The Place was in the North Jersey hinterland, backed by miles of hill and forest, facing the lake that divided it from the village and the railroad and the other new-made smears which had been daubed upon Mother Nature’s smiling face in the holy name of Civilization. The lonely situation of The Place made Lad’s self-appointed guardianship of its acres no sinecure at all. The dread of his name spread far—carried by hobo and by less harmless intruder.
Ten miles to northward of The Place, among the mountains of this same North Jersey hinterland, a man named Glure had bought a rambling old wilderness farm. By dint of much money, more zeal and most dearth of taste, he had caused the wilderness to blossom like the Fifth Proposition of Euclid. He had turned bosky wildwood into chaste picnic-grove plaisaunces, lush meadows into sunken gardens, a roomy colonial farmstead into something between a feudal castle and a roadhouse. And, looking on his work, he had seen that it was good.
This Beautifier of the Wilderness was a financial giantlet, who had lately chosen to amuse himself, after work-hours, by what he called “farming.” Hence the purchase and renovation of the five hundred-acre tract, the building of model farms, the acquisition of priceless livestock, and the hiring of a battalion of skilled employees. Hence, too, his dearly loved and self-given title of “Wall Street Farmer.” His name, I repeat, was Glure.
Having established himself in the region, the Wall Street Farmer undertook most earnestly to reproduce the story-book glories of the life supposedly led by mid-Victorian country gentlemen. Not only in respect to keeping open-house and in alternately patronizing and bullying the peasantry, but in filling his gun-room shelves with cups and other trophies won by his livestock.
To his “open house” few of the neighboring families came. The local peasantry—Jersey mountaineers of Revolutionary stock, who had not the faintest idea they were “peasantry” and who, indeed, had never heard of the word—alternately grinned and swore at the Wall Street Farmer’s treatment of them, and mulcted him of huge sums for small services. But Glure’s keenest disappointment—a disappointment that crept gradually up toward the monomania point—was the annoyingly continual emptiness of his trophy-shelves.
When, for instance, he sent to the Paterson Livestock Show a score of his pricelessly imported merino sheep, under his more pricelessly imported Scotch shepherd, Mr. McGillicuddy—the sheep came ambling back to Glure Towers Farm bearing no worthier guerdon than a single third-prize yellow silk rosette and a “Commended” ribbon. First and second prizes, as well as the challenge cup had gone to flocks owned by vastly inferior folk—small farmers who had no money wherewith to import the pick of the Scottish moors—farmers who had bred and developed their own sheep, with no better aid than personal care and personal judgment.
At the Hohokus Fair, too, the Country Gentleman’s imported Holstein bull, Tenebris, had had to content himself with a measly red rosette in token of second prize, while the silver cup went to a bull owned by an elderly North Jerseyman of low manners, who had bred his own entry and had bred the latter’s ancestors for forty years back.
It was discouraging, it was mystifying. There actually seemed to be a vulgar conspiracy among the down-at-heel rural judges—a conspiracy to boost second-rate stock and to turn a blind eye to the virtues of overpriced transatlantic importations.
It was the same in the poultry shows and in hog exhibits. It was the same at the County Fair horse-trots. At one of these trots the Wall Street Farmer, in person, drove his $9000 English colt. And a rangy Hackensack gelding won all three heats. In none of the three did Glure’s colt get within hailing distance of the wire before at least two other trotters had clattered under it.
(Glure’s English head-groom was called on the carpet to explain why a colt that could do a neat 2.13 in training was beaten out in a 2.17 trot. The groom lost his temper and his place. For he grunted, in reply, “The colt was all there. It was the driving did it.”)
The gun-room’s glassed shelves in time were gay with ribbon. But only two of the three primary colors were represented there—blue being conspicuously absent. As for cups—the burglar who should break into Glure Towers in search of such booty would find himself the worse off by a wageless night’ s work.
Then it was that the Wall Street Farmer had his Inspiration. Which brings us by easy degrees to the Hampton Dog Show.
Even as the Fiery Cross among the Highland crags once flashed signal of War, so, when the World War swirl sucked nation after nation into its eddy, the Red Cross flamed from one end of America to the other, as the common rallying point for those who, for a time, must do their fighting on the hither side of the gray seas. The country bristled with a thousand money-getting functions of a thousand different kinds; with one objective—the Red Cross.
So it happened at last that North Jersey was posted, on state road and byway, with flaring placards announcing a Mammoth Outdoor Specialty Dog show, to be held under the auspices of the Hampton Branch of the American National Red Cross, on Labor Day.
Mr. Hamilcar Q. Glure, the announcement continued, had kindly donated the use of his beautiful grounds for the Event, and had subscribed three hundred dollars towards its running expenses and prizes.
Not only were the usual dog classes to be judged, but an added interest was to be supplied by the awarding of no less than fifteen Specialty Trophies.
Mr. Glure, having offered his grounds and the initial three hundred dollars, graciously turned over the details of the Show to a committee, whose duty it was to suggest popular Specialties and to solicit money for the cups.
Thus, one morning, an official letter was received at The Place, asking the Master to enter all his available dogs for the Show—at one dollar apiece for each class—and to contribute, if he should so desire, the sum of fifteen dollars, besides, for the purchase of a Specialty Cup.
The Mistress was far more excited over the coming event than was the Master. And it was she who suggested the nature of the Specialty for which the fifteen-dollar cup should be offered.
