Now, this is the true tale of Lad’s last great adventure.
For more years than he could remember, Lad had been king. He had ruled at The Place, from boundary-fence to boundary-fence, from highway to Lake. He had had, as subjects, many a thoroughbred collie; and many a lesser animal and bird among the Little Folk of The Place. His rule of them all had been lofty and beneficent.
The other dogs at The Place recognized Lad’s rulership—recognized it without demur. It would no more have occurred to any of them, for example, to pass in or out through a doorway ahead of Lad than it would occur to a courtier to shoulder his way into the throne-room ahead of his sovereign. Nor would one of them intrude on the “cave” under the living-room piano which for more than a decade had been Lad’s favorite resting-place.
Great was Lad. And now he was old—very old.
He was thirteen—which is equivalent to the human age of seventy. His long, clean lines had become blurred with flesh. He was undeniably stout. When he ran fast, he rolled slightly in his stride. Nor could he run as rapidly or as long as of yore. While he was not wheezy or asthmatic, yet a brisk five-mile walk would make him strangely anxious for an hour’s rest.
He would not confess, even to himself, that age was beginning to hamper him so cruelly. And he sought to do all the things he had once done—if the Mistress or the Master were looking. But when he was alone, or with the other dogs, he spared himself every needless step. And he slept a great deal.
Withal, Lad’s was a hale old age. His spirit and his almost uncanny intelligence had not faltered. Save for the silvered muzzle—first outward sign of age in a dog—his face and head were as classically young as ever. So were the absurdly small forepaws—his one gross vanity—on which he spent hours of care each day, to keep them clean and snowy.
He would still dash out of the house as of old—with the wild trumpeting bark which he reserved as greeting to his two deities alone—when the Mistress or the Master returned home after an absence. He would still frisk excitedly around either of them at hint of a romp. But the exertion was an exertion. And despite Lad’s valiant efforts at youthfulness, everyone could see it was.
No longer did he lead the other dogs in their headlong rushes through the forest, in quest of rabbits. Since he could not now keep the pace, he let the others go on these breath-and-strength-taking excursions without him; and he contented himself with an occasional lone and stately walk through the woods where once he had led the run—strolling along in leisurely fashion, with the benign dignity of some plump and ruddy old squire inspecting his estate.
There had been many dogs at The Place during the thirteen years of Lad’s reign—dogs of all sorts and conditions, including Lad’s worshiped collie mate, the dainty gold-and-white “Lady.” But in this later day there were but three dogs beside himself.
One of them was Wolf, the only surviving son of Lad and Lady—a slender, powerful young collie, with some of his sire’s brain and much of his mother’s appealing grace—an ideal play-dog. Between Lad and Wolf there had always been a bond of warmest affection. Lad had trained this son of his and had taught him all he knew. He unbent from his lofty dignity, with Wolf, as with none of the others.
The second of the remaining dogs was Bruce (“Sunnybank Goldsmith”), tawny as Lad himself, descendant of eleven international champions and winner of many a ribbon and medal and cup. Bruce was—and is—flawless in physical perfection and in obedience and intelligence.
The third was Rex—a giant, a freak, a dog oddly out of place among a group of thoroughbreds. On his father’s side Rex was pure collie; on his mother’s, pure bull-terrier. That is an accidental blending of two breeds which cannot blend. He looked more like a fawn-colored Great Dane than anything else. He was short-haired, full two inches taller and ten pounds heavier than Lad, and had the bunch-muscled jaws of a killer.
There was not an outlander dog for two miles in either direction that Rex had not at one time or another met and vanquished. The bull-terrier strain, which blended so ill with collie blood, made its possessor a terrific fighter. He was swift as a deer, strong as a puma.
In many ways he was a lovable and affectionate pet; slavishly devoted to the Master and grievously jealous of the latter’s love for Lad. Rex was five years old—in his fullest prime—and, like the rest, he had ever taken Lad’s rulership for granted.
I have written at perhaps prosy length, introducing these characters of my war-story. The rest is action.
March, that last year, was a month of drearily recurrent snows. In the forests beyond The Place, the snow lay light and fluffy at a depth of sixteen inches.
