CHAPTER VI
LOST!
Four of us were discussing abstract themes, idly, as men will, after agood dinner and in front of a country-house fire. Someone asked:
"What is the saddest sight in everyday life? I don't mean the mostgloomily tragic, but the saddest?"
A frivolous member of the fireside group cited a helpless man betweentwo quarreling women. A sentimentalist said:
"A lost child in a city street."
The Dog-Master contradicted:
"A lost _dog_ in a city street."
Nobody agreed with him of course; but that was because none of theothers chanced to know dogs--to know their psychology--their souls, ifyou prefer. The dog-man was right. A lost dog in a city street is thevery saddest and most hopeless sight in all a city street's aboundingeveryday sadness.
A man between two quarreling women is an object piteous enough, heavenknows. Yet his plight verges too much on the grotesque to be calledsad.
A lost child?--No. Let a child stand in the middle of a crowdedsidewalk and begin to cry. In one minute fifty amateur and professionalrescuers have flocked to the Lost One's aid. An hour, at most,suffices to bring it in touch with its frenzied guardians.
A lost dog?--Yes. No succoring cohort surges to the relief. A gang ofboys, perhaps, may give chase, but assuredly not in kindness. Apoliceman seeking a record for "mad dog" shooting--a professionaldog-catcher in quest of his dirty fee--these will show markedattention to the wanderer. But, again, not in kindness.
A dog, at some turn in the street, misses his master--doubles back towhere the human demigod was last seen--darts ahead once more to findhim, through the press of other human folk--halts, hesitates, beginsthe same maneuvers all over again; then stands, shaking in panic athis utter aloneness.
Get the look in his eyes, then--you who do not mind seeing suchthings--and answer, honestly: Is there anything sadder on earth? Allthis, before the pursuit of boys and the fever of thirst and the finalknowledge of desolation have turned him from a handsome and pridefulpet into a slinking outcast.
Yes, a lost dog is the saddest thing that can meet the gaze of a manor woman who understands dogs. As perhaps my story may help toshow--or perhaps not.
* * * * *
Lad had been brushed and bathed, daily, for a week, until hismahogany-and-snow coat shone. All this, at The Place, far up in theNorth Jersey hinterland and all to make him presentable for theWestminster Kennel Show at New York's Madison Square Garden. Afterwhich, his two gods, the Mistress and the Master took him for athirty-mile ride in The Place's only car, one morning.
The drive began at The Place--the domain where Lad had ruled as Kingamong the lesser folk for so many years. It ended at Madison SquareGarden, where the annual four-day dog show was in progress.
You have read how Lad fared at that show--how, at the close of thefirst day, when he had two victories to his credit, the Mistress hadtaken pity on his misery and had decreed that he should be taken home,without waiting out the remaining three days of torture-ordeal.
The Master went out first, to get the car and bring it aroundto the side exit of the Garden. The Mistress gathered up Lad'sbelongings--his brush, his dog biscuits, etc., and followed, with Ladhimself.
Out of the huge building, with its reverberating barks and yells fromtwo thousand canine throats, she went. Lad paced, happy and majestic,at her side. He knew he was going home, and the unhappiness of thehideous day dropped from him.
At the exit, the Mistress was forced to leave a deposit of fivedollars, "to insure the return of the dog to his bench" (to whichbench of agony she vowed, secretly, Lad should never return). Then shewas told the law demands that all dogs in New York City streets shallbe muzzled.
In vain she explained that Lad would be in the streets only for suchbrief time as the car would require to journey to the One Hundred andThirtieth Street ferry. The door attendant insisted that the law wasinexorable. So, lest a policeman hold up the car for such disobedienceto the city statutes, the Mistress reluctantly bought a muzzle.
It was a big, awkward thing, made of steel, and bound on with leatherstraps. It looked like a rat-trap. And it fenced in the nose andmouth of its owner with a wicked criss-cross of shiny metal bars.