The next outgoing mail bore the Master’s check for a cup. “To be awarded to the oldest and best-cared-for dog, of any breed, in the Show.”
It was like the Mistress to think of that, and to reward the dog-owner whose pet’s old age had been made happiest. Hers was destined to be the most popular Specialty of the entire Show.
The Master, at first, was disposed to refuse the invitation to take any of his collies to Hampton. The dogs were, for the most part, out of coat. The weather was warm. At these amateur shows—as at too many professional exhibits—there was always danger of some sick dog spreading epidemic. Moreover, the living-room trophy-shelf at The Place was already comfortably filled with cups; won at similar contests. Then, too, the Master had somehow acquired a most causeless and cordial dislike for the Wall Street Farmer.
“I believe I’ll send an extra ten dollars,” he told the Mistress, “and save the dogs a day of torment. What do you think?”
By way of answer, the Mistress sat down on the floor where Lad was sprawled, asleep. She ran her fingers through his forest of ruff. The great dog’s brush pounded drowsily against the floor at the loved touch; and he raised his head for further caress.
“Laddie’s winter coat is coming in beautifully,” she said at last. “I don’t suppose there’ll be another dog there with such a coat. Besides, it’s to be outdoors, you see. So he won’t catch any sickness. If it were a four-day show—if it were anything longer than a one-day show—he shouldn’t go a step. But, you see, I’d be right there with him all the time. And I’d take him into the ring myself, as I did at Madison Square Garden. And he won’t be unhappy or lonely or—or anything. And I always love to have people see how splendid he is. And those Specialty Trophies are pretty, sometimes. So—so we’ll do just whatever you say about it.”
Which, naturally, settled the matter, once and for all.
When a printed copy of the Specialty Lists arrived, a week later, the Mistress and the Master scanned eagerly its pages.
There were cups offered for the best tri-color collie, for the best mother-and-litter, for the collie with the finest under-and-outer coat, for the best collie exhibited by a woman, for the collie whose get had won most prizes in other shows. At the very bottom of the section, and in type six points larger than any other announcement on the whole schedule, were the words:
“Presented by the Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of New York City—18-KARAT GOLD SPECIALTY CUP, FOR COLLIES (conditions announced later).”
“A gold cup!” sighed the Mistress, yielding to Delusions of Grandeur, “A gold cup! I never heard of such a thing, at a dog show. And—and won’t it look perfectly gorgeous in the very center of our Trophy Shelf, there—with the other cups radiating from it on each side? And—”
“Hold on!” laughed the Master, trying to mask his own thrill, man-fashion, by wetblanketing his wife’s enthusiasm. “Hold on! We haven’t got it, yet. I’ll enter Lad for it, of course. But so will every other collie-owner who reads that. Besides, even if Lad should win it, we’d have to buy a microscope to see the thing. It will probably be about half the size of a thimble. Gold cups cost gold money, you know. And I don’t suppose this ‘Hon. Hugh Lester Maury of New York City’ is squandering more than ten or fifteen dollars at most on a country dog show. Even for the Red Cross. I suppose he’s some Wall Street chum that Glure has wheedled into giving a Specialty. He’s a novelty to me. I never heard of him before. Did you?”
“No,” admitted the Mistress. “But I feel I’m beginning to love him. Oh. Laddie,” she confided to the dog, “I’m going to give you a bath in naphtha soap every day till then; and brush you, two hours every morning; and feed you on liver and—”
“‘Conditions announced later,’” quoted the Master, studying the big-type offer once more. “I wonder what that means. Of course, in a Specialty Show, anything goes. But—”
“I don’t care what the conditions are,” interrupted the Mistress, refusing to be disheartened. “Lad can come up to them. Why, there isn’t a greater dog in America than Lad. And you know it.”
“I know it,” assented the pessimistic Master. “But will the Judge? You might tell him so.”
“Lad will tell him,” promised the Mistress. “Don’t worry.”
••••••••
On Labor Day morning a thousand cars, from a radius of fifty miles, were converging upon the much-advertised village of Hampton; whence, by climbing a tortuous first-speed hill, they presently chugged into the still-more-advertised estate of Hamilcar Q. Glure, Wall Street Farmer.
There, the sylvan stillness was shattered by barks in every key, from Pekingese falsetto to St. Bernard bass-thunder. An open stretch of shaded sward—backed by a stable that looked more like a dissolute cathedral—had been given over to ten double rows of “benches,” for the anchorage of the Show’s three hundred exhibits. Above the central show-ring a banner was strung between two tree tops. It bore a blazing red cross at either end. In its center was the legend:
“WELCOME TO GLURE TOWERS!” The Wall Street Farmer, as I have hinted, was a man of much taste—of a sort.
Lad had enjoyed the ten-mile spin through the cool morning air, in the tonneau of The Place’s only car—albeit the course of baths and combings of the past week had long since made him morbidly aware that a detested dog show was somewhere at hand. Now, even before the car entered the fearsome feudal gateway of Glure Towers, the collie’s ears and nose told him the hour of ordeal was at hand.
His zest in the ride vanished. He looked reproachfully at the Mistress and tried to bury his head under her circling arm. Lad loathed dog shows; as does every dog of high-strung nerves and higher intelligence. The Mistress, after one experience, had refrained from breaking his heart by taking him to those horrors known as “two-or-more-day Shows.” But, as she herself took such childish delight in the local one-day contests, she had schooled herself to believe Lad must enjoy them, too.