On a snowy, blowy, bitter cold Sunday—one of those days nobody wants—Rex and Wolf elected to go rabbit-hunting.
Bruce was not in the hunt, sensibly preferring to lie in front of the living-room fire on so vile a day rather than to flounder through dust-fine drifts in search of game that was not worth chasing under such conditions. Wolf, too, was monstrous comfortable on the old fur rug by the fire, at the Mistress’ feet.
But Rex, who had waxed oddly restless of late, was bored by the indoor afternoon. The Mistress was reading; the Master was asleep. There seemed no chance that either would go for a walk or otherwise amuse their four-footed friends. The winter forests were calling. The powerful crossbred dog would find the snow a scant obstacle to his hunting. And the warmly quivering body of a new-caught rabbit was a tremendous lure.
Rex got to his feet, slouched across the living-room to Bruce and touched his nose. The drowsing collie paid no heed. Next Rex moved over to where Wolf lay. The two dogs’ noses touched.
Now, this is no Mowgili tale, but a true narrative. I do not pretend to say whether or not dogs have a language of their own. (Personally, I think they have, and a very comprehensive one, too. But I cannot prove it.) No dog-student, however, will deny that two dogs communicate their wishes to each other in some way by (or during) the swift contact of noses.
By that touch Wolf understood Rex’s hint to join in the foray. Wolf was not yet four years old—at an age when excitement still outweighs lazy comfort. Moreover, he admired and aped Rex, as much as ever the school’s littlest boy models himself on the class bully. He was up at once and ready to start.
A maid was bringing in an armful of wood from the veranda. The two dogs slipped out through the half-open door. As they went, Wolf cast a sidelong glance at Lad, who was snoozing under the piano. Lad noted the careless invitation. He also noted that Wolf did not hesitate when his father refused to join the outing but trotted gayly off in Rex’s wake.
Perhaps this defection hurt Lad’s abnormally sensitive feelings. For of old he had always led such forest-runnings. Perhaps the two dogs’ departure merely woke in him the memory of the chase’s joys and stirred a longing for the snow-clogged woods.
For a minute or two the big living-room was quiet, except for the scratch of dry snow against the panes, the slow breathing of Bruce and the turning of a page in the book the Mistress was reading. Then Lad get up heavily and walked forth from his piano-cave.
He stretched himself and crossed to the Mistress’ chair. There he sat down on the rug very close beside her and laid one of his ridiculously tiny white fore-paws in her lap. Absent-mindedly, still absorbed in her book, she put out a hand and patted the soft fur of his ruff and ears.
Often, Lad came to her or to the Master for some such caress; and, receiving it, would return to his resting-place. But to-day he was seeking to attract her notice for something much more important. It had occurred to him that it would be jolly to go with her for a tramp in the snow. And his mere presence failing to convey the hint, he began, to “talk.”
To the Mistress and the Master alone did Lad condescend to “talk”—and then only in moments of stress or appeal. No one, hearing him, at such a time, could doubt the dog was trying to frame human speech. His vocal efforts ran the gamut of the entire scale. Wordless, but decidedly eloquent, this “talking” would continue sometimes for several minutes without ceasing; its tones carried whatever emotion the old dog sought to convey—whether of joy, of grief, of request or of complaint.
To-day there was merely playful entreaty in the speechless “speech.” The Mistress looked up.
“What is it, Laddie?” she asked. “What do you want?”
For answer Lad glanced at the door, then at the Mistress; then he solemnly went out into the hall—whence presently he returned with one of her fur gloves in his mouth.
“No, no,” she laughed. “Not to-day, Lad. Not in this storm. We’ll take a good, long walk to-morrow.”
The dog sighed and returned sadly to his lair beneath the piano. But the vision of the forests was evidently hard to erase from his mind. And a little later, when the front door was open again by one of the servants, he stalked out.
The snow was driving hard, and there was a sting in it. The thermometer was little above zero; but the snow had been a familiar bedfellow, for centuries, to Lad’s Scottish forefathers; and the cold was harmless against the woven thickness of his tawny coat. Picking his way in stately fashion along the ill-broken track of the driveway, he strolled toward the woods. To humans there was nothing in the outdoor day but snow and chill and bluster and bitter loneliness. To the trained eye and the miraculous scent-power of a collie it contained a million things of dramatic interest.
