Lad: A Dog Part 24

"Good!" applauded the Mistress. "Oh, _good!_ send it in Lad's name."

"I shall. I'll tell Vanderslice how it was won; and I'll ask him to have it melted down to buy hospital supplies. If that doesn't take off its curse of unsportsmanliness, nothing will. I'll get you something to take its place, as a trophy."

But there was no need to redeem that promise. A week later, from Headquarters, came a tiny scarlet enamel cross, whose silver back bore the inscription:

"_To SUNNYBANK LAD; in memory of a generous gift to Humanity._"

"Its face-value is probably fifty cents, Lad, dear," commented the Mistress, as she strung the bit of scarlet on the dog's s.h.a.ggy throat. "But its heart value is at least a billion dollars. Besides--you can wear it. And n.o.body, outside a nightmare, could possibly have worn kind, good Mr. Hugh Lester Maury's Gold Hat. I must write to Mr. Glure and tell him all about it. How tickled he'll be!

Won't he, Laddie?"

CHAPTER IX

SPEAKING OF UTILITY

The man huddled frowzily in the tree crotch, like a rumpled and sick racc.o.o.n. At times he would crane his thin neck and peer about him, but more as if he feared rescue than as though he hoped for it.

Then, before slumping back to his sick-racc.o.o.n pose, he would look murderously earthward and swear with lurid fervor.

At the tree foot the big dog wasted neither time nor energy in frantic barking or in capering excitedly about. Instead, he lay at majestic ease, gazing up toward the treed man with grave attentiveness.

Thus, for a full half-hour, the two had remained--the treer and the treed. Thus, from present signs, they would continue to remain until Christmas.

There is, by tradition, something intensely comic in the picture of a man treed by a dog. The man, in the present case, supplied the only element of comedy in the scene. The dog was anything but comic, either in looks or in posture.

He was a collie, huge of bulk, ma.s.sive of shoulder, deep and s.h.a.ggy of chest. His forepaws were snowy and absurdly small. His eyes were seal-dark and sorrowful--eyes that proclaimed not only an uncannily wise brain, but a soul as well. In brief, he was Lad; official guard of The Place's safety.

It was in this role of guard that he was now serving as jailer to the man he had seen slouching through the undergrowth of the forest which grew close up to The Place's outbuildings.

From his two worshipped deities--the Mistress and the Master--Lad had learned in puppyhood the simple provisions of the Guest Law. He knew, for example, that no one openly approaching the house along the driveway from the furlong-distant highroad was to be molested. Such a visitor's advent--especially at night--might lawfully be greeted by a salvo of barks. But the barks were a mere announcement, not a threat.

On the other hand, the Law demanded the instant halting of all prowlers, or of anyone seeking to get to the house from road or lake by circuitous and stealthy means. Such roundabout methods spell Trespa.s.s. Every good watchdog knows that. But wholly good watchdogs are far fewer than most people--even their owners--realize. Lad was one of the few.

To-day's trespa.s.ser had struck into The Place's grounds from an adjoining bit of woodland. He had moved softly and obliquely and had made little furtive dashes from one bit of cover to another, as he advanced toward the outbuildings a hundred yards north of the house.

He had moved cleverly and quietly. No human had seen or heard him. Even Lad, sprawling half-asleep on the veranda, had not seen him. For, in spite of theory, a dog's eye by daylight is not so keen or so far-seeing as is a human's. But the wind had brought news of a foreign presence on The Place--a presence which Lad's hasty glance at driveway and lake edge did not verify.

So the dog had risen to his feet, stretched himself, collie-fashion, fore and aft, and trotted quickly away to investigate. Scent, and then sound, taught him which way to go.

Two minutes later he changed his wolf trot to a slow and unwontedly stiff-legged walk, advancing with head lowered, and growling softly far down in his throat. He was making straight for a patch of sumac, ten feet in front of him and a hundred feet behind the stables.

Now, when a dog bounds toward a man, barking and with head up, there is nothing at all to be feared from his approach. But when the pace slackens to a stiff walk and his head sinks low, that is a very good time, indeed, for the object of his attentions to think seriously of escape or of defense.

Instinct or experience must have imparted this useful truth to the lurker in the sumac patch, for as the great dog drew near the man incontinently wheeled and broke cover. At the same instant Lad charged.

