Lad was not mute. As the Master's arm swung back for a second blow, he heard, just behind, a low, throaty growl that held all the menace of ten thousand wordy threats.He wheeled about. Lad was close at his heels, fangs bared, eyes red, head lowered, tawny body taut in every sinew.
The Master blinked at him, incredulous. Here was something infinitely more unbelievable than Lady's supposed destruction of the
eagle. The Impossible had come to pass.
For, know well, a dog does not growl at its Master. At its owner, perhaps; at its Master,[Pg 16] never. As soon would a devout priest blaspheme his deity.
Nor does a dog approach anything or anybody, growling and with lowered head, unless intent on battle. Have no fear when a dog
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barks or even growls at you, so long as his head is erect. But when he growls and lowers his head--then look out. It means but one thing.
The Master had been the Master--the sublime, blindly revered and worshiped Master--for all the blameless years of Lad's life. And now, growling, head down, the dog was threatening him.
It was the supreme misery, the crowning hell, of Lad's career. For the first time, two overpowering loves fought with each other in
his Galahad soul. And the love for poor, unjustly blamed, Lady hurled down the superlove for the Master.
In baring teeth upon his lord, the collie well knew what he was incurring. But he did not flinch. Understanding that swift death might
well be his portion, he stood his ground.
(Is there greater love? Humans--sighing swains, vow-laden suitors--can any of you match it? I think not. Not even the much-lauded
Antonys. They throw away only the mere world of earthly credit, for love.)
The Master's jaw set. He was well-nigh as unhappy as the dog. For he grasped the situation, and he was man enough to honor Lad's proffered sacrifice. Yet it must be punished, and punished in[Pg 17]stantly--as any dog-master will testify. Let a dog once growl or show his teeth in menace at his Master, and if the rebellion be not put down in drastic fashion, the Master ceases forever to be Mas-ter and degenerates to mere owner. His mysterious power over his dog is gone for all time.
Turning his back on Lady, the Master whirled his dog-whip in air. Lad saw the lash coming down. He did not flinch. He did not cower. The growl ceased. The orange-tawny collie stood erect. Down came the braided whiplash on Lad's shoulders--again over his loins, and yet again and again.
Without moving--head up, dark tender eyes unwinking--the hero-dog took the scourging. When it was over, he waited only to see the Master throw the dog-whip fiercely into a corner of the study. Then, knowing Lady was safe, Lad walked majestically back to his "cave" under the piano, and with a long, quivering sigh he lay down.
His spirit was sick and crushed within him. For the first time in his thoroughbred life he had been struck. For he was one of those not wholly rare dogs to whom a sharp word of reproof is more effective than a beating--to whom a blow is not a pain, but a damn-ing and overwhelming ignominy. Had a human, other than the Master, presumed to strike him, the assailant must have fought for
life.
Through the numbness of Lad's grief, bit by bit, began to smolder and glow a deathless hate for Knave, the cause of Lady's humiliation. Lad had[Pg 18] known what passed behind that closed study door as well as though he had seen. For ears and scent serve a true collie quite as usefully as do mere eyes.
The Master was little happier than was his favorite dog. For he loved Lad as he would have loved a human son. Though Lad did not realize it, the Master had "let off " Lady from the rest of her beating, in order not to increase her champion's grief. He simply ordered her out of the study.
And as she limped away, the Master tried to rekindle his own indignation and deaden his sense of remorse by gathering together the strewn fragments of the eagle. It occurred to him that though the bird was destroyed, he might yet have its fierce-eyed silvery head mounted on a board, as a minor trophy.
But he could not find the head.
Search the study as he would, he could not find it. He remembered distinctly that Lady had been panting as she slunk out of the room. And dogs that are carrying things in their mouths cannot pant. She had not taken the head away with her. The absence of the head only deepened the whole annoying domestic mystery. He gave up trying to solve any of the puzzle--from Lady's incredible vandalism to this newest turn of the affair.
Not until two days later could Lad bring himself to risk a meeting with Lady, the cause and the witness of his beating. Then, yearning for a[Pg 19] sight of her and for even her grudged recognition of his presence, after his forty-eight hours of isolation, he sallied forth from the house in search of her.
He traced her to the cool shade of a lilac clump near the outbuildings. There, having with one paw dug a little pit in the cool earth, she was curled up asleep under the bushes. Stretched out beside her was Knave.
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Lad's spine bristled at sight of his foe. But ignoring him, he moved over to Lady and touched her nose with his own in timid caress. She opened one eye, blinked drowsily and went to sleep again.
But Lad's coming had awakened Knave. Much refreshed by his nap, he woke in playful mood. He tried to induce Lady to romp with him, but she preferred to doze. So, casting about in his shallow mind for something to play with, Knave chanced to remember the prize he had hidden beneath the chicken-house.
Away he ambled, returning presently with the eagle's head between his teeth. As he ran, he tossed it aloft, catching it as it fell--a pretty trick he had long since learned with a tennis-ball.
Lad, who had lain down as near to sleepily scornful Lady as he dared, looked up and saw him approach. He saw, too, with what Knave was playing; and as he saw, he went quite mad. Here was the thing that had caused Lady's interrupted punishment and his own black disgrace. Knave[Pg 20] was exploiting it with manifest and brazen delight.
For the second time in his life--and for the second time in three days--Lad broke the law. He forgot, in a trice, the command "Let
him alone!" And noiseless, terrible, he flew at the gamboling Knave.
Knave was aware of the attack, barely in time to drop the eagle's head and spring forward to meet his antagonist. He was three years Lad's junior and was perhaps five pounds heavier. Moreover, constant exercise had kept him in steel-and-whale-bone condition; while lonely brooding at home had begun of late to soften Lad's tough sinews.
Knave was mildly surprised that the dog he had looked on as a dullard and a poltroon should have developed a flash of spirit. But he
was not at all unwilling to wage a combat whose victory must make him shine with redoubled glory in Lady's eyes.
Like two furry whirlwinds the collies spun forward toward each other. They met, upreared and snarled, slashing wolflike for the throat, clawing madly to retain balance. Then down they went, rolling in a right unloving embrace, snapping, tearing, growling.
Lad drove straight for the throat. A half-handful of Knave's golden ruff came away in his jaws. For except at the exact center, a collie's throat is protected by a tangle of hair as effective against assault as were Andrew Jackson's cotton-bale breast[Pg 21]works at New Orleans. And Lad had missed the exact center.