Never in all his years had Lad worn a muzzle. Never, until to-day,had he been chained. The splendid eighty-pound collie had been as freeof The Place and of the forests as any human; and with no worserestrictions than his own soul and conscience put upon him.
To him this muzzle was a horror. Not even the loved touch of theMistress' dear fingers, as she adjusted the thing to his beautifulhead, could lessen the degradation. And the discomfort of it--adiscomfort that amounted to actual pain--was almost as bad as thehumiliation.
With his absurdly tiny white forepaws, the huge dog sought to dislodgethe torture-implement. He strove to rub it off against the Mistress'skirt. But beyond shifting it so that the forehead strap covered oneof his eyes, he could not budge it.
Lad looked up at the Mistress in wretched appeal. His look held noresentment, nothing but sad entreaty. She was his deity. All his lifeshe had given him of her gentleness, her affection, her sweetunderstanding. Yet, to-day, she had brought him to this abode of noisytorment, and had kept him there from morning to dusk. And now--just asthe vigil seemed ended--she was tormenting him, to nerve-rack, by thiscontraption she had fastened over his nose. Lad did not rebel. But hebesought. And the Mistress understood.
"Laddie, dear!" she whispered, as she led him across the sidewalk tothe curb where the Master waited for the car. "Laddie, old friend,I'm just as sorry about it as you are. But it's only for a fewminutes. Just as soon as we get to the ferry, we'll take it off andthrow it into the river. And we'll never bring you again where dogshave to wear such things. I promise. It's only for a few minutes."
The Mistress, for once, was mistaken. Lad was to wear the accursedmuzzle for much, _much_ longer than "a few minutes."
"Give him the back seat to himself, and come in front here with me,"suggested the Master, as the Mistress and Lad arrived alongside thecar. "The poor old chap has been so cramped up and pestered all daythat he'll like to have a whole seat to stretch out on."
Accordingly, the Mistress opened the door and motioned Lad to the backseat. At a bound the collie was on the cushion, and proceeded to curlup thereon. The Mistress got into the front seat with the Master. Thecar set forth on its six-mile run to the ferry.
Now that his face was turned homeward, Lad might have found vastinterest in his new surroundings, had not the horrible muzzle absorbedall his powers of emotion. The Milan Cathedral, the Taj Mahal, theValley of the Arno at sunset--these be sights to dream of foryears. But show them to a man who has an ulcerated tooth, or whosetight, new shoes pinch his soft corn, and he will probably regard themas Lad just then viewed the twilight New York streets.
He was a dog of forest and lake and hill, this giant collie with hismighty shoulders and tiny white feet and shaggy burnished coat andmournful eyes. Never before had he been in a city. The myriad blendednoises confused and deafened him. The myriad blended smells assailedhis keen nostrils. The swirl of countless multicolored lights stungand blurred his vision. Noises, smells and lights were all jarringlynew to him. So were the jostling masses of people on the sidewalk andthe tangle and hustle of vehicular traffic through which the Masterwas threading the car's way with such difficulty.
But, newest and most sickening of all the day's novelties was themuzzle.
Lad was quite certain the Mistress did not realize how the muzzle washurting him nor how he detested it. In all her dealings with him--orwith anyone or anything else--the Mistress had never been unkind; andmost assuredly not cruel. It must be she did not understand. At allevents, she had not scolded or forbidden, when he had tried to rub themuzzle off. So the wearing of this new torture was apparently no partof the Law. And Lad felt justified in striving again to remove it.
In vain he pawed the thing, first with one f
oot, then with both. Hecould joggle it from side to side, but that was all. And each shift ofthe steel bars hurt his tender nose and tenderer sensibilities worsethan the one before. He tried to rub it off against the seatcushion--with the same distressing result.
Lad looked up at the backs of his gods, and whined very softly. Thesound went unheard, in the babel of noise all around him. Nor did theMistress, or the Master turn around, on general principles, to speak aword of cheer to the sufferer. They were in a mixup of crosswaystraffic that called for every atom of their attention, if they were toavoid collision. It was no time for conversation or for dog-patting.