Here a rabbit had crossed the trail—not with leisurely bounds or mincing hops, but stomach to earth, in flight for very life. Here, close at the terrified bunny’s heels, had darted a red fox. Yonder, where the piling snow covered a swirl of tracks, the chase had ended.
The little ridge of snow-heaped furrow, to the right, held a basketful of cowering quail—who heard Lad’s slow step and did not reckon on his flawless gift of smell. On the hemlock tree just ahead a hawk had lately torn a blue-jay asunder. A fluff of gray feathers still stuck to a bough, and the scent of blood had not been blown out of the air. Underneath, a field-mouse was plowing its way into the frozen earth, its tiny paw-scrapes wholly audible to the ears of the dog above it.
Here, through the stark and drifted undergrowth, Rex and Wolf had recently swept along in pursuit of a half-grown rabbit. Even a human eye could not have missed their partly-covered tracks; but Lad knew whose track was whose and which dog had been in the lead.
Yes, to humans, the forest would have seemed a deserted white waste. Lad knew it was thick-populated with the Little People of the woodland, and that all day and all night the seemingly empty and placid groves were a blend of battlefield, slaughter-house and restaurant. Here, as much as in the cities or in the trenches, abode strenuous life, violent death, struggle, greed and terror.
A partridge rocketed upward through a clump of evergreen, while a weasel, jaws a-quiver, glared after it, baffled. A shaggy owl crouched at a tree-limb hole and blinked sulkily about in search of prey and in hope of dusk. A crow, its black feet red with a slain snowbird’s blood, flapped clumsily overhead. A poet would have vowed that the still and white-shrouded wilderness was a shrine sacred to solitude and severe peace. Lad could have told him better. Nature (beneath the surface) is never solitary and never at peace.
When a dog is very old and very heavy and a little unwieldy, it is hard to walk through sixteen-inch snow, even if one moves slowly and sedately. Hence Lad was well pleased to come upon a narrow woodland track; made by a laborer who had passed and repassed through that same strip of forest during the last few hours. To follow in that trampled rut made walking much easier; it was a rut barely wide enough for one wayfarer.
More and more like an elderly squire patrolling his acres, Lad rambled along, and presently his ears and his nose told him that his two loving friends Rex and Wolf were coming toward him on their home-bound way. His plumy tail wagged expectantly. He was growing a bit lonely on this Sunday afternoon walk of his, and a little tired. It would be a pleasure to have company—especially Wolf’s.
Rex and Wolf had fared ill on their hunt. They had put up two rabbits. One had doubled and completely escaped them; and in the chase Rex had cut his foot nastily on a strip of unseen barbed wire. The sandlike snow had gotten into the jagged cut in a most irritating way.
The second rabbit had dived under a log. Rex had thrust his head fiercely through a snowbank in quest of the vanished prey; and a long briar-thorn, hidden there, had plunged its needle point deep into the inside of his left nostril. The inner nostril is a hundred-fold the most agonizingly sensitive part of a dog’s body, and the pain wrung a yell of rage and hurt from the big dog.
With a nostril and a foot both hurt, there was no more fun in hunting, and—angry, cross, savagely in pain—Rex loped homeward, Wolf pattering along behind him. Like Lad, they came upon the laborer’s trampled path and took advantage of the easier going.
Thus it was, at a turn in the track, that they came face to face with Lad. Wolf had already smelled him, and his brush began to quiver in welcome. Rex, his nose in anguish, could smell nothing; not until that turn did he know of Lad’s presence. He halted, sulky, and ill-tempered. The queer restlessness, the pre-springtime savagery that had obsessed him of late had been brought to a head by his hurts. He was not himself. His mind was sick.
There was not room for two large dogs to pass each other in that narrow trail. One or the other must flounder out into the deep snow to the side. Ordinarily, there would be no question about any other dog on The Place turning out for Lad. It would have been a matter of course, and so, to-day, Lad expected it to be. Onward he moved, at that same dignified walk, until he was not a yard away from Rex.