Lad, as a matter of fact, preferred these milder ordeals, merely as a man might prefer one day of jail or toothache to two or more days of the same misery. But—even as he knew many lesser things—he knew the adored Mistress and Master reveled in such atrocities as dog shows; and that he, for some reason, was part of his two gods’ pleasure in them. Therefore, he made the best of the nuisance. Which led his owners to a certainty that he had grown to like it.
Parking the car, the Mistress and Master led the unhappy dog to the clerk’s desk; received his number tag and card, and were shown where to bench him. They made Lad as nearly comfortable as possible, on a straw-littered raised stall; between a supercilious Merle and a fluffily disconsolate sable-and-white six-month puppy that howled ceaselessly in an agony of fright.
The Master paused for a moment in his quest of water for Lad, and stared open-mouthed at the Merle.
“Good Lord!” he mumbled, touching the Mistress’ arm and pointing to the gray dog. “That’s the most magnificent collie I ever set eyes on. It’s farewell to poor old Laddie’s hopes, if he is in any of the same classes with that marvel. Say goodby, right now, to your hopes of the Gold Cup; and to ‘Winners’ in the regular collie division.”
“I won’t say goodby to it,” refused the Mistress. “I won’t do anything of the sort. Lad’s every bit as beautiful as that dog. Every single bit.”
“But not from the show-judge’s view,” said the Master. “This Merle’s a gem. Where in blazes did he drop from, I wonder? These ‘no-point’ out-of-town Specialty Shows don’t attract the stars of the Kennel Club circuits. Yet, this is as perfect a dog as ever Grey Mist was. It’s a pleasure to see such an animal. Or,” he corrected himself, “it would be, if he wasn’t pitted against dear old Lad. I’d rather be kicked than take Lad to a show to be beaten. Not for my sake or even for yours. But for his. Lad will be sure to know. He knows everything. Laddie, old friend, I’m sorry. Dead-sorry.”
He stooped down and patted Lad’s satin head. Both Master and Mistress had always carried their fondness for Lad to an extent that perhaps was absurd. Certainly absurd to the man or woman who has never owned such a super-dog as Lad. As not one man or woman in a thousand has.
Together, the Mistress and the Master made their way along the collie section, trying to be interested in the line of barking or yelling entries.
“Twenty-one collies in all,” summed up the Master, as they reached the end. “Some quality dogs among them, too. But not one of the lot, except the Merle, that I’d be afraid to have Lad judged against. The Merle’s our Waterloo. Lad is due for his first defeat. Well, it’ll be a fair one. That’s one comfort.”
“It doesn’t comfort me, in the very least,” returned the Mistress, adding:
“Look! There is the trophy table. Let’s go over. Perhaps the Gold Cup is there. If it isn’t too precious to leave out in the open.”
The Gold Cup was there. It was plainly—or, rather, flamingly—visible. Indeed, it smote the eye from afar. It made the surrounding array of pretty silver cups and engraved medals look tawdrily insignificant. Its presence had, already, drawn a goodly number of admirers—folk at whom the guardian village constable, behind the table, stared with sour distrust.
The Gold Cup was a huge bowl of unchased metal, its softly glowing surface marred only by the script words:
“Maury Specialty Gold Cup. Awarded to—”
There could be no shadow of doubt as to the genuineness of the claim that the trophy was of eighteen-karat gold. Its value spoke for itself. The vessel was like a half melon in contour and was supported by four severely plain claws. Its rim flared outward in a wide curve.
“It’s—it’s all the world like an inverted derby hat!” exclaimed the Mistress, after one long dumb look at it. “And it’s every bit as big as a derby hat. Did you ever see anything so ugly—and so Croesusful? Why, it must have cost—it must have cost—”
“Just sixteen hundred dollars, Ma’am,” supplemented the constable, beginning to take pride in his office of guardian to such a treasure. “Sixteen hundred dollars, flat. I heard Mr. Glure sayin’ so myself. Don’t go handlin’ it, please.”
“Handling it?” repeated The Mistress. “I’d as soon think of handling the National Debt!”
The Superintendent of the Show strolled up and greeted the Mistress and the Master. The latter scarce heard the neighborly greeting. He was scowling at the precious trophy as at a personal foe.
“I see you’ve entered Lad for the Gold Cup,” said the Superintendent. “Sixteen collies, in all, are entered for it. The conditions for the Gold Cup contest weren’t printed till too late to mail them. So I’m handing out the slips this morning. Mr. Glure took charge of their printing. They didn’t get here from the job shop till half an hour ago. And I don’t mind telling you they’re causing a lot of kicks. Here’s one of the copies. Look it over, and see what Lad’s up against.”
“Who’s the Hon. Hugh Lester Maury, of New York?” suddenly demanded the Master, rousing himself from his glum inspection of the Cup. “I mean the man who donated that—that Gold Hat?”
“Gold Hat!” echoed the Superintendent, with a chuckle of joy. “Gold Hat! Now you say so, I can’t make it look like anything else. A derby, upside down, with four—”
“Who’s Maury?” insisted the Master.
“He’s the original Man of Mystery,” returned the Superintendent, dropping his voice to exclude the constable. “I wanted to get in touch with him about the delayed set of conditions. I looked him up. That is, I tried to. He is advertised in the premium list, as a New Yorker. You’ll remember that, but his name isn’t in the New York City Directory or in the New York City telephone book or in the suburban telephone book. He can afford to give a sixteen hundred dollar-cup for charity, but it seems he isn’t important enough to get his name in any directory. Funny, isn’t it? I asked Glure about him. That’s all the good it did me.”
