To Lad, on the lower floor of the house, where every window was shut, the aid of scent was denied. Yet his sense of hearing was enough. Plainly, he heard the softly advancing steps--heard and read them. He read them for an intruder's--read them for the steps of a man who was afraid to be heard or seen, and who was employing all the caution in his power.
A booming, trumpeting bark of warning sprang into Lad's throat--and died there. The sharp command "Quiet!" was still in force. Even in his madness, that day, he had uttered no sound. He strangled back the tumultuous bark and listened in silence. He had risen to his feet and had come out from under the piano. In the middle of the living-room he stood, head lowered, ears pricked. His ruff was abristle. A ridge of hair rose grotesquely from the shaggy mass of coat along his spine. His lips had slipped back from his teeth. And so he stood and waited.
The shuffling, soft steps were nearer now. Down through the trees they came, and then onto the springy grass of the lawn. Now
they crunched lightly on the gravel of the drive. Lad moved forward a little and again stood at attention.
The man was climbing to the veranda. The vines rustled ever so slightly as he brushed past them. His footfall sounded lightly on the veranda itself.
[Pg 44]
Next there was a faint clicking noise at the old-fashioned lock of one of the bay windows. Presently, by half inches, the window began to rise. Before it had risen an inch, Lad knew the trespasser was a negro. Also that it was no one with whose scent he was familiar.
Another pause, followed by the very faintest scratching, as the negro ran a knife-blade along the crack of the inner wooden blinds in search of the catch.
The blinds parted slowly. Over the window-sill the man threw a leg. Then he stepped down, noiselessly into the room. He stood there a second, evidently listening.
And, before he could stir or breathe, something in the darkness hurled itself upon him.
Without so much as a growl of warning, eighty pounds of muscular, hairy energy smote the negro full in the chest. A set of hot-breathing jaws flashed for his jugular vein, missed it by a half-inch, and the graze left a red-hot searing pain along the negro's throat. In the merest fraction of a moment, the murderously snapping jaws sank into the thief 's shoulder. It is collie custom to fight with a
15
running accompaniment of snarling growls. But Lad did not give voice. In total silence he made his onslaught. In silence, he sought and gained his hold.
The negro was less considerate of the Mistress' comfort. With a screech that would have waked[Pg 45] every mummy in Egypt, he reeled back, under that first unseen impact, lost his balance and crashed to the hardwood floor, overturning a table and a lamp in his fall. Certain that a devil had attacked him there in the black darkness, the man gave forth yell after yell of mortal terror. Frantically, he strove to push away his assailant and his clammy hand encountered a mass of fur.
The negro had heard that all the dogs on The Place had been sent away because of the Mistress' illness. Hence his attempt at burglary. Hence also, his panic fear when Lad had sprung on him.
But with the feel of the thick warm fur, the man's superstitious terror died. He knew he had roused the house; but there was still time to escape if he could rid himself of this silent, terrible creature. He staggered to his feet. And, with the knife he still clutched, he smote viciously at his assailant.
Because Lad was a collie, Lad was not killed then and there. A bulldog or a bull-terrier, attacking a man, seeks for some convenient hold. Having secured that hold--be it good or bad--he locks his jaws and hangs on. You can well-nigh cut his head from his body before he will let go. Thus, he is at the mercy of any armed man who can keep cool long enough to kill him.
But a collie has a strain of wolf in his queer brain. He seeks a hold, it is true. But at an instant's notice, he is ready to shift that hold for a[Pg 46] better. He may bite or slash a dozen times in as many seconds and in as many parts of the body. He is everywhere at once--he is nowhere in particular. He is not a pleasant opponent.
Lad did not wait for the negro's knife to find his heart. As the man lunged, the dog transferred his profitless shoulderhold to a grip on the stabbing arm. The knife blade plowed an ugly furrow along his side. And the dog's curved eye-tooth slashed the negro's arm from elbow to wrist, clean through to the bone.
The knife clattered to the floor. The negro wheeled and made a leap for the open window; he had not cleared half the space when Lad bounded for the back of his neck. The dog's upper set of teeth raked the man's hard skull, carrying away a handful of wool and flesh; and his weight threw the thief forward on hands and knees again. Twisting, the man found the dog's furry throat; and with both hands sought to strangle him; at the same time backing out through the window. But it is not easy to strangle a collie. The piles of tumbled ruff-hair form a protection no other breed of dog can boast. Scarcely had the hands found their grip when one of them was crushed between the dog's viselike jaws.
The negro flung off his enemy and turned to clear the veranda at a single jump. But before he had half made the turn, Lad was at his throat again, and the two crashed through the vines to[Pg 47]gether and down onto the driveway below. The entire combat had not lasted for more than thirty seconds.
The Master, pistol and flashlight in hand, ran down to find the living-room amuck with blood and with smashed furniture, and one of the windows open. He flashed the electric ray through the window. On the ground below, stunned by striking against a stone jardiniere in his fall, the negro sprawled senseless upon his back. Above him was Lad, his searching teeth at last having found their coveted throat-hold. Steadily, the great dog was grinding his way through toward the jugular.
There was a deal of noise and excitement and light after that. The negro was trussed up and the local constable was summoned by telephone. Everybody seemed to be doing much loud talking.
Lad took advantage of the turmoil to slip back into the house and to his "cave" under the piano; where he proceeded to lick solici-
tously the flesh wound on his left side.
He was very tired; and he was very unhappy and he was very much worried. In spite of all his own precautions as to silence, the negro had made a most ungodly lot of noise. The commandment "Quiet!" had been fractured past repair. And, somehow, Lad felt blame for it all. It was really his fault--and he realized it now--that the man had made such a racket. Would the Master punish[Pg
48] him? Perhaps. Humans have such odd ideas of Justice. He----
Then it was that the Master found him; and called him forth from his place of refuge. Head adroop, tail low, Lad crept out to meet his scolding. He looked very much like a puppy caught tearing a new rug.
But suddenly, the Master and everyone else in the room was patting him and telling him how splendid he was. And the Master had
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found the deep scratch on his side and was dressing it, and stopping every minute or so, to praise him again. And then, as a crowning reward, he was taken upstairs for the Mistress to stroke and make much of.
When at last he was sent downstairs again, Lad did not return to his piano-lair. Instead, he went out-of-doors and away from The
Place. And, when he thought he was far enough from the house, he solemnly sat down and began to bark.
It was good--passing good--to be able to make a noise again. He had never before known how needful to canine happiness a bark really is. He had long and pressing arrears of barks in his system. And thunderously he proceeded to divest himself of them for nearly half an hour.
Then, feeling much, much better, he ambled homeward, to take up normal life again after a whole fortnight of martyrdom. [Pg 49]
CHAPTER III
A MIRACLE OF TWO
The connecting points between the inner