The latter, his brain fevered and his hurts torturing him, suddenly flamed into rebellion. Even as a younger buck sooner or later assails for mastery the leader of the herd, so the brain-sick Rex went back, all at once, to primal instincts, a maniac rage mastered him—the rage of the angry underlying, the primitive lust for mastery.
With not so much as a growl or warning, he launched himself upon Lad. Straight at the tired old dog’s throat he flew. Lad, all unprepared for such unheard-of mutiny, was caught clean off his guard. He had not even time enough to lower his head to protect his throat or to rear and meet his erstwhile subject’s attack halfway. At one moment he had been plodding gravely toward his two supposedly loyal friends; the next, Rex’s ninety pounds of whale-bone muscle had smitten him violently to earth, and Rex’s fearsome jaws—capable of cracking a beef-bone as a man cracks a filbert—had found a vise-grip in the soft fur of his throat.
Down amid a flurry of high-tossed snow, crashed Lad, his snarling enemy upon him, pinning him to the ground, the huge jaws tearing and rending at his ruff—the silken ruff that the Mistress daily combed with such loving care to keep it fluffy and beautiful.
It was a grip and a leverage that would have made the average opponent helpless. With a short-haired dog it would have meant the end, but the providence that gave collies a mattress of fur—to stave off the cold, in their herding work amid the snowy moors—has made that fur thickest about the lower neck.
Rex had struck in crazy rage and had not gauged his mark as truly as though he had been cooler. He had missed the jugular and found himself grinding at an enormous mouthful of matted hair—and at very little else; and Lad belonged to the breed that is never to be taken wholly by surprise and that acts by the swiftest instinct or reason known to dogdom. Even as he fell, he instinctively threw his body sideways to avoid the full jar of Rex’s impact—and gathered his feet under him.
With a heave that wrenched his every unaccustomed muscle, Lad shook off the living weight and scrambled upright. To prevent this, Rex threw his entire body forward to reinforce his throat-grip. As a result, a double handful of ruff-hair and a patch of skin came away in his jaws. And Lad was free.
He was free—to turn tail and run for his life from the unequal combat—and that his hero-heart would not let him do. He was free, also, to stand his ground and fight there in the snowbound forest until he should be slain by his younger and larger and stronger foe, and this folly his almost-human intelligence would not permit.
There was one chance and only one—one compromise alone between sanity and honor. And this chance Lad took.
He would not run. He could not save his life by fighting where he stood. His only hope was to keep his face to his enemy, battling as best he could, and all the time keep backing toward home. If he could last until he came within sight or sound of the folk at the house, he knew he would be saved. Home was a full half-mile away and the snow was almost chest-deep. Yet, on the instant, he laid out his plain of campaign and put it into action.
Rex cleared his mouth of the impeding hair and flew at Lad once more—before the old dog had fairly gotten to his feet, but not before the line of defense had been thought out. Lad half wheeled, dodging the snapping jaws by an inch and taking the impact of the charge on his left shoulder, at the same time burying his teeth in the right side of Rex’s face.
At the same time Lad gave ground, moving backward three or four yards, helped along by the impetus of his opponent. Home was a half-mile behind him, in an oblique line, and he could not turn to gauge his direction. Yet he moved in precisely the correct angle.
(Indeed, a passer-by who witnessed the fight, and the Master, who went carefully over the ground afterward, proved that at no point in the battle did Lad swerve or mistake his exact direction. Yet not once could he have been able to look around to judge it, and his foot-prints showed that not once had he turned his back on the foe.)
The hold Lad secured on Rex’s cheek was good, but it was not good enough. At thirteen, a dog’s “biting teeth” are worn short and dull, and his yellowed fangs are blunted; nor is the jaw by any means as powerful as once it was. Rex writhed and pitched in the fierce grip, and presently tore free from it and to the attack again, seeking now to lunge over the top of Lad’s lowered head to the vital spot at the nape of the neck, where sharp teeth may pierce through to the spinal cord.
Thrice Rex lunged, and thrice Lad reared on his hind legs, meeting the shock with his deep, shaggy breast, snapping arid slashing at his enemy and every time receding a few steps between charges. They had left the path now, and were plowing a course through deep snow. The snow was scant barrier to Rex’s full strength, but it terribly impeded the steadily backing Lad. Lad’s extra flesh, too, was a bad handicap; his wind was not at all what it should have been, and the unwonted exertion began to tell sharply on him.