“You don’t mean—?” began the Mistress, excitedly.
“I don’t mean anything,” the Superintendent hurried to forestall her. “I’m paid to take charge of this Show. It’s no affair of mine if—”
“If Mr. Glure chooses to invent Hugh Lester Maury and make him give a Gold Hat for a collie prize?” suggested the Mistress. “But—”
“I didn’t say so,” denied the superintendent. “And it’s none of my business, anyhow. Here’s—”
“But why should Mr. Glure do such a thing?” asked the Mistress, in wonder. “I never heard of his shrinking coyly behind another name when he wanted to spend money. I don’t understand why he—”
“Here is the conditions-list for the Maury Specialty Cup,” interposed the superintendent with extreme irrelevance, as he handed her a pink slip of paper. “Glance over it.”
The Mistress took the slip and read aloud for the benefit of the Master who was still glowering at the Gold Hat:
“Conditions of Contest for Hugh Lester Maury Gold Cup:
“‘First.—No collie shall be eligible that has not already taken at least one blue ribbon at a licensed American or British Kennel Club Show.’”
“That single clause has barred out eleven of the sixteen entrants,” commented the Superintendent. “You see, most of the dogs at these local Shows are pets, and hardly any of them have been to Madison Square Garden or to any of the other A. K. C. shows. The few that have been to them seldom got a Blue.”
“Lad did!” exclaimed the Mistress joyfully. “He took two Blues at the Garden last year; and then, you remember, it was so horrible for him there we broke the rules and brought him home without waiting for—”
“I know,” said the Superintendent, “but read the rest.”
“‘Second,’” read the Mistress. “‘Each contestant must have a certified five-generation pedigree, containing the names of at least ten champions.’ Lad had twelve in his pedigree,” she added, “and it’s certified.”
“Two more entrants were killed out by that clause,” remarked the Superintendent, “leaving only three out of the original sixteen. Now go ahead with the clause that puts poor old Lad and one other out of the running. I’m sorry.”
“‘Third’ the Mistress read, her brows crinkling and her voice trailing as she proceeded. “‘Each contestant must go successfully through the preliminary maneuvers prescribed by the Kirkaldie Association, Inc., of Great Britain, for its Working Sheepdog Trials.’—But,” she protested, “Lad isn’t a ‘working’ sheepdog! Why, this is some kind of a joke! I never heard of such a thing even in a Specialty Show.”
“No,” agreed the Superintendent, “nor anybody else. Naturally, Lad isn’t a ‘working’ sheepdog. There probably haven’t been three ‘working’ sheepdogs born within a hundred miles of here, and it’s a mighty safe bet that no ‘working’ sheepdog has ever taken a ‘Blue’ at an A. K. C. Show. A ‘working’ dog is almost never a show dog. I know of only one either here or in England; and he’s a freak—a miracle. So much so, that he’s famous all over the dog-world.”
“Do you mean Champion Lochinvar III?” asked the Mistress. “The dog the Duke of Hereford used to own?”
“That’s the dog. The only—”
“We read about him in the Collie Folio,” said the Mistress. “His picture was there, too. He was sent to Scotland when he was a puppy, the Folio said, and trained to herd sheep before ever he was shown. His owner was trying to induce other collie-fanciers to make their dogs useful and not just Show-exhibits. Lochinvar is an international champion, too, isn’t he?”
The Superintendent nodded.
“If the Duke of Hereford lived in New Jersey,” pursued the Mistress, trying to talk down her keen chagrin over Lad’s mishap, “Lochinvar might have a chance to win a nice Gold Hat.”
“He has,” replied the superintendent “He has every chance, and the only chance.”
“Who has?” queried the puzzled Mistress.
“Champion Lochinvar III,” was the answer. “Glure bought him by cable. Paid $7000 for him. That eclipses Untermeyer’s record price of $6500 for old Squire of Tytton. The dog arrived last week. He’s here. A big Blue Merle. You ought to look him over. He’s a wonder. He—”
“Oh!” exploded the Mistress. “You can’t mean it. You can’t! Why, it’s the most—the most hideously unsportsmanlike thing I ever heard of in my life! Do you mean to tell me Mr. Glure put up this sixteen hundred-dollar cup and then sent for the only dog that could fulfill the Trophy’s conditions? It’s unbelievable!”
“It’s Glure,” tersely replied the Superintendent. “Which perhaps comes to the same thing.”
“Yes!” spoke up the Master harshly, entering the talk for the first time, and tearing his disgusted attention from the Gold Hat. “Yes, it’s Glure, and it’s unbelievable! And it’s worse than either of those, if anything can be. Don’t you see the full rottenness of it all? Half the world is starving or sick or wounded. The other half is working its fingers off to help the Red Cross make Europe a little less like hell; and, when every cent counts in the work, this—this Wall Street Farmer spends sixteen hundred precious dollars to buy himself a Gold Hat; and he does it under the auspices of the Red Cross, in the holy name of charity. The unsportsmanlikeness of it is nothing to that. It’s—it’s an Unpardonable Sin, and I don’t want to endorse it by staying here. Let’s get Lad and go home.”