Lad got to his feet and stood, uncertainly, on the slippery leathercushion, seeking to maintain his balance, while he rubbed a corner ofthe muzzle against one of the supports of the car's lowered top.Working away with all his might, he sought to get leverage that wouldpry loose the muzzle.
Just then there was a brief gap in the traffic. The Master put onspeed, and, darting ahead of a delivery truck, sharply rounded thecorner into a side street.
The car's sudden twist threw Lad clean off his precarious balance onthe seat, and hurled him against one of the rear doors.
The door, insecurely shut, could not withstand the eighty-poundimpact. It burst open. And Lad was flung out onto the greasy asphaltof the avenue.
He landed full on his side, in the muck of the roadway, with a forcethat shook the breath clean out of him. Directly above his head glaredthe twin lights of the delivery truck the Master had just shotpast. The truck was going at a good twelve miles an hour. And the doghad fallen within six feet of its fat front wheels.
Now, a collie is like no other animal on earth. He is, at worst, morewolf than dog. And, at best, he has more of the wolf's lightning-swiftinstinct than has any other breed of canine. For which reason Lad wasnot, then and there, smashed, flat and dead, under the fore-wheels ofa three-ton truck.
Even as the tires grazed his fur, Lad gathered himself compactlytogether, his feet well under him, and sprang far to one side. Thelumbering truck missed him by less than six inches. But it missed him.
His leap brought him scramblingly down on all fours, out of thetruck's way, but on the wrong side of the thoroughfare. It brought himunder the very fender of a touring car that was going at a good pacein the opposite direction. And again, a leap that was inspired byquick instinct alone, lifted the dog free of this newest death-menace.
He halted and stared piteously around in search of his deities. But inthat glare and swelter of traffic, a trained human eye could not haverecognized any particular car. Moreover, the Mistress and Master werea full half-block away, down the less crowded side street, and weremaking up for lost time by putting on all the speed they dared, beforeturning into the next westward traffic-artery. They did not lookback, for there was a car directly in front of them, whose driverseemed uncertain as to his wheel control, and the Master wasmanoeuvering to pass it in safety.
Not until they had reached the lower end of Riverside Drive, nearly amile to the north, did either the Master or Mistress turn around for aword with the dog they loved.
Meantime, Lad was standing, irresolute and panting, in the middle ofColumbus Circle. Cars of a million types, from flivver to trolley,seemed to be whizzing directly at him from every direction at once.
A bound, a dodge, or a deft shrinking back would carry him out of onesuch peril--barely out of it--when another, or fifty others, besethim.
And, all the time, even while he was trying to duck out of danger, hisfrightened eyes and his pulsing nostrils sought the Mistress and theMaster.
His eyes, in that mixture of flare and dusk, told him nothing exceptthat a host of motors were likely to kill him. But his nose told himwhat it had not been able to tell him since morning--namely, that,through the reek of gasoline and horseflesh and countless humanscents, there was a nearness of fields and woods and water. And,toward that blessed mingling of familiar odors he dodged histhreatened way.
By a miracle of luck and skill he crossed Columbus Circle, and came toa standstill on a sidewalk, beside a low gray stone wall. Behindthe wall, his nose taught him, lay miles of meadow and wood andlake--Central Park. But the smell of the Park brought him no scent ofthe Mistress nor of the Master. And it was they--infinitely more thanhis beloved countryside--that he craved. He ran up the street, on thesidewalk, for a few rods, hesitant, alert, watching in everydirection. Then, perhaps seeing a figure, in the other direction, thatlooked familiar, he dashed at top speed, eastward, for half ablock. Then he made a peril-fraught sortie out into the middle of thetraffic-humming street, deceived by the look of a passing car.