Under the lead-hued skies and the drive of the snow the fight swirled and eddied. The great dogs reared, clashed, tore, battered against tree-trunks, lost footing and rolled, staggered up again and renewed the onslaught. Ever Lad manœuvered his way backward, waging a desperate “rear-guard action.” In the battle’s wage was an irregular but mathematically straight line of trampled and blood-spattered snow.
Oh, but it was slow going, this ever-fighting retreat of Lad’s, through the deep drifts, with his mightier foe pressing him and rending at his throat and shoulders at every backward step! The old dog’s wind was gone; his once-superb strength was going, but he fought on with blazing fury—the fury of a dying king who will not be deposed.
In sheer skill and brain-work and generalship, Lad was wholly Rex’s superior, but these served him ill in a death-grapple. With dogs, as with human pugilists, mere science and strategy avail little against superior size and strength and youth. Again and again Lad found or made an opening. Again and again his weakening jaws secured the right grip only to be shaken off with more and more ease by the younger combatant.
Again and again Lad “slashed” as do his wolf cousins and as does almost no civilized dog but the collie. But the slashes had lost their one-time lightning speed and prowess. And the blunt “rending fangs” scored only superficial furrows in Rex’s fawn-colored hide.
There was meager hope of reaching home alive. Lad must have known that. His strength was gone. It was his heart and his glorious ancestry now that were doing his fighting—not his fat and age-depleted body. From Lad’s mental vocabulary the word quit had ever been absent. Wherefore—dizzy, gasping, feebler every minute—he battled fearlessly on in the dying day; never losing his sense of direction, never turning tail, never dreaming of surrender, taking dire wounds, inflicting light ones.
There are many forms of dog-fight. Two strange dogs, meeting, will fly at each other because their wild forbears used to do so. Jealous dogs will battle even more fiercely. But the deadliest of all canine conflicts is the “murder-fight.” This is a struggle wherein one or both contestants have decided to give no quarter, where the victor will fight on until his antagonist is dead and will then tear his body to pieces. It is a recognized form of canine mania.
And it was a murder-fight that Rex was waging, for he had gone quite insane. (This is wholly different, by the way, from “going mad.”)
Down went Lad, for perhaps the tenth time, and once more—though now with an effort that was all but too much for him—he writhed to his feet, gaining three yards of ground by the move. Rex was upon him with one leap, the frothing and bloody jaws striking for his mangled throat. Lad reared to block the attack. Then suddenly, over-balanced, he crashed backward into the snowdrift.
Rex had not reached him, but young Wolf had.
Wolf had watched the battle with a growing excitement that at last had broken all bounds. The instinct, which makes a fluff-headed college-boy mix into a scrimmage that is no concern of his, had suddenly possessed Lad’s dearly loved son.
Now, if this were a fiction yarn, it would be edifying to tell how Wolf sprang to the aid of his grand old sire and how he thereby saved Lad’s life. But the shameful truth is that Wolf did nothing of the sort. Rex was his model, the bully he had so long and so enthusiastically imitated. And now Rex was fighting a most entertaining bout, fighting it with a maniac fury that infected his young disciple and made him yearn to share in the glory.
Wherefore, as Lad reared to meet Rex’s lunge, Wolf hurled himself like a furry whirlwind upon the old dog’s flank, burying his white teeth in the muscles of the lower leg.
The flank attack bowled Lad completely over. There was no chance now for such a fall as would enable him to spring up again unscathed. He was thrown heavily upon his back, and both his murderers plunged at his unguarded throat and lower body.
But a collie thrown is not a collie beaten, as perhaps I have said once before. For thirty seconds or more the three thrashed about in the snow in a growling, snarling, right unloving embrace. Then, by some miracle, Lad was on his feet again.
His throat had a new and deep wound, perilously close to the jugular. His stomach and left side were slashed as with razor-blades. But he was up. And even in that moment of dire stress—with both dogs flinging themselves upon him afresh—he gained another yard or two in his line of retreat.
