Lad: A Dog Part 19

At every step they peered fearfully around them for what they dreaded to see--the mangled body of some slain sheep. But they saw none. And they followed the trail.

In a quarter mile they came to its end.

All four flashlights played simultaneously upon a tiny hillock that rose from the meadow at the forest edge. The hillock was usually green. Now it was white.

Around its short slopes was huddled a flock of sheep, as close-ringed as though by a fence. At the hillock's summit sat Lad. He was sitting there in a queer att.i.tude, one of his snowy forepaws pinning something to the ground--something that could not be clearly distinguished through the huddle but which, evidently, was no sheep.

The Wall Street Farmer broke the tense silence with a gobbled exclamation.

"Whisht!" half reverently interrupted the shepherd, who had been circling the hillock on census duty. "There's na a sheep gone, nor--so far's I can see--a sheep hurted. The fu' twenty is there."

The Master's flashlight found a gap through which its rays could reach the hillock crest. The light revealed, under Lad's gently pinioning forepaw, the crouching and badly scared Melisande--the $1100 Prussian sheep dog.

McGullicuddy, with a grunt, was off on another and longer tour of inspection. Presently he came back. He was breathing hard.

Even before McGillicuddy made his report the Master had guessed at the main points of the mystery's solution.

Melisande, weary of captivity, had gnawed through her leash. Seeking sport, she had gone to the paddock. There she had easily worried loose the crazy gate latch. Just as she was wriggling through, Lad appeared from the veranda.

He had tried to drive back the would-be killer from her prey. Lad was a veteran of several battles. But, apart from her s.e.x, Melisande was no opponent for him. And he had treated her accordingly. Melisande had snapped at him, cutting him deeply in the underjaw. During the scrimmage the panic-urged sheep had bolted out of the paddock and had scattered.

Remember, please, that Lad, ten hours earlier, had never in his life seen a sheep. But remember, too, that a million of his ancestors had won their right to a livelihood by their almost supernatural skill at herding flocks. Let this explain what actually happened--the throwback of a great collie's instinct.

Driving the scared and subdued Melisande before him--and ever hampered by her unwelcome presence--Lad proceeded to round up the scattered sheep. He was in the midst of the process when the Master called him. Merely galloping back for an instant, and finding the summons was not repeated, he returned to his atavistic task.

In less than five minutes the twenty scampering runaways were "ringed"

on the hillock. And, still keeping the Prussian sheep dog out of mischief, Lad established himself in the ring's center.

Further than that, and the keeping of the ring intact, his primal instincts did not serve him. Having rounded up his flock Lad had not the remotest idea what to do with them. So he merely held them there until the noisily gabbling humans should decide to take the matter out of his care.

McGillicuddy examined every sheep separately and found not a scratch or a stain on any of them. Then he told in effect what has here been set down as to Lad's exploit.

As he finished his recital McGillicuddy looked shamefacedly around him as though gathering courage for an irksome task. A sickly yellow dawn was crawling over the eastern mountains, throwing a ghostly glow on the shepherd's dour and craggy visage. Drawing a long breath of resolve he advanced upon Lad. Dropping on one knee, his eyes on a level with the unconcernedly observant collie's, McGillicuddy intoned:

"Laddie, ye're a braw, braw dog. Ou, a canny dog! A sonsie dog, Laddie! I hae na met yer match this side o' Kirkcaldy Brae. Gin ye'll tak' an auld fule's apology for wrangin' ye, an' an auld fule's hand in gude fellowship, 'twill pleasure me, Laddie. Winna ye let bygones be bygones, an' shake?"

Yes, the speech was ridiculous, but no one felt like laughing, not even the Wall Street Farmer. The shepherd was gravely sincere and he knew that Lad would understand his burring words.

And Lad did understand. Solemnly he sat up. Solemnly he laid one white forepaw in the gnarled palm the kneeling shepherd outstretched to him. His eyes glinted in wise friendliness as they met the admiring gaze of the old man. Two born shepherds were face to face. Deep was calling unto deep.

Presently McGillicuddy broke the spell by rising abruptly to his feet. Gruffly he turned to the Master.

"There's na wit, sir," he growled, "in speirin' will ye sell him. But--but I compliment ye on him, nanetheless."

"That's right; McGillicuddy's right!" boomed the Wall Street Farmer, catching but part of his shepherd's mumbled words. "Good idea! He is a fine dog. I see that now. I was prejudiced. I freely admit it. A remarkable dog. What'll you take for him? Or--better yet, how would you like to swap, even, for Melisande?"

The Master's mouth again flew ajar, and many sizzling words jostled each other in his throat. Before any of these could shame his hospitality by escaping, the Mistress hurriedly interposed:

"Dear, we left all the house doors wide open. Would you mind hurrying back ahead of us and seeing that everything is safe? And--will you take Lad with you?"

CHAPTER VIII

THE GOLD HAT

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 t.i.tle 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 gla.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s--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."