The car was traveling at twenty miles an hour. But, in less than ablock, Lad caught up with it. And this, in spite of the many thingshe had to dodge, and the greasy slipperiness of the unfamiliarroadway. An upward glance, as he came alongside the car, told him hischase was in vain. And he made his precarious way to the sidewalk oncemore.
There he stood, bewildered, heartsick--lost!
Yes, he was lost. And he realized it--realized it as fully as would acity-dweller snatched up by magic and set down amid the tracklessHimalayas. He was lost. And Horror bit deep into his soul.
The average dog might have continued to waste energy and risk life bygalloping aimlessly back and forth, running hopefully up to everystranger he met; then slinking off in scared disappointment andsearching afresh.
Lad was too wise for that. He was lost. His adored Mistress hadsomehow left him; as had the Master; in this bedlam place--allalone. He stood there, hopeless, head and tail adroop, his great heartdead within him.
Presently he became aware once more that he was still wearing hisabominable muzzle. In the stress of the past few minutes Lad hadactually forgotten the pain and vexation of the thing. Now, the memoryof it came back, to add to his despair.
And, as a sick animal will ever creep to the woods and the wasteplaces for solitude, so the soul-sick Lad now turned from the clangorand evil odors of the street to seek the stretch of country-land hehad scented.
Over the gray wall he sprang, and came earthward with a crash amongthe leafless shrubs that edged the south boundary of Central Park.
Here in the Park there were people and lights and motor-cars, too, butthey were few, and they were far off. Around the dog was a gratefuldarkness and aloneness. He lay down on the dead grass and panted.
The time was late February. The weather of the past day or two hadbeen mild. The brown-gray earth and the black trees had a faint odorof slow-coming spring, though no nostrils less acute than a dog'scould have noted it.
Through the misery at his heart and the carking pain from his muzzle,Lad began to realize that he was tired, also that he was hollow fromlack of food. The long day's ordeal of the dog show had wearied himand had worn down his nerves more than could a fifty-mile run. Thenasty thrills of the past half-hour had completed his fatigue. He hadeaten nothing all day. Like most high-strung dogs at a show, he haddrunk a great deal of water and had refused to touch a morsel of food.
He was not hungry even now for, in a dog, hunger goes only with peaceof mind, but he was cruelly thirsty. He got up from his slushy couchon the dead turf and trotted wearily toward the nearest branch of theCentral Park lake. At the brink he stooped to drink.
Soggy ice still covered the lake, but the mild weather had left ahalf-inch skim of water over it. Lad tried to lap up enough of thiswater to allay his craving thirst. He could not.
The muzzle protruded nearly an inch beyond his nose. Either throughfaulty adjustment or from his own futile efforts to scrape it off, theawkward steel hinge had become jammed and would not open. Lad couldnot get his teeth a half-inch apart.
After much effort he managed to protrude the end of his pink tongueand to touch the water with it, but it was a painful and drearily slowprocess absorbing water drop by drop in this way. More through fatiguethan because his thirst was slaked, he stopped at last and turned awayfrom the lake.
The next half-hour was
spent in a diligent and torturing and whollyuseless attempt to rid himself of his muzzle.
After which the dog lay panting and athirst once more; his tender nosesore and bruised and bleeding; the muzzle as firmly fixed in place asever. Another journey to the lake and another Tantalus-effort todrink--and the pitifully harassed dog's uncanny brain began to work.
He no longer let himself heed the muzzle. Experience of the mostpainful sort had told him he could not dislodge it nor, in thatclamorous and ill-smelling city beyond the park wall, could he hope tofind the Mistress and the Master. These things being certain, his mindwent on to the next step, and the next step was--Home!
Home! The Place where his happy, beautiful life had been spent, wherehis two gods abode, where there were no clang and reek and peril ashere in New York. Home!--The House of Peace!
Lad stood up. He drew in great breaths of the muggy air, and he turnedslowly about two or three times, head up, nostrils aquiver. For afull minute he stood thus. Then he lowered his head and trottedwestward. No longer he moved uncertainly, but with as much sureness asif he were traversing the forest behind The Place--the forest that hadbeen his roaming-ground since puppyhood.