He might have gained still more ground. For his assailants, leaping at the same instant, collided and impeded each other’s charge. But, for the first time the wise old brain clouded, and the hero-heart went sick; as Lad saw his own loved and spoiled son ranged against him in the murder-fray. He could not understand. Loyalty was as much a part of himself as were his sorrowful brown eyes or his tiny white forepaws. And Wolf’s amazing treachery seemed to numb the old warrior, body and mind.
But the second of dumfounded wonder passed quickly—too quickly for either of the other dogs to take advantage of it. In its place surged a righteous wrath that, for the instant, brought back youth and strength to the aged fighter.
With a yell that echoed far through the forest’s sinister silence, Lad whizzed forward at the advancing Rex. Wolf, who was nearer, struck for his father’s throat—missed and rolled in the snow from the force of his own momentum. Lad did not heed him. Straight for Rex he leaped. Rex, bounding at him, was already in midair. The two met, and under the Berserk onset Rex fell back into the snow.
Lad was upon him at once. The worn-down teeth found their goal above the jugular. Deep and raggedly they drove, impelled by the brief flash of power that upbore their owner.
Almost did that grip end the fight and leave Rex gasping out his life in the drift. But the access of false strength faded. Rex, roaring like a hurt tiger, twisted and tore himself free. Lad realizing his own bolt was shot, gave ground, backing away from two assailants instead of one.
It was easier now to retreat. For Wolf, unskilled in practical warfare, at first hindered Rex almost as much as he helped him, again and again getting in the bigger dog’s way and marring a rush. Had Wolf understood “teamwork,” Lad must have been pulled down and slaughtered in less than a minute.
But soon Wolf grasped the fact that he could do worse damage by keeping out of his ally’s way and attacking from a different quarter, and thereafter he fought to more deadly purpose. His favorite ruse was to dive for Lad’s forelegs and attempt to break one of them. That is a collie manœuver inherited direct from Wolf’s namesake ancestors.
Several times his jaws reached the slender white forelegs, cutting and slashing them and throwing Lad off his balance. Once he found a hold on the left haunch and held it until his victim shook loose by rolling.
Lad defended himself from this new foe as well as he might, by dodging or by brushing him to one side, but never once did he attack Wolf, or so much as snap at him. (Rex after the encounter, was plentifully scarred. Wolf had not so much as a scratch. )
Backward, with ever-increasing difficulty, the old dog fought his way, often borne down to earth and always staggering up more feebly than before. But ever he was warring with the same fierce courage; despite an ache and bewilderment in his honest heart at his son’s treason.
The forest lay behind the fighters. The deserted highroad was passed. Under Lad’s clawing and reeling feet was the dear ground of The Place—The Place where for thirteen happy years he had reigned as king, where he had benevolently ruled his kind and had given worshipful service to his gods.
But the house was still nearly a furlong off, and Lad was well-nigh dead. His body was one mass of wounds. His strength was turned to water. His breath was gone. His bloodshot eyes were dim. His brain was dizzy and refused its office. Loss of blood had weakened him full as much as had the tremendous exertion of the battle.
Yet—uselessly now—he continued to fight. It was a grotesquely futile resistance. The other dogs were all over him—tearing, slashing, gripping, at will—unhindered by his puny effort to fend them off. The slaughter-time had come. Drunk with blood and fury, the assailants plunged at him for the last time.
Down went Lad, helpless beneath the murderous avalanche that overwhelmed him. And this time his body flatly refused to obey the grim command of his will. The fight was over—the good, good fight of a white-souled Paladin against hopeless odds.
The living-room fire crackled cheerily. The snow hissed and slithered against the glass. A sheet of frost on every pane shut out the stormy twilit world. The screech of the wind was music to the comfortable shut-ins.
The Mistress drowsed over her book by the fire. Bruce snored snugly in front of the blaze. The Master had awakened from his nap and was in the adjoining study, sorting fishing-tackle and scouring a rusted hunting-knife.
Then came a second’s lull in the gale, and all at once Bruce was wide awake. Growling, he ran to the front door and scratched imperatively at the panel. This is not the way a well-bred dog makes known his desire to leave the house. And Bruce was decidedly a well-bred dog.