“I wish to heaven we could!” flamed the Mistress, as angry as he. “I’d do it in a minute if we were able to. I feel we’re insulting loyal old Lad by making him a party to it all. But we can’t go. Don’t you see? Mr. Glure is unsportsmanlike, but that’s no reason we should be. You’ve told me, again and again, that no true sportsman will back out of a contest just because he finds he has no chance of winning it.”
“She’s right,” chimed in the Superintendent. “You’ve entered the dog for the contest, and by all the rules he’ll have to stay in it. Lad doesn’t know the first thing about ‘working.’ Neither does the only other local entrant that the first two rules have left in the competition. And Lochinvar is perfect at every detail of sheep-work. Lad and the other can’t do anything but swell his victory. It’s rank bad luck, but—”
“All right! All right!” growled the Master. “We’ll go through with it. Does anyone know the terms of a ‘Kirkaldie Association’s Preliminaries,’ for ‘Working Sheepdog Trials?’ My own early education was neglected.”
“Glure’s education wasn’t,” said the Superintendent. “He has the full set of rules in his brand new Sportsman Library. That’s, no doubt, where he got the idea. I went to him for them this morning, and he let me copy the laws governing the preliminaries. They’re absurdly simple for a ‘working’ dog and absurdly impossible for a non-worker. Here, I’ll read them over to you.”
He fished out a folded sheet of paper and read aloud a few lines of pencil-scribblings:
“Four posts shall be set up, at ninety yards apart, at the corners of a square enclosure. A fifth post shall be set in the center. At this fifth post the owner or handler of the contestant shall stand with his dog. Nor shall such owner or handler move more than three feet from the post until his dog shall have completed the trial.
“Guided only by voice and by signs, the dog shall go alone from the center-post to the post numbered ‘1.’ He shall go thence, in the order named, to Posts 2, 3 and 4, without returning to within fifteen feet of the central post until he shall have reached Post 4.
“Speed and form shall count as seventy points in these evolutions. Thirty points shall be added to the score of the dog or dogs which shall make the prescribed tour of the posts directed wholly by signs and without the guidance of voice.”
“There,” finished the superintendent, “you see it is as simple as a kindergarten game. But a child who had never been taught could not play ‘Puss-in-the-Corner.’ I was talking to the English trainer that Glure bought along with the dog. The trainer tells me Lochinvar can go through those maneuvers and a hundred harder ones without a word being spoken. He works entirely by gestures. He watches the trainer’s hand. Where the hand points he goes. A snap of the fingers halts him. Then he looks back for the next gesture. The trainer says it’s a delight to watch him.”
“The delight is all his,” grumbled the Master. “Poor, poor Lad! He’ll get bewildered and unhappy. He’ll want to do whatever we tell him to, but he can’t understand. It was different the time he rounded up Glure’s flock of sheep—when he’d never seen a sheep before. That was ancestral instinct. A throwback. But ancestral instinct won’t teach him to go to Post 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. He—”
“Hello, people!” boomed a jarringly cordial voice. “Welcome to the Towers!”
Bearing down upon the trio was a large person, round and yellow of face and clad elaborately in a morning costume that suggested a stud-groom with ministerial tendencies. He was dressed for the Occasion. Mr. Glure was always dressed for the Occasion.
“Hello, people!” repeated the Wall Street Farmer, alternately pump-handling the totally unresponsive Mistress and Master. “I see you’ve been admiring the Maury Trophy. Magnificent, eh? Oh, Maury’s a prince, I tell you! A prince! A bit eccentric, perhaps—as you’ll have guessed by the conditions he’s put up for the cup. But a prince. A prince! We think everything of him on the Street. Have you seen my new dog? Oh, you must go and take a look at Lochinvar! I’m entering him for the Maury Trophy, you know.”
“Yes,” assented the Master dully, as Mr. Glure paused to breathe. “I know.”
He left his exultant host with some abruptness, and piloted the Mistress back to the Collie Section. There they came upon a scene of dire wrath. Disgruntled owners were loudly denouncing the Maury conditions-list, and they redoubled their plaint at sight of the two new victims of the trick.
Folk who had bathed and brushed and burnished their pets for days, in eager anticipation of a neighborhood contest, gargled in positive hatred at the glorious Merle. They read the pink slips over and over with more rage at each perusal.
One pretty girl had sat down on the edge of a bench, gathering her beloved gold-and-white collie’s head in her lap, and was crying unashamed. The Master glanced at her. Then he swore softly, and set to work helping the Mistress in the task of fluffing Lad’s glossy coat to a final soft shagginess.
Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say; but Lad realized more keenly than could a human that both his gods were wretchedly unhappy, and his great heart yearned pathetically to comfort them.
“There’s one consolation,” said a woman at work on a dog in the opposite bench, “Lochinvar’s not entered for anything except the Maury Cup. The clerk told me so.”
“Little good that will do any of us!” retorted her bench-neighbor. “In an all-specialty show, the winner of the Maury Trophy will go up for the ‘Winners Class,” and that means Lochinvar will get the cup for the ‘Best Collie,’ as well as the Maury Cup and probably the cup for ‘Best Dog of any Breed,’ too. And—”
“The Maury Cup is the first collie event on the programme,” lamented the other. “It’s slated to be called before even the Puppy and the Novice classes. Mr. Glure has—”
“Contestants for the Maury Trophy—all out!” bawled an attendant at the end of the section.
The Master unclasped the chain from Lad’s collar, snapped the light show-ring leash in its place and handed the leash to the Mistress.