(Now, this is not a fairy story, nor any other type of fanciful yarn,so I do not pretend to account for Lad's heading unswervingly towardthe northwest in the exact direction of The Place, thirty milesdistant, any more than I can account for the authenticated case of acollie who, in 1917, made his way four hundred miles from the home ofa new owner in southern Georgia to the doorstep of his former andbetter loved master in the mountains of North Carolina; any more thanI can account for the flight of a homing pigeon or for that of thenorthbound duck in Spring. God gives to certain animals a whole set ofmystic traits which He withholds utterly from humans. No dog-studentcan doubt that, and no dog-student or deep-delving psychologist canexplain it.)
Northwestward jogged Lad, and in half a mile he came to the lowwestern wall of Central Park. Without turning aside to seek agateway, he cleared the wall and found himself on Eighth Avenue in thevery middle of a block.
Keeping on the sidewalk and paying no heed to the few pedestrians, hemoved along to the next westward street and turned down it toward theHudson River. So calmly and certainly did he move that none would havetaken him for a lost dog.
Under the roaring elevated road at Columbus Avenue, he trotted; hisears tormented by the racket of a train that reverberated above him;his sense so blurred by the sound that he all but forgot to dodge asouthbound trolley car.
Down the cross street to Amsterdam Avenue he bore. A patrolman on hisway to the West Sixty-ninth Street police station to report for nightduty, was so taken up by his own lofty thoughts that he quite forgotto glance at the big mud-spattered dog that padded past him.
For this lack of observation the patrolman was destined to lose a goodopportunity for fattening his monthly pay. Because, on reaching thestation, he learned that a distressed man and woman had just beenthere in a car to offer a fifty-dollar reward for the finding of a bigmahogany-and-white collie, answering to the name of "Lad."
As the dog reached Amsterdam Avenue a high little voice squealeddelightedly at him. A three-year-old baby--a mere fluff of gold andwhite and pink--was crossing the avenue convoyed by a fat woman inblack. Lad was jogging by the mother and child when the latterdiscovered the passing dog.
With a shriek of joyous friendliness the baby flung herself upon Ladand wrapped both arms about his shaggy neck.
"Why _doggie!_" she shrilled, ecstatically. "Why, dear, _dear_doggie!"
Now Lad was in dire haste to get home, and Lad was in dire misery ofmind and body, but his big heart went out in eagerly loving answer tothe impulsive caress. He worshipped children, and would cheerfullyendure from them any amount of mauling.
At the baby embrace and the baby voice, he stopped short in hisprogress. His plumy tail wagged in glad friendliness; his muzzled nosesought wistfully to kiss the pink little face on a level with hisown. The baby tightened her hug, and laid her rose leaf cheek close tohis own.
"I love you, Miss Doggie!" she whispered in Lad's ear.
Then the fat woman in black bore down upon them. Fiercely, sheyanked the baby away from the dog. Then, seeing that the mud onLad's shoulder had soiled the child's white coat, she whirled astring-fastened bundle aloft and brought it down with a resoundingthwack over the dog's head.
Lad winched under the heavy blow, then hot resentment blazed throughhis first instant of grieved astonishment. This unpleasant fatcreature in black was not a man, wherefore Lad contented himself bybaring his white teeth, and with growling deep menace far down in histhroat.
The woman shrank back scared, and she screamed loudly. On the instantthe station-bound patrolman was beside her.
"What's wrong, ma'am?" asked the bluecoat.
The woman pointed a wobbly and fat forefinger at Lad, who had taken uphis westward journey again and was halfway across the street.
"Mad dog!" she sputtered, hysterically. "He--he bit me! Bit _at_ me,anyhow!"
Without waiting to hear the last qualifying sentence, the patrolmangave chase. Here was a chance for honorable blotter-mention at thevery least. As he ran he drew his pistol.