The Mistress, thinking some guest might be arriving whose scent or tread displeased the collie, called to the Master to shut Bruce in the study, lest he insult the supposed visitor by barking. Reluctantly—very reluctantly—Bruce obeyed the order. The Master shut the study door behind him and came into the living-room, still carrying the half-cleaned knife.
As no summons at bell or knocker followed Bruce’s announcement, the Mistress opened the front door and looked out. The dusk was falling, but it was not too dark for her to have seen the approach of anyone, nor was it too dark for the Mistress to see two dogs tearing at something that lay hidden from her view in the deep snow a hundred yards away. She recognized Rex and Wolf at once and amusedly wondered with what they were playing.
Then from the depth of snow beneath them she saw a feeble head rear itself—a glorious head, though torn and bleeding—a head that waveringly lunged toward Rex’s throat.
“They’re—they’re killing—Lad!” she cried in stark, unbelieving horror. Forgetful of thin dress and thinner slippers, she ran toward the trio. Halfway to the battlefield the Master passed by her, running and lurching through the knee-high snow at something like record speed.
She heard his shout. And at sound of it she saw Wolf slink away from the slaughter like a scared schoolboy. But Rex was too far gone in murder-lust to heed the shout. The Master seized him by the studded collar and tossed him ten feet or more to one side. Rage-blind, Rex came flying back to the kill. The Master stood astride his prey, and in his blind mania the cross-breed sprang at the man.
The Master’s hunting-knife caught him squarely behind the left fore-leg. And with a grunt like the sound of an exhausted soda-siphon, the huge dog passed out of this story and out of life as well.
There would be ample time, later, for the Master to mourn his enforced slaying of the pet dog that had loved and served him so long. At present he had eyes only for the torn and senseless body of Lad lying huddled in the red-blotched snow.
In his arms he lifted Lad and carried him tenderly into the house. There the Mistress’ light fingers dressed his hideous injuries. Not less than thirty-six deep wounds scored the worn-out old body. Several of these were past the skill of home treatment.
A grumbling veterinary was summoned on the telephone and was lured by pledge of a triple fee to chug through ten miles of storm in a balky car to the rescue.
Lad was lying with his head in the Mistress’ lap. The vet’ looked the unconscious dog over and then said tersely:
“I wish I’d stayed at home. He’s as good as dead.”
“He’s a million times better than dead,” denied the Master. “I know Lad. You don’t. He’s got into the habit of living, and he’s not going to break that habit, not if the best nursing and surgery in the State can keep him from doing it. Get busy!”
“There’s nothing to keep me here,” objected the vet’. “He’s—”
“There’s everything to keep you here,” gently contradicted the Master. “You’ll stay here till Lad’s out of danger—if I have to steal your trousers and your car. You’re going to cure him. And if you do, you can write your bill on a Liberty Bond.”
Two hours later Lad opened his eyes. He was swathed in smelly bandages and he was soaked in liniments. Patches of hair had been shaved away from his worst wounds. Digitalis was reinforcing his faint heart-action.
He looked up at the Mistress with his only available eye. By a herculean struggle he wagged his tail—just once. And he essayed the trumpeting bark wherewith he always welcomed her return after an absence. The bark was a total failure.
After which Lad tried to tell the Mistress the story of the battle. Very weakly, but very persistently he “talked.” His tones dropped now and then to the shadow of a ferocious growl as he related his exploits and then scaled again to a puppy-like whimper.
He had done a grand day’s work, had Lad, and he wanted applause. He had suffered much and he was still in racking pain, and he wanted sympathy and petting. Presently he fell asleep.
••••••••
It was two weeks before Lad could stand upright, and two more before he could go out of doors unhelped. Then on a warm, early spring morning, the vet’ declared him out of all danger.
Very thin was the invalid, very shaky, snow-white of muzzle and with the air of an old, old man whose too-fragile body is sustained only by a regal dignity. But he was alive.
Slowly he marched from his piano cave toward the open front door. Wolf—in black disgrace for the past month—chanced to be crossing the living-room toward the veranda at the same time. The two dogs reached the door-way simultaneously.
Very respectfully, almost cringingly, Wolf stood aside for Lad to pass out.
His sire walked by with never a look. But his step was all at once stronger and springier, and he held his splendid head high.
For Lad knew he was still king!