Lad: A Dog - The Original Classic Edition. Terhune Albert

       Lad, nowadays, used to leave half his dinner uneaten, and he took to moping in a way that is not good for dog or man. For the mop-ing had in it no ill-temper--nothing but heartache at his mate's desertion, and a weary distaste for the puppy's annoying antics. It was bad enough for Wolf to have supplanted him in Lady's affection, without also making his life a burden and humiliating him in the eyes of his gods.

       Therefore Lad moped. Lady remained nervously fussy over her one child. And Wolf continued to be a lovable, but unmitigated, pest. The Mistress and the Master tried in every way to make up to Lad for the positive and negative afflictions he was enduring, but the sorrowing dog's unhappiness grew with the days.

       Then one November morning Lady met Wolf 's capering playfulness with a yell of rage so savage as to send the puppy scampering away in mortal terror, and to bring the Master out from his study on a run. For no normal dog gives that hideous yell except in racking pain or in illness; and mere[Pg 79] pain could not wring such a sound from a thoroughbred.

       The Master called Lady over to him. Sullenly she obeyed, slinking up to him in surly unwillingness. Her nose was hot and dry; her soft brown eyes were glazed, their whites a dull red. Her dense coat was tumbled.

       After a quick examination, the Master shut her into a kennel-room and telephoned for a veterinary.

       "She is sickening for the worst form of distemper," reported the vet' an hour later, "perhaps for something worse. Dogs seldom get distemper after they're a year old, but when they do it's dangerous. Better let me take her over to my hospital and isolate her there. Distemper runs through a kennel faster than cholera through a plague-district. I may be able to cure her in a month or two--or I may not. Anyhow, there's no use in risking your other dogs' lives by leaving her here."

       So it was that Lad saw his dear mate borne away from him in the tonneau of a strange man's car.

       Lady hated to go. She whimpered and hung back as the vet' lifted her aboard. At sound of her whimper Lad started forward, head low, lips writhing back from his clenched teeth, his shaggy throat vibrant with growls. At a sharp word of command from the Mas-ter, he checked his onset and stood uncertain. He looked at his departing[Pg 80] mate, his dark eyes abrim with sorrow, then glanced at the Master in an agony of appeal.

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       "It's all right, Laddie," the Master tried to console him, stroking the dog's magnificent head as he spoke. "It's all right. It's the only

       chance of saving her."

       Lad did not grasp the words, but their tone was reassuring. It told him, at least, that this kidnaping was legal and must not be prevented. Sorrowfully he watched the chugging car out of sight, up the drive. Then with a sigh he walked heavily back to his "cave" beneath the piano.

       Lad, alone of The Place's dogs, was allowed to sleep in the house at night, and even had free access to that dog-forbidden spot, the dining-room. Next morning, as soon as the doors were opened, he dashed out in search of Lady. With some faint hope that she might have been brought back in the night, he ransacked every corner of The Place for her.

       He did not find Lady. But Wolf very promptly found Lad. Wolf was lonely, too--terribly lonely. He had just spent the first solitary night of his three-month life. He missed the furry warm body into whose shelter he had always cuddled for sleep. He missed his playmate--the pretty mother who had been his fond companion.

       There are few things so mournful as the eyes of even the happiest collie pup; this morning, loneliness had intensified the melancholy expression in[Pg 81] Wolf 's eyes. But at sight of Lad, the puppy gamboled forward with a falsetto bark of joy. The world was not quite empty, after all. Though his mother had cruelly absented herself, here was a playfellow that was better than nothing. And up to Lad frisked the optimistic little chap.

       Lad saw him coming. The older dog halted and instinctively turned aside to avoid the lively little nuisance. Then, halfway around, he stopped and turned back to face the puppy.

       Lady was gone--gone, perhaps, forever. And all that was left to remind Lad of her was this bumptious and sharp-toothed little son of hers. Lady had loved the youngster--Lady, whom Lad so loved. Wolf alone was left; and Wolf was in some mysterious way a part of Lady.

       So, instead of making his escape as the pest cantered toward him, Lad stood where he was. Wolf bounded upward and as usual nipped merrily at one of Lad's ears. Lad did not shake off his tormentor and stalk away. In spite of the pain to the sensitive flesh, he remained quiet, looking down at the joyful puppy with a sort of sorrowing friendliness. He seemed to realize that Wolf, too, was lonely and that the little dog was helpless.

       Tired of biting an unprotesting ear, Wolf dived for Lad's white forelegs, gnawing happily at them with a playfully unconscious throwback to his wolf ancestors who sought thus to disable an enemy by breaking the foreleg bone. For all seemingly aim[Pg 82]less puppy-play had its origin in some ancestral custom.

       Lad bore this new bother unflinchingly. Presently Wolf left off the sport. Lad crossed to the veranda and lay down. The puppy trotted over to him and stood for a moment with ears cocked and head on one side as if planning a new attack on his supine victim; then with a little satisfied whimper, he curled up close against his father's shaggy side and went to sleep.

       Lad gazed down at the slumberer in some perplexity. He seemed even inclined to resent the familiarity of being used for a pillow. Then, noting that the fur on the top of the puppy's sleepy head was rumpled, Lad bent over and began softly to lick back the tousled hair into shape with his curving tongue--his raspberry-pink tongue with the single queer blue-black blot midway on its surface. The puppy mumbled drowsily in his sleep and nestled more snugly to his new protector.

       And thus Lad assumed formal guardianship of his obstreperous little son. It was a guardianship more staunch by far than Lady's had been of late. For animal mothers early wear out their zealously self-sacrificing love for their young. By the time the latter are able to shift for themselves, the maternal care ceases. And, later on, the once-inseparable relationship drops completely out of mind.