Lad had reached the westward pavement of Amsterdam Avenue and was inthe side street beyond. He was not hurrying, but his short wolf-trotate up ground in deceptively quick time.
By the time the policeman had reached the west corner of street andavenue the dog was nearly a half-block ahead. The officer, stillrunning, leveled his pistol and fired.
Now, anyone (but a very newly-appointed patrolman or a movie-hero)knows that to fire a shot when running is worse than fatal to anychance of accuracy. No marksman--no one who has the remotest knowledgeof marksmanship--will do such a thing. The very best pistol-expertcannot hope to hit his target if he is joggling his own arm and hiswhole body by the motion of running.
The bullet flew high and to the right, smashing a second-story windowand making the echoes resound deafeningly through the narrow street.
"What's up?" excitedly asked a boy, who stood beside a barrel bonfirewith a group of chums.
"Mad dog!" puffed the policeman as he sped past.
At once the boys joined gleesomely in the chase, outdistancing theofficer, just as the latter fired a second shot.
Lad felt a white-hot ridge of pain cut along his left flank like awhip-lash. He wheeled to face his invisible foe, and he foundhimself looking at a half-dozen boys who charged whoopingly down onhim. Behind the boys clumped a man in blue flourishing somethingbright.
Lad had no taste for this sort of attention. Always he had loathedstrangers, and these new strangers seemed bent on catching him--onbarring his homeward way.
He wheeled around again and continued his westward journey at a fasterpace. The hue-and-cry broke into louder yells and three or four newrecruits joined the pursuers. The yap of "Mad dog! _Mad dog!_" filledthe air.
Not one of these people--not even the policeman himself--had anyevidence that the collie was mad. There are not two really rabid dogsseen at large in New York or in any other city in the course of ayear. Yet, at the back of the human throat ever lurks that fool-cry of"Mad dog!"--ever ready to leap forth into shouted words at thefaintest provocation.
One wonders, disgustedly, how many thousand luckless and totallyharmless pet dogs in the course of a year are thus hunted down andshot or kicked or stoned to death in the sacred name of Humanity, justbecause some idiot mistakes a hanging tongue or an uncertainty ofdirection for signs of that semi-phantom malady known as "rabies."
A dog is lost. He wanders to and fro in bewilderment. Boys pelt orchase him. His tongue lolls and his eyes glaze with fear. Then, ever,rises the yell of "Mad Dog!" And a friendly, lovable pet is joyfullydone to death.
Lad crossed Broadway, threading his way through the trolley-and-taxiprocession, and galloped down the hill toward Riverside Park. Closealways at his heels followed the shouting crowd. Twice, by sprinting,the patrolman gained th
e front rank of the hunt, and twice hefired--both bullets going wide. Across West End Avenue and acrossRiverside Drive went Lad, hard-pressed and fleeing at top speed. Thecross-street ran directly down to a pier that jutted a hundred feetout into the Hudson River.
Along this pier flew Lad, not in panic terror, but none the lessresolved that these howling New Yorkers should not catch him andprevent his going home.
Onto the pier the clattering hue-and-cry followed. A dock watchman,as Lad flashed by, hurled a heavy joist of wood at the dog. It whizzedpast the flying hind legs, scoring the barest of misses.
And now Lad was at the pier end. Behind him the crowd raced; sure ithad the dangerous brute cornered at last.
On the string-piece the collie paused for the briefest of momentsglancing to north and to south. Everywhere the wide river stretchedaway, unbridged. It must be crossed if he would continue his homewardcourse, and there was but one way for him to cross it.
The watchman, hard at his heels, swung upward the club he carried.Down came the club with murderous force--upon the stringpiecewhere Lad had been standing.
Lad was no longer there. One great bound had carried him over the edgeand into the black water below.
Down he plunged into the river and far, far under it, fighting his waygaspingly to the surface. The water that gushed into his mouth andnostrils was salty and foul, not at all like the water of the lake atthe edge of The Place. It sickened him. And the February chill of theriver cut into him like a million ice-needles.
