Lad: A Dog Part 13

"But," expostulated the scandalized collie man, "if you withdraw your dog like that, the a.s.sociation will never allow you to exhibit him at its shows again."

"The a.s.sociation can have a pretty silver cup," retorted the Mistress, "to console it for losing Lad. As for exhibiting him again--well, I wouldn't lose these two ribbons for a hundred dollars, but I wouldn't put my worst enemy's dog to the torture of winning them over again--for a thousand. Come along, Lad, we're going back home."

At the talisman-word, Lad broke silence for the first time in all that vilely wretched day. He broke it with a series of thunderously trumpeting barks that quite put to shame the puny noise-making efforts of every other dog in the show.

CHAPTER VI

LOST!

Four of us were discussing abstract themes, idly, as men will, after a good dinner and in front of a country-house fire. Someone asked:

"What is the saddest sight in everyday life? I don't mean the most gloomily tragic, but the saddest?"

A frivolous member of the fireside group cited a helpless man between two quarreling women. A sentimentalist said:

"A lost child in a city street."

The Dog-Master contradicted:

"A lost _dog_ in a city street."

n.o.body agreed with him of course; but that was because none of the others chanced to know dogs--to know their psychology--their souls, if you prefer. The dog-man was right. A lost dog in a city street is the very saddest and most hopeless sight in all a city street's abounding everyday sadness.

A man between two quarreling women is an object piteous enough, heaven knows. Yet his plight verges too much on the grotesque to be called sad.

A lost child?--No. Let a child stand in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and begin to cry. In one minute fifty amateur and professional rescuers have flocked to the Lost One's aid. An hour, at most, suffices to bring it in touch with its frenzied guardians.

A lost dog?--Yes. No succoring cohort surges to the relief. A gang of boys, perhaps, may give chase, but a.s.suredly not in kindness. A policeman seeking a record for "mad dog" shooting--a professional dog-catcher in quest of his dirty fee--these will show marked attention to the wanderer. But, again, not in kindness.

A dog, at some turn in the street, misses his master--doubles back to where the human demiG.o.d was last seen--darts ahead once more to find him, through the press of other human folk--halts, hesitates, begins the same maneuvers all over again; then stands, shaking in panic at his utter aloneness.

Get the look in his eyes, then--you who do not mind seeing such things--and answer, honestly: Is there anything sadder on earth? All this, before the pursuit of boys and the fever of thirst and the final knowledge of desolation have turned him from a handsome and prideful pet into a slinking outcast.

Yes, a lost dog is the saddest thing that can meet the gaze of a man or woman who understands dogs. As perhaps my story may help to show--or perhaps not.

Lad had been brushed and bathed, daily, for a week, until his mahogany-and-snow coat shone. All this, at The Place, far up in the North Jersey hinterland and all to make him presentable for the Westminster Kennel Show at New York's Madison Square Garden. After which, his two G.o.ds, the Mistress and the Master took him for a thirty-mile ride in The Place's only car, one morning.

The drive began at The Place--the domain where Lad had ruled as King among the lesser folk for so many years. It ended at Madison Square Garden, where the annual four-day dog show was in progress.

You have read how Lad fared at that show--how, at the close of the first day, when he had two victories to his credit, the Mistress had taken pity on his misery and had decreed that he should be taken home, without waiting out the remaining three days of torture-ordeal.

The Master went out first, to get the car and bring it around to the side exit of the Garden. The Mistress gathered up Lad's belongings--his brush, his dog biscuits, etc., and followed, with Lad himself.

Out of the huge building, with its reverberating barks and yells from two thousand canine throats, she went. Lad paced, happy and majestic, at her side. He knew he was going home, and the unhappiness of the hideous day dropped from him.

At the exit, the Mistress was forced to leave a deposit of five dollars, "to insure the return of the dog to his bench" (to which bench of agony she vowed, secretly, Lad should never return). Then she was told the law demands that all dogs in New York City streets shall be muzzled.

In vain she explained that Lad would be in the streets only for such brief time as the car would require to journey to the One Hundred and Thirtieth Street ferry. The door attendant insisted that the law was inexorable. So, lest a policeman hold up the car for such disobedience to the city statutes, the Mistress reluctantly bought a muzzle.

It was a big, awkward thing, made of steel, and bound on with leather straps. It looked like a rat-trap. And it fenced in the nose and mouth of its owner with a wicked criss-cross of shiny metal bars.

Never in all his years had Lad worn a muzzle. Never, until to-day, had he been chained. The splendid eighty-pound collie had been as free of The Place and of the forests as any human; and with no worse restrictions than his own soul and conscience put upon him.