“Unless you’d rather have me take him in?” he whispered. “I hate to think of your handling a loser.”
“I’d rather take Lad to defeat than any other dog to—a Gold Hat,” she answered, sturdily. “Come along, Laddie!”
The Maury contest, naturally, could not be decided in the regular show-ring. Mr. Glure had thoughtfully set aside a quadrangle of greensward for the Event—a quadrangle bounded by four white and numbered posts, and bearing a larger white post in its center.
A throng of people was already banked deep on all four sides of the enclosure when the Mistress arrived. The collie judge standing by the central post declaimed loudly the conditions of the contest. Then he asked for the first entrant.
This courtier of failure chanced to be the only other local dog besides Lad that had survived the first two clauses of the conditions. He chanced also to be the dog over which the pretty girl had been crying.
The girl’s eyes were still red through a haze of powder as she led her slender little gold-and-snow collie into the ring. She had put on a filmy white muslin dress with gold ribbons that morning with the idea of matching her dog’s coloring. She looked very sweet and dainty—and heartsore.
At the central post she glanced up hopelessly at the judge who stood beside her. The judge indicated Post No. 1 with a nod. The girl blinked at the distant post, then at her collie, after which she pointed to the post.
“Run on over there, Mac!” she pleaded. “That’s a good boy!”
The little collie wagged his tail, peered expectantly at her, and barked. But he did not stir. He had not the faintest idea what she wanted him to do, although he would have been glad to do it. Wherefore, the bark.
Presently (after several more fruitless entreaties which reduced the dog to a paroxysm of barking) she led her collie out of the enclosure, strangling her sobs as she went. And again the Master swore softly, but with much venomous ardor.
And now, at the judge’s command, the Mistress led Lad into the quadrangle and up to the central post. She was very pale, but her thoroughbred nerves were rocklike in their steadiness. She, like Lad, was of the breed that goes down fighting. Lad walked majestically beside her, his eyes dark with sorrow over his goddess’ unhappiness, which he could not at all understand and which he so longed to lighten. Hitherto, at dog shows, Lad had been the only representative of The Place to grieve.
He thrust his nose lovingly into the Mistress’ hand, as he moved along with her to the post; and he whined, under his breath.
Ranging up beside the judge, the Mistress took off Lad’s leash and collar. Stroking the dog’s up-raised head, she pointed to the No. 1 Post.
“Over there,” she bade him.
Lad looked in momentary doubt at her, and then at the post. He did not see the connection, nor know what he was expected to do. So, again he looked at the sorrowing face bent over him.
“Lad!” said the Mistress gently, pointing once more to the Post. “Go!”
Now, there was not one dog at The Place that had not known from puppy-hood the meaning of the word “Go!” coupled with the pointing of a finger. Fingers had pointed, hundreds of times, to kennels or to the open doorways or to canoe-bottoms or to car tonneaus or to whatsoever spot the dog in question was desired to betake himself. And the word “Go!” had always accompanied the motion.
Lad still did not see why he was to go where the steady finger indicated. There was nothing of interest over there; no one to attack at command. But he went.
He walked for perhaps fifty feet; then he turned and looked back.
“Go on!” called the voice that was his loved Law.
And he went on. Unquestionably, as uncomprehendingly, he went, because the Mistress told him to! Since she had brought him out before this annoying concourse of humans to show off his obedience all he could do was to obey. The knowledge of her mysterious sadness made him the more anxious to please her.
So on he went. Presently, as his progress brought him alongside a white post, he heard the Mistress call again. He wheeled and started toward her at a run. Then he halted again, almost in mid-air.
For her hand was up in front of her, palm forward, in a gesture that had meant “Stop!” from the time he had been wont to run into the house with muddy feet, as a puppy.
Lad stood, uncertain. And now the Mistress was pointing another way and calling:
“Go on! Lad! Go on!”
Confused, the dog started in the new direction. He went slowly. Once or twice he stopped and looked back in perplexity at her; but, as often, came the steady-voiced order:
“Go on! Lad! Go on!”
On plodded Lad. Vaguely, he was beginning to hate this new game played without known rules and in the presence of a crowd. Lad abominated a crowd.
But it was the Mistress’ bidding, and in her dear voice his quick hearing could read what no human could read—a hard-fought longing to cry. It thrilled the big dog, this subtle note of grief. And all he could do to ease her sorrow, apparently, was to obey this queer new whim of hers as best he might.
He had continued his unwilling march as far as another post when the welcome word of recall came—the recall that would bring him close again to his sorrowing deity. With a bound he started back to her.
But, for the second time, came that palm-forward gesture and the cry of “Stop! Go back!”
Lad paused reluctantly and stood panting. This thing was getting on his fine-strung nerves. And nervousness ever made him pant.
The Mistress pointed in still another direction, and she was calling almost beseechingly:
“Go on, Lad! Go on!”
Her pointing hand waved him ahead and, as before, he followed its guidance. Walking heavily, his brain more and more befogged, Lad obeyed. This time he did not stop to look to her for instructions. From the new vehemence of the Mistress’ gesture she had apparently been ordering him off the field in disgrace, as he had seen puppies ordered from the house. Head and tail down, he went.
But, as he passed by the third of those silly posts, she recalled him. Gleeful to know he was no longer in disgrace he galloped toward the Mistress; only to be halted again by that sharp gesture and sharper command before he had covered a fifth of the distance from the post to herself.