To the surface he came, and struck out valorously for the oppositeshore much more than a mile away. As his beautiful head appeared, ayell went up from the clustering riff-raff at the pier end. Bits ofwood and coal began to shower the water all around him. A pistol shotplopped into the river a bare six inches away from him.
But the light was bad and the stream was a tossing mass of blacknessand of light-blurs, and presently the dog swam, unscathed, beyond therange of missiles.
Now a swim of a mile or of two miles was no special exploit forLad--even in ice-cold water, but this water was not like any he hadswum in. The tide was at the turn for one thing, and while, in a way,this helped him, yet the myriad eddies and cross-currents engenderedby it turned and jostled and buffeted him in a most perplexingway. And there were spars and barrels and other obstacles that wereforever looming up just in front of him or else banging against hisheaving sides.
Once a revenue cutter passed not thirty feet ahead of him. Its wakecaught the dog and sucked him under and spun his body around andaround before he could fight clear of it.
His lungs were bursting. He was worn out. He felt as sore as if he hadbeen kicked for an hour. The bullet-graze along his flank was hurtinghim as the salt water bit into it, and the muzzle half-blinded,half-smothered him.
But, because of his hero heart rather than through his splendidstrength and wisdom, he kept on.
For an hour or more he swam until at last his body and brain werenumb, and only the mechanical action of his wrenched muscles held himin motion. Twice tugs narrowly escaped running him down, and in thewake of each he waged a fearful fight for life.
After a century of effort his groping forepaws felt the impact of asubmerged rock, then of another, and with his last vestige of strengthLad crawled feebly ashore on a narrow sandspit at the base of theelephant-gray Palisades. There, he collapsed and lay shivering,panting, struggling for breath.
Long he lay there, letting Nature bring back some of his wind and hismotive-power, his shaggy body one huge pulsing ache.
When he was able to move, he took up his journey. Sometimes swimming,sometimes on ground, he skirted the Palisades-foot to northward, untilhe found one of the several precipice-paths that Sunday picnickerslove to climb. Up this he made his tottering way, slowly; conservinghis strength as best he could.
On the summit he lay down again to rest. Behind him, across thestretch of black and lamp-flecked water, rose the inky skyline of thecity with a lurid furnace-glow between its crevices that smote thesky. Ahead was a plateau with a downward slope beyond it.
Once more, getting to his feet, Lad stood and sniffed, turning hishead from side to side, muzzled nose aloft. Then, his bearings taken,he set off again, but this time his jog-trot was slower and his lightstep was growing heavier. The terrible strain of his swim was passingfrom his mighty sinews, but it was passing slowly because he was sotired and empty and in such pain of body and mind. He saved hisenergies until he should have more of them to save.
Across the plateau, down the slope, and then across the interminablesalt meadows to westward he traveled; sometimes on road or path,sometimes across field or hill, but always in an unswerving straightline.
It was a little before midnight that he breasted the first rise ofJersey hills above Hackensack. Through a lightless one-street villagehe went, head low, stride lumbering, the muzzle weighing a ton andcomposed of molten iron and hornet stings.
It was the muzzle--now his first fatigue had slackened--that galledhim worst. Its torture was beginning to do queer things to his nervesand brain. Even a stolid, nerveless dog hates a muzzle. More than onesensitive dog has been driven crazy by it.
Thirst--intolerable thirst--was torturing Lad. He could not drink atthe pools and brooks he crossed. So tight-jammed was the steeljaw-hinge now that he could not even open his mouth to pant, which isthe cruelest deprivation a dog can suffer.
Out of the shadows of a ramshackle hovel's front yard dived amonstrous shape that hurled itself ferociously on the passing collie.
A mongrel watchdog--part mastiff, part hound, part anything youchoose--had been dozing on his squatter-owner's doorstep when thepad-pad-pad of Lad's wearily-jogging feet had sounded on the road.
Other dogs, more