Lad: A Dog Part 23

In doubt, Lad turned to face her. Hesitatingly he went toward her expecting at every step that hateful command of "Go _back!_"

But she did not send him back. Instead, she was running forward to meet him. And out of her face the sorrow--but not the desire to cry--had been swept away by a tremulous smile.

Down on her knees beside Lad the Mistress flung herself, and gathered his head in her arms and told him what a splendid, dear dog he was and how proud she was of him.

All Lad had done was to obey orders, as any dog of his brain and heart and home training might have obeyed them. Yet, for some unexplained reason, he had made the Mistress wildly happy. And that was enough for Lad.

Forgetful of the crowd, he licked at her caressing hands in puppylike ecstasy; then he rolled in front of her; growling ferociously and catching one of her little feet in his mighty jaws, as though to crush it. This foot-seizing game was Lad's favorite romp with the Mistress. With no one else would he condescend to play it, and the terrible white teeth never exerted the pressure of a tenth of an ounce on the slipper they gripped.

"Laddie!" the Mistress was whispering to him, "_Laddie!_ You did it, old friend. You did it terribly badly I suppose, and of course we'll lose. But we'll 'lose right.' We've made the contest. You _did_ it!"

And now a lot of noisy and bothersome humans had invaded the quadrangle and wanted to paw him and pat him and praise him. Wherefore Lad at once got to his feet and stood aloofly disdainful of everything and everybody. He detested pawing; and, indeed, any outsider's handling.

Through the congratulating knot of folk the Wall Street Farmer elbowed his way to the Mistress.

"Well, well!" he boomed. "I must compliment you on Lad! A really intelligent dog. I was surprised. I didn't think any dog could make the round unless he'd been trained to it. Quite a dog! But, of course, you had to call to him a good many times. And you were signaling pretty steadily every second. Those things count heavily against you, you know. In fact, they goose-egg your chances if another entrant can go the round without so much coaching. Now my dog Lochinvar never needs the voice at all and he needs only one slight gesture for each manoeuver. Still, Lad did very nicely. He--why does the sulky brute pull away when I try to pat him?"

"Perhaps," ventured the Mistress, "perhaps he didn't catch your name."

Then she and the Master led Lad back to his bench where the local contingent made much of him, and where--after the manner of a high-bred dog at a Show--he drank much water and would eat nothing.

When the Mistress went again to the quadrangle, the crowd was banked thicker than ever, for Lochinvar III was about to compete for the Maury Trophy.

The Wall Street Farmer and the English trainer had delayed the Event for several minutes while they went through a strenuous dispute. As the Mistress came up she heard Glure end the argument by booming:

"I tell you that's all rot. Why shouldn't he 'work' for me just as well as he'd 'work' for you? I'm his Master, ain't I?"

"No, sir," replied the trainer, glumly. "Only his _owner_."

"I've had him a whole week," declared the Wall Street Farmer, "and I've put him through those rounds a dozen times. He knows me and he goes through it all like clockwork for me. Here! Give me his leash!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the leather cord from the protesting trainer and, with a yank at it, started with Lochinvar toward the central post. The aristocratic Merle resented the uncalled-for tug by a flash of teeth. Then he thought better of the matter, swallowed his resentment and paced along beside his visibly proud owner.

A murmur of admiration went through the crowd at sight of Lochinvar as he moved forward. The dog was a joy to look on. Such a dog as one sees perhaps thrice in a lifetime. Such a dog for perfect beauty, as were Southport Sample, Grey Mist, Howgill Rival, Sunnybank Goldsmith or Squire of Tytton. A dog, for looks, that was the despair of all competing dogdom.

Proudly perfect in carriage, in mist-gray coat, in a hundred points--from the n.o.ble pale-eyed head to the long ma.s.sy brush--Lochinvar III made people catch their breath and stare. Even the Mistress' heart went out--though with a tinge of shame for disloyalty to Lad--at his beauty.

Arrived at the central post, the Wall Street Farmer unsnapped the leash. Then, one hand on the Merle's head and the other holding a half-smoked cigar between two pudgy fingers, he smiled upon the tense onlookers.

This was his Moment. This was the supreme moment which had cost him nearly ten thousand dollars in all. He was due, at last, to win a trophy that would be the talk of all the sporting universe. These country-folk who had won lesser prizes from under his very nose--how they would stare, after this, at his gun-room treasures!

"Ready, Mr. Glure?" asked the Judge.

"All ready!" graciously returned the Wall Street Farmer.