The Mistress was actually pointing again—more urgently than ever—and in still another direction. Now her voice had in it a quiver that even the humans could detect; a quiver that made its sweetness all but sharp.
“Go on, Lad! Go on!”
Utterly bewildered at his usually moodless Mistress’ crazy mood and spurred by the sharp reprimand in her voice Lad moved away at a crestfallen walk. Four times he stopped and looked back at her, in piteous appeal, asking forgiveness of the unknown fault for which she was ordering him away; but always he was met by the same fierce “Go on!”
And he went.
Of a sudden, from along the tight-crowded edges of the quadrangle, went up a prodigious handclapping punctuated by such foolish and ear-grating yells as “Good boy!” “Good old Laddie!” “He did it!”
And through the looser volume of sound came the Mistress’ call of:
“Laddie! Here, Lad!”
In doubt, Lad turned to face her. Hesitatingly he went toward her expecting at every step that hateful command of “Go back!”
But she did not send him back. Instead, she was running forward to meet him. And out of her face the sorrow—but not the desire to cry—had been swept away by a tremulous smile.
Down on her knees beside Lad the Mistress flung herself, and gathered his head in her arms and told him what a splendid, dear dog he was and how proud she was of him.
All Lad had done was to obey orders, as any dog of his brain and heart and home training might have obeyed them. Yet, for some unexplained reason, he had made the Mistress wildly happy. And that was enough for Lad.
Forgetful of the crowd, he licked at her caressing hands in puppylike ecstasy; then he rolled in front of her; growling ferociously and catching one of her little feet in his mighty jaws, as though to crush it. This foot-seizing game was Lad’s favorite romp with the Mistress. With no one else would he condescend to play it, and the terrible white teeth never exerted the pressure of a tenth of an ounce on the slipper they gripped.
“Laddie!” the Mistress was whispering to him, “Laddie! You did it, old friend. You did it terribly badly I suppose, and of course we’ll lose. But we’ll ‘lose right.’ We’ve made the contest. You did it!”
And now a lot of noisy and bothersome humans had invaded the quadrangle and wanted to paw him and pat him and praise him. Wherefore Lad at once got to his feet and stood aloofly disdainful of everything and everybody. He detested pawing; and, indeed, any outsider’s handling.
Through the congratulating knot of folk the Wall Street Farmer elbowed his way to the Mistress.
“Well, well!” he boomed. “I must compliment you on Lad! A really intelligent dog. I was surprised. I didn’t think any dog could make the round unless he’d been trained to it. Quite a dog! But, of course, you had to call to him a good many times. And you were signaling pretty steadily every second. Those things count heavily against you, you know. In fact, they goose-egg your chances if another entrant can go the round without so much coaching. Now my dog Lochinvar never needs the voice at all and he needs only one slight gesture for each manœuver. Still, Lad did very nicely. He—why does the sulky brute pull away when I try to pat him?”
“Perhaps,” ventured the Mistress, “perhaps he didn’t catch your name.”
Then she and the Master led Lad back to his bench where the local contingent made much of him, and where—after the manner of a high-bred dog at a Show—he drank much water and would eat nothing.
When the Mistress went again to the quadrangle, the crowd was banked thicker than ever, for Lochinvar III was about to compete for the Maury Trophy.
The Wall Street Farmer and the English trainer had delayed the Event for several minutes while they went through a strenuous dispute. As the Mistress came up she heard Glure end the argument by booming:
“I tell you that’s all rot. Why shouldn’t he ‘work’ for me just as well as he’d ‘work’ for you? I’m his Master, ain’t I?”
“No, sir,” replied the trainer, glumly. “Only his owner.”
“I’ve had him a whole week,” declared the Wall Street Farmer, “and I’ve put him through those rounds a dozen times. He knows me and he goes through it all like clockwork for me. Here! Give me his leash!”
He snatched the leather cord from the protesting trainer and, with a yank at it, started with Lochinvar toward the central post. The aristocratic Merle resented the uncalled-for tug by a flash of teeth. Then he thought better of the matter, swallowed his resentment and paced along beside his visibly proud owner.
A murmur of admiration went through the crowd at sight of Lochinvar as he moved forward. The dog was a joy to look on. Such a dog as one sees perhaps thrice in a lifetime. Such a dog for perfect beauty, as were Southport Sample, Grey Mist, Howgill Rival, Sunnybank Goldsmith or Squire of Tytton. A dog, for looks, that was the despair of all competing dogdom.
Proudly perfect in carriage, in mist-gray coat, in a hundred points—from the noble pale-eyed head to the long massy brush—Lochinvar III made people catch their breath and stare. Even the Mistress’ heart went out—though with a tinge of shame for disloyalty to Lad—at his beauty.
Arrived at the central post, the Wall Street Farmer unsnapped the leash. Then, one hand on the Merle’s head and the other holding a half-smoked cigar between two pudgy fingers, he smiled upon the tense onlookers.
This was his Moment. This was the supreme moment which had cost him nearly ten thousand dollars in all. He was due, at last, to win a trophy that would be the talk of all the sporting universe. These country-folk who had won lesser prizes from under his very nose—how they would stare, after this, at his gun-room treasures!
“Ready, Mr. Glure?” asked the Judge.
“All ready!” graciously returned the Wall Street Farmer.
Taking a pull at his thick cigar, and replacing it between the first two fingers of his right hand, he pointed majestically with the same hand to the first post.