The man had a ten-foot start. This vantage he utilized by flinging himself bodily at a low-forked hickory tree directly in his path.

Up the rough trunk to the crotch he shinned with the speed of a chased cat. Lad arrived at the tree bole barely in time to collect a mouthful of cloth from the climber's left trouser ankle.

After which, since he was not of the sort to clamor noisily for what lurked beyond his reach, the dog yawned and lay down to keep guard on his arboreal prisoner. For half an hour he lay thus, varying his vigil once or twice by sniffing thoughtfully at a ragged sc.r.a.p of trouser cloth between his little white forepaws. He sniffed the thing as though trying to commit its scent to memory.

The man did not seek help by shouting. Instead, he seemed oddly willing that no other human should intrude on his sorry plight. A single loud yell would have brought aid from the stables or from the house or even from the lodge up by the gate. Yet, though the man must have guessed this, he did not yell. Instead, he cursed whisperingly at intervals and snarled at his captor.

At last, his nerve going, the prisoner drew out a jackknife, opened a blade at each end of it and hurled the ugly missile with all his force at the dog. As the man had shifted his position to get at the knife, Lad had risen expectantly to his feet with some hope that his captive might be going to descend.

It was lucky for Lad that he was standing when the knife was thrown for the aim was not bad, and a dog lying down cannot easily dodge. A dog standing on all fours is different, especially if he is a collie.

Lad sprang to one side instinctively as the thrower's arm went back. The knife whizzed, harmless, into the sumac patch. Lad's teeth bared themselves in something that looked like a smile and was not. Then he lay down again on guard.

A minute later he was up with a jump. From the direction of the house came a shrill whistle followed by a shout of "Lad! _La-ad!_" It was the Master calling him. The summons could not be ignored. Usually it was obeyed with eager gladness, but now--Lad looked worriedly up into the tree. Then, coming to a decision, he galloped away at top speed.

In ten seconds he was at the veranda where the Master stood talking with a newly arrived guest. Before the Master could speak to the dog, Lad rushed up to him, whimpering in stark appeal, then ran a few steps toward the stables, paused, looked back and whimpered again.

"What's the matter with him?" loudly demanded the guest--an obese and elderly man, right sportily attired. "What ails the silly dog?"

"He's found something," said the Master. "Something he wants me to come and see--and he wants me to come in a hurry."

"How do you know?" asked the guest.

"Because I know his language as well as he knows mine," retorted the Master.

He set off in the wake of the excited dog. The guest followed in more leisurely fashion complaining:

"Of all the idiocy! To let a measly dog drag you out of the shade on a red-hot day like this just to look at some dead chipmunk he's found!"

"Perhaps," stiffly agreed the Master, not slackening his pace. "But if Lad behaves like that, unless it's pretty well worth while, he's changed a lot in the past hour. A man can do worse sometimes than follow a tip his dog gives him."

"Have it your own way," grinned the guest. "Perhaps he may lead us to a treasure cave or to a damsel in distress. I'm with you."

"Guy me if it amuses you," said the Master.

"It does," his guest informed him. "It amuses me to see any grown man think so much of a dog as you people think of Lad. It's maudlin."

"My house is the only one within a mile on this side of the lake that has never been robbed," was the Master's reply. "My stable is the only one in the same radius that hasn't been rifled by harness-and-tire thieves. Thieves who seem to do their work in broad daylight, too, when the stables won't be locked. I have Lad to thank for all that.

He----"

The dog had darted far ahead. Now he was standing beneath a low-forked hickory tree staring up into it.

"He's treed a cat!" guffawed the guest, his laugh as irritating as a kick. "Extra! Come out and get a nice sunstroke, folks! Come and see the cat Lad has treed!"

The Master did not answer. There was no cat in the tree. There was nothing visible in the tree. Lad's aspect shrank from hope to depression. He looked apologetically at the Master. Then he began to sniff once more at a sc.r.a.p of cloth on the ground.

The Master picked up the cloth and presently walked over to the tree. From a jut of bark dangled a shred of the same cloth. The Master's hand went to Lad's head in approving caress.

"It was not a cat," he said. "It was a man. See the rags of----"