To him this muzzle was a horror. Not even the loved touch of the Mistress' dear fingers, as she adjusted the thing to his beautiful head, could lessen the degradation. And the discomfort of it--a discomfort that amounted to actual pain--was almost as bad as the humiliation.

With his absurdly tiny white forepaws, the huge dog sought to dislodge the torture-implement. He strove to rub it off against the Mistress'

skirt. But beyond shifting it so that the forehead strap covered one of his eyes, he could not budge it.

Lad looked up at the Mistress in wretched appeal. His look held no resentment, nothing but sad entreaty. She was his deity. All his life she had given him of her gentleness, her affection, her sweet understanding. Yet, to-day, she had brought him to this abode of noisy torment, and had kept him there from morning to dusk. And now--just as the vigil seemed ended--she was tormenting him, to nerve-rack, by this contraption she had fastened over his nose. Lad did not rebel. But he besought. And the Mistress understood.

"Laddie, dear!" she whispered, as she led him across the sidewalk to the curb where the Master waited for the car. "Laddie, old friend, I'm just as sorry about it as you are. But it's only for a few minutes. Just as soon as we get to the ferry, we'll take it off and throw it into the river. And we'll never bring you again where dogs have to wear such things. I promise. It's only for a few minutes."

The Mistress, for once, was mistaken. Lad was to wear the accursed muzzle for much, _much_ longer than "a few minutes."

"Give him the back seat to himself, and come in front here with me,"

suggested the Master, as the Mistress and Lad arrived alongside the car. "The poor old chap has been so cramped up and pestered all day that he'll like to have a whole seat to stretch out on."

Accordingly, the Mistress opened the door and motioned Lad to the back seat. At a bound the collie was on the cushion, and proceeded to curl up thereon. The Mistress got into the front seat with the Master. The car set forth on its six-mile run to the ferry.

Now that his face was turned homeward, Lad might have found vast interest in his new surroundings, had not the horrible muzzle absorbed all his powers of emotion. The Milan Cathedral, the Taj Mahal, the Valley of the Arno at sunset--these be sights to dream of for years. But show them to a man who has an ulcerated tooth, or whose tight, new shoes pinch his soft corn, and he will probably regard them as Lad just then viewed the twilight New York streets.

He was a dog of forest and lake and hill, this giant collie with his mighty shoulders and tiny white feet and s.h.a.ggy burnished coat and mournful eyes. Never before had he been in a city. The myriad blended noises confused and deafened him. The myriad blended smells a.s.sailed his keen nostrils. The swirl of countless multicolored lights stung and blurred his vision. Noises, smells and lights were all jarringly new to him. So were the jostling ma.s.ses of people on the sidewalk and the tangle and hustle of vehicular traffic through which the Master was threading the car's way with such difficulty.

But, newest and most sickening of all the day's novelties was the muzzle.

Lad was quite certain the Mistress did not realize how the muzzle was hurting him nor how he detested it. In all her dealings with him--or with anyone or anything else--the Mistress had never been unkind; and most a.s.suredly not cruel. It must be she did not understand. At all events, she had not scolded or forbidden, when he had tried to rub the muzzle off. So the wearing of this new torture was apparently no part of the Law. And Lad felt justified in striving again to remove it.

In vain he pawed the thing, first with one foot, then with both. He could joggle it from side to side, but that was all. And each shift of the steel bars hurt his tender nose and tenderer sensibilities worse than the one before. He tried to rub it off against the seat cushion--with the same distressing result.

Lad looked up at the backs of his G.o.ds, and whined very softly. The sound went unheard, in the babel of noise all around him. Nor did the Mistress, or the Master turn around, on general principles, to speak a word of cheer to the sufferer. They were in a mixup of crossways traffic that called for every atom of their attention, if they were to avoid collision. It was no time for conversation or for dog-patting.

Lad got to his feet and stood, uncertainly, on the slippery leather cushion, seeking to maintain his balance, while he rubbed a corner of the muzzle against one of the supports of the car's lowered top.

Working away with all his might, he sought to get leverage that would pry loose the muzzle.

Just then there was a brief gap in the traffic. The Master put on speed, and, darting ahead of a delivery truck, sharply rounded the corner into a side street.

The car's sudden twist threw Lad clean off his precarious balance on the seat, and hurled him against one of the rear doors.

The door, insecurely shut, could not withstand the eighty-pound impact. It burst open. And Lad was flung out onto the greasy asphalt of the avenue.

He landed full on his side, in the muck of the roadway, with a force that shook the breath clean out of him. Directly above his head glared the twin lights of the delivery truck the Master had just shot past. The truck was going at a good twelve miles an hour. And the dog had fallen within six feet of its fat front wheels.