The result on Knave's activities was much the same as is obtained by sitting on the head of a kicking horse that has fallen. Unable to wrench loose, helpless to counter, in keen agony from the pinching of the tender throat-skin beneath the masses of ruff, Knave lost his nerve. And he forthwith justified those yellowish streaks in his mouth-roof whereof the baggage-man had spoken.
He made the air vibrate with his abject howls of pain and fear. He was caught. He could not get[Pg 24] away. Lad was hurting him horribly. Wherefore he ki-yi-ed as might any gutter cur whose tail is stepped upon.
Presently, beyond the fight haze, Lad saw a shadow in front of him--a shadow that resolved itself in the settling dust, as the Master.
And Lad came to himself.
He loosed his hold on Knave's throat, and stood up, groggily. Knave, still yelping, tucked his tail between his legs and fled for his
life--out of The Place, out of your story.
Slowly, stumblingly, but without a waver of hesitation, Lad went up to the Master. He was gasping for breath, and he was weak from fearful exertion and from loss of blood. Up to the Master he went--straight up to him.
And not until he was a scant two yards away did he see that the Master held something in his hand--that abominable, mischief-mak- ing eagle's head, which he had just picked up! Probably the dog-whip was in the other hand. It did not matter much. Lad was ready for this final degradation. He would not try to dodge it, he the double breaker of laws.
Then--the Master was kneeling beside him. The kind hand was caressing the dog's dizzy head, the dear voice--a queer break in it--
was saying remorsefully:
"Oh Lad! Laddie! I'm so sorry. So sorry![Pg 25] You're--you're more of a man than I am, old friend. I'll make it up to you, somehow!"
And now besides the loved hand, there was another touch, even more precious--a warmly caressing little pink tongue that licked his bleeding foreleg.
Lady--timidly, adoringly--was trying to stanch her hero's wounds.
"Lady, I apologize to you too," went on the foolish Master. "I'm sorry, girl."
Lady was too busy soothing the hurts of her newly discovered mate to understand. But Lad understood. Lad always understood.
[Pg 26]
9
CHAPTER II "QUIET"
To Lad the real world was bounded by The Place. Outside, there were a certain number of miles of land and there were an uncertain number of people. But the miles were uninspiring, except for a cross-country tramp with the Master. And the people were fool-
ish and strange folk who either stared at him--which always annoyed Lad--or else tried to pat him; which he hated. But The Place was--The Place.
Always, he had lived on The Place. He felt he owned it. It was assuredly his to enjoy, to guard, to patrol from high road to lake. It was his world.
The denizens of every world must have at least one deity to worship. Lad had one: the Master. Indeed, he had two: the Master and the Mistress. And because the dog was strong of soul and chivalric, withal, and because the Mistress was altogether lovable, Lad placed her altar even above the Master's. Which was wholly as it should have been.
There were other people at The Place--people to whom a dog must be courteous, as becomes a[Pg 27] thoroughbred, and whose caresses he must accept. Very often, there were guests, too. And from puppyhood, Lad had been taught the sacredness of the Guest Law. Civilly, he would endure the pettings of these visiting outlanders. Gravely, he would shake hands with them, on request. He would even permit them to paw him or haul him about, if they were of the obnoxious, dog-mauling breed. But the moment polite-ness would permit, he always withdrew, very quietly, from their reach and, if possible, from their sight as well.
Of all the dogs on The Place, big Lad alone had free run of the house, by day and by night.
He slept in a "cave" under the piano. He even had access to the sacred dining-room, at mealtimes--where always he lay to the left of the Master's chair.
With the Master, he would willingly unbend for a romp at any or all times. At the Mistress' behest he would play with all the silly abandon of a puppy; rolling on the ground at her feet, making as though to seize and crush one of her little shoes in his mighty jaws; wriggling and waving his legs in air when she buried her hand in the masses of his chest-ruff; and otherwise comporting himself
with complete loss of dignity.
But to all except these two, he was calmly unapproachable. From his earliest days he had never forgotten he was an aristocrat among inferiors. And, calmly aloof, he moved among his subjects.
[Pg 28]
Then, all at once, into the sweet routine of the House of Peace, came Horror.
It began on a blustery, sour October day. The Mistress had crossed the lake to the village, in her canoe, with Lad curled up in a furry heap in the prow. On the return trip, about fifty yards from shore, the canoe struck sharply and obliquely against a half-submerged log that a Fall freshet had swept down from the river above the lake. At the same moment a flaw of wind caught the canoe's quarter. And, after the manner of such eccentric craft, the canvas shell proceeded to turn turtle.
Into the ice-chill waters splashed its two occupants. Lad bobbed to the top, and glanced around at the Mistress to learn if this were a new practical joke. But, instantly, he saw it was no joke at all, so far as she was concerned.
Swathed and cramped by the folds of her heavy outing skirt, the Mistress was making no progress shoreward. And the dog flung himself through the water toward her with a rush that left his shoulders and half his back above the surface. In a second he had reached her and had caught her sweater-shoulder in his teeth.
She had the presence of mind to lie out straight, as though she were floating, and to fill her lungs with a swift intake of breath.
The dog's burden was thus made infinitely lighter than if she had struggled or had lain in a posture less easy for[Pg 29] towing. Yet he made scant headway, until she wound one hand in his mane, and, still lying motionless and stiff, bade him loose his hold on her shoulder.
In this way, by sustained effort that wrenched every giant muscle in the collie's body, they came at last to land.
10
Vastly rejoiced was Lad, and inordinately proud of himself. And the plaudits of the Master and the Mistress were music to him. Indefinably, he understood he had done a very wonderful thing and that everybody on The Place was talking about him, and that all were trying to pet him at once.
This promiscuous handling he began to find unwelcome. And he retired at last to his "cave" under the piano to escape from it. Matters soon quieted down; and the incident seemed at an end.
Instead, it had just begun.
For, within an hour, the Mistress--who, for days had been half-sick with a cold--was stricken with a chill, and by night she was in
the first stages of pneumonia.
Then over The Place descended Gloom. A gloom Lad could not understand until he went upstairs at dinner-time to escort the Mistress, as usual, to the dining-room. But to his light scratch at her door there was no reply. He scratched again and presently Master came out of the room and ordered him downstairs again.
Then from the Master's voice and look, Lad[Pg 30] understood that something was terribly amiss. Also, as she did not appear at dinner and as he was for the first time in his life forbidden to go into her room, he knew the Mistress was the victim of whatever mishap had befallen.
A strange man, with a black bag, came to the house early in the evening; and he and the Master were closeted for an interminable time in the Mistress' room. Lad had crept dejectedly upstairs behind them; and sought to crowd into the room at their heels. The Master ordered him back and shut the door in his face.