Taking a pull at his thick cigar, and replacing it between the first two fingers of his right hand, he pointed majestically with the same hand to the first post.

No word of command was given; yet Lochinvar moved off at a sweeping run directly in the line laid out by his owner's gesture.

As the Merle came alongside the post the Wall Street Farmer snapped his fingers. Instantly Lochinvar dropped to a halt and stood moveless, looking back for the next gesture.

This "next gesture" was wholly impromptu. In snapping his fingers the Wall Street Farmer had not taken sufficient account of the cigar stub he held. The snapping motion had brought the fire-end of the stub directly between his first and second fingers, close to the palm. The red coal bit deep into those two tenderest spots of all the hand.

With a reverberating snort the Wall Street Farmer dropped the cigar-b.u.t.t and shook his anguished hand rapidly up and down, in the first sting of pain. The loose fingers slapped together like the strands of an obese cat-of-nine-tails.

And this was the gesture which Lochinvar beheld, as he turned to catch the signal for his next move.

Now, the frantic St. Vitus shaking of the hand and arm, accompanied by a clumsy step-dance and a mouthful of rich oaths, forms no signal known to the very cleverest of "working" collies. Neither does the inserting of two burned fingers into the signaler's mouth--which was the second motion the Merle noted.

Ignorant as to the meaning of either of these unique signals the dog stood, puzzled. The Wall Street Farmer recovered at once from his fit of babyish emotion, and motioned his dog to go on to the next post.

The Merle did not move. Here, at last, was a signal he understood perfectly well. Yet, after the manner of the best-taught "working"

dogs, he had been most rigidly trained from earliest days to finish the carrying out of one order before giving heed to another.

He had received the signal to go in one direction. He had obeyed.

He had then received the familiar signal to halt and to await instructions. Again he had obeyed. Next, he had received a wildly emphatic series of signals whose meaning he could not read. A long course of training told him he must wait to have these gestures explained to him before undertaking to obey the simple signal that had followed.

This, in his training kennel, had been the rule. When a pupil did not understand an order he must stay where he was until he could be made to understand. He must not dash away to carry out a later order that might perhaps be intended for some other pupil.

Wherefore, the Merle stood stock still. The Wall Street Farmer repeated the gesture of pointing toward the next post. Inquiringly, Lochinvar watched him. The Wall Street Farmer made the gesture a third time--to no purpose other than to deepen the dog's look of inquiry. Lochinvar was abiding, steadfastly, by his hard-learned lessons of the Scottish moorland days.

Someone in the crowd t.i.ttered. Someone else sang out delightedly:

"Lad wins!"

The Wall Street Farmer heard. And he proceeded to mislay his easily-losable self control. Again, these inferior country folk seemed about to wrest from him a prize he had deemed all his own, and to rejoice in the prospect.

"You mongrel cur!" he bellowed. "Get along there!"

This diction meant nothing to Lochinvar, except that his owner's temper was gone--and with it his scanty authority.

Glure saw red--or he came as near to seeing it as can anyone outside a novel. He made a plunge across the quadrangle, seized the beautiful Merle by the scruff of the neck and kicked him.

Now, here was something the dog could understand with entire ease. This loud-mouthed vulgarian giant, whom he had disliked from the first, was daring to lay violent hands on him--on Champion Lochinvar III, the dog-aristocrat that had always been handled with deference and whose ugly temper had never been trained out of him.

As a growl of hot resentment went up from the onlookers, a far more murderously resentful growl went up from the depths of Lochinvar's furry throat.

In a flash, the Merle had wrenched free from his owner's neck-grip.

And, in practically the same moment, his curved eye-teeth were burying themselves deep in the calf of the Wall Street Farmer's leg.

Then the trainer and the judge seized on the snarlingly floundering pair. What the outraged trainer said, as he ran up, would have brought a blush to the cheek of a waterside bartender. What the judge said (in a tone of no regret, whatever) was:

"Mr. Glure, you have forfeited the match by moving more than three feet from the central post. But your dog had already lost it by refusing to 'work' at your command. Lad wins the Maury Trophy."

So it was that the Gold Hat, as well as the modest little silver "Best Collie" cup, went to The Place that night. Setting the golden monstrosity on the trophy shelf, the Master surveyed it for a moment; then said:

"That Gold Hat is even bigger than it looks. It is big enough to hold a thousand yards of surgical dressings; and gallons of medicine and broth, besides. And that's what it is going to hold. To-morrow I'll send it to Vanderslice, at the Red Cross Headquarters."