatting a ball back and forth. But Lad was a privilegedguest at all outdoor functions; and he enjoyed being with his twodeities.
Thus, when the two climbed the clubhouse veranda, Lad was at theirheels; pacing along in majestic unhappiness and not turning hisbeautiful head in response to any of a dozen greetings flung at him.The Mistress found a seat among a bevy of neighbors. Lad lay down,decorously, at her feet; and refused to display the faintest interestin anything that went on around him.
The playing had not yet begun. New arrivals were drifting up the stepsof the clubhouse. Car after car disgorged women in sport clothes andmen in knickerbockers or flannels. There was plenty of chatter andbustle and motion. Lad paid no heed to any of it.
Then, up to the foot of the veranda steps jarred a flashy runabout;driven by a flashier youth. At word from the policeman in charge heparked his car at the rear of the clubhouse among fifty others, andreturned on foot to the steps.
"That's young Rhuburger," someone was confiding to the Mistress. "Youmust have read about him. He was arrested as a Conscientious Objector,during the war. Since then, his father has died, and left him all sortsof money. And he is burning it; in double handfuls. No one seems toknow just how he got into the club, here. And no one seems to--"
The gossipy maundering broke off short; drowned in a wild beast growl.
Both the Mistress and her husband had been eyeing Rhuburger as heascended the veranda steps in all the glory of unbelievably exquisiteand gaudy raiment. There seemed to both of them something vaguelyfamiliar about the fellow; though neither could place him. But, to Lad,there was nothing at all vague in his recollections of the gorgeousnewcomer.
As Rhuburger reached the topmost step, the collie lifted his head, hisnostrils dilating wide. A thrill went through him. His nearsighted eyesswept the crowd. They rested at last on Rhuburger. Another deepinhalation told him all he needed to know. Not in vain had Lad sniffedso long and so carefully at those faint footprints in the road dust, atthe spot where Lady died. In his throat a deep growl was born.
"Hello, folks!" Rhuburger was declaiming, to a wholly unenthusiasticcircle of acquaintances. "Made another record, just now. The littleboat spun me here from Montclair in exactly nineteen minutes.That's--that's roughly an average rate of a mile in seventy-fiveseconds. Not so bad, eh? That car sure made a hit with ME, all right.Not so much of a hit, maybe, with a couple of chickens and a fat olddog that had the bad luck to be asleep in the middle of the--"
His plangent brag was lost in a sound seldom heard on the hither sideof jungle or zoo. From the group of slightly disgusted onlookers, ahuge and tawny shape burst forth; hurtling through the air, straightfor the fat throat of the boaster.
Rhuburger, by some heaven-sent instinct, flung up his arms to shieldhis menaced jugular. He had no time to do more.
Lad's fury-driven eighty pounds of muscular weight crashed full againsthis chest. Lad's terrible teeth, missing their throat-goal, drove deepinto the uplifted right forearm; shearing through imported tweedcoat-sleeve and through corded silken shirt, and through flabby fleshand clean to the very bone.
The dog's lion-roar blended with the panic-screeches of the victim.And, under that fearful impact, Rhuburger reeled back from thestairhead, and went crashing down the steps, to the broad stoneflagging at the bottom.
Not once, during that meteoric, shriek-punctured downward flight, didLad loose his grip on the torn forearm. But as the two struck theflagging at the bottom, he shifted his hold, with lightning speed;stabbing once more for the exposed jugular.
He lunged murderously at his mark. Yes, and this time he found it. Histeeth had touched the pudgy throat, and began to cleave theirremorseless way to the very life of the man who had slain Lady.
But, out of the jumble of cries and stamping feet and explosive shoutsfrom the scared onlookers on the veranda above, one staccato yellpierced the swirl of rage-mists in the avenging collie's brain.
"LAD!" came the Master's sharp, scandalized mandate. "LAD!!!"
Hating the thought of desisting from his cherished revenge, the dogheard and heeded. With visible reluctance, he drew back from theslaughter; and turned his noble head to face the man who was runningdown the steps toward him.
Lad knew well what he might expect, for this thing he had done. He knewthe Law. He knew, almost from birth, the courteous tolerance due tofolk among whom his deities took him. And now he had made anindustrious effort to kill one of these people.
It was no light offense for a dog to attack a human. Lad, like everywell-trained collie, knew that. His own death might well follow.Indeed, from the babel of voices on the veranda, squalling confusedlysuch hackneyed sentiments as "Mad dog!" and "Get a gun!" it seemedhighly probable that Lad was due to suffer full penalty, from theman-pack.
Yet he gave no heed to the clamor. Instead, turning slowly, he facedthe Master; ready for whatever might follow. But nothingfollowed,--nothing at least that he expected.
The Master simply commanded:--
"Down, Lad!"
As the dog, obediently, dropped to the ground, the Master bent toexamine the groaning and maudlinly weeping Rhuburger. In this Samaritantask he was joined by one or two of the club's more venturesome memberswho had followed him down the steps.
Rhuburger was all-but delirious with fright. His throat was scored bythe first raking of Lad's teeth; but in the merest of flesh-wounds. Thechewed arm was more serious; but no bone or tendon was injured. Afortnight of care would see it as good as new. By more or less of amiracle, no bones had been broken and no concussion caused by thebackward dive down the flight of steps. There were bad bruisesa-plenty; but there was nothing worse.
As the Master and the few others who had descended the steps wereworking over the fallen man, the Mistress checked the turmoil on theveranda. At Lad's leap, memory of this speed-mad motorist had rushedback to her.
Now, tersely, for the benefit of thos
e around, she was identifying himwith the killer of Lady; whose death had roused so much indignation inthe village. And, as she spoke, the people who had clamored loudest ofmad dogs and who had called so frantically for a gun, waxed silent. Themyriad glances cast at the prostrate and blubbering Rhuburger were notloving. Someone even said, loudly:
"GOOD old Laddie!"
As the Mistress and the Master were closing the house for the night, acar came down the drive. Out of it stepped their friend of many years,Maclay, the local Justice of the Peace.
"Hello, Mac!" hailed the Master. "Here to take us all to jail forassault-and-battery; or just to serve a 'dangerous dog' notice on us?"
He spoke lightly; but he was troubled. Today's escapade might well leadthe village law to take some cognizance of Lad's ferocious deed.
"No," laughed Maclay. "Neither of those things. I'm here,unprofessionally. I thought you people might like to know a few things,before you go to bed. In the first place, the doctor patched upRhuburger's bites and took him home. He couldn't take him home inRhuburger's own car. For some of the tennis crowd had gotten at that.What they did to that $6,000 runabout was a crime! They stripped it ofeverything. They threw the carburetor and the wheels and the steeringgear and a lot of other parts into the lake."
"WHAT?"
"Then they left their cards pinned to the dismantled machine'scushions;--in case Rhuburger cares to go further into the matter. Whilethey were doing all that, the club's Governors had a hurry-callmeeting. And for once the Board was unanimous about something. It wasunanimous--in expelling Rhuburger from the club. Then we--By the way,where's Laddie? Curled up by Lady's grave, as usual, I suppose? Poorold dog!"
"No," denied the Mistress. "He's asleep in his 'cave' under the piano.He went there, of his own accord. And he ate a perfectly tremendoussupper, tonight. He's--he's CURED!"
Further Adventures of Lad Page 7