No word of command was given; yet Lochinvar moved off at a sweeping run directly in the line laid out by his owner’s gesture.
As the Merle came alongside the post the Wall Street Farmer snapped his fingers. Instantly Lochinvar dropped to a halt and stood moveless, looking back for the next gesture.
This “next gesture” was wholly impromptu. In snapping his fingers the Wall Street Farmer had not taken sufficient account of the cigar stub he held. The snapping motion had brought the fire-end of the stub directly between his first and second fingers, close to the palm. The red coal bit deep into those two tenderest spots of all the hand.
With a reverberating snort the Wall Street Farmer dropped the cigar-butt and shook his anguished hand rapidly up and down, in the first sting of pain. The loose fingers slapped together like the strands of an obese cat-of-nine-tails.
And this was the gesture which Lochinvar beheld, as he turned to catch the signal for his next move.
Now, the frantic St. Vitus shaking of the hand and arm, accompanied by a clumsy step-dance and a mouthful of rich oaths, forms no signal known to the very cleverest of “working” collies. Neither does the inserting of two burned fingers into the signaler’s mouth—which was the second motion the Merle noted.
Ignorant as to the meaning of either of these unique signals the dog stood, puzzled. The Wall Street Farmer recovered at once from his fit of babyish emotion, and motioned his dog to go on to the next post.
The Merle did not move. Here, at last, was a signal he understood perfectly well. Yet, after the manner of the best-taught “working” dogs, he had been most rigidly trained from earliest days to finish the carrying out of one order before giving heed to another.
He had received the signal to go in one direction. He had obeyed. He had then received the familiar signal to halt and to await instructions. Again he had obeyed. Next, he had received a wildly emphatic series of signals whose meaning he could not read. A long course of training told him he must wait to have these gestures explained to him before undertaking to obey the simple signal that had followed.
This, in his training kennel, had been the rule. When a pupil did not understand an order he must stay where he was until he could be made to understand. He must not dash away to carry out a later order that might perhaps be intended for some other pupil.
Wherefore, the Merle stood stock still. The Wall Street Farmer repeated the gesture of pointing toward the next post. Inquiringly, Lochinvar watched him. The Wall Street Farmer made the gesture a third time—to no purpose other than to deepen the dog’s look of inquiry. Lochinvar was abiding, steadfastly, by his hard-learned lessons of the Scottish moorland days.
Someone in the crowd tittered. Someone else sang out delightedly:
“Lad wins!”
The Wall Street Farmer heard. And he proceeded to mislay his easily-losable self control. Again, these inferior country folk seemed about to wrest from him a prize he had deemed all his own, and to rejoice in the prospect.
“You mongrel cur!” he bellowed. “Get along there!”
This diction meant nothing to Lochinvar, except that his owner’s temper was gone—and with it his scanty authority.
Glure saw red—or he came as near to seeing it as can anyone outside a novel. He made a plunge across the quadrangle, seized the beautiful Merle by the scruff of the neck and kicked him.
Now, here was something the dog could understand with entire ease. This loud-mouthed vulgarian giant, whom he had disliked from the first, was daring to lay violent hands on him—on Champion Lochinvar III, the dog-aristocrat that had always been handled with deference and whose ugly temper had never been trained out of him.
As a growl of hot resentment went up from the onlookers, a far more murderously resentful growl went up from the depths of Lochinvar’s furry throat.
In a flash, the Merle had wrenched free from his owner’s neck-grip. And, in practically the same moment, his curved eye-teeth were burying themselves deep in the calf of the Wall Street Farmer’s leg.
Then the trainer and the judge seized on the snarlingly floundering pair. What the outraged trainer said, as he ran up, would have brought a blush to the cheek of a waterside bartender. What the judge said (in a tone of no regret, whatever) was:
“Mr. Glure, you have forfeited the match by moving more than three feet from the central post. But your dog had already lost it by refusing to ‘work’ at your command. Lad wins the Maury Trophy.”
••••••••
So it was that the Gold Hat, as well as the modest little silver “Best Collie” cup, went to The Place that night. Setting the golden monstrosity on the trophy shelf, the Master surveyed it for a moment; then said:
“That Gold Hat is even bigger than it looks. It is big enough to hold a thousand yards of surgical dressings; and gallons of medicine and broth, besides. And that’s what it is going to hold. To-morrow I’ll send it to Vanderslice, at the Red Cross Headquarters.”
“Good!” applauded the Mistress. “Oh, good! send it in Lad’s name.”
“I shall. I’ll tell Vanderslice how it was won; and I’ll ask him to have it melted down to buy hospital supplies. If that doesn’t take off its curse of unsportsmanliness, nothing will. I’ll get you something to take its place, as a trophy.”
But there was no need to redeem that promise. A week later, from Headquarters, came a tiny scarlet enamel cross, whose silver back bore the inscription:
“To SUNNYBANK LAD; in memory of a generous gift to Humanity.”
“Its face-value is probably fifty cents, Lad, dear,” commented the Mistress, as she strung the bit of scarlet on the dog’s shaggy throat. “But its heart value is at least a billion dollars. Besides—you can wear it. And nobody, outside a nightmare, could possibly have worn kind, good Mr. Hugh Lester Maury’s Gold Hat. I must write to Mr. Glure and tell him all about it. How tickled he’ll be! Won’t he, Laddie?”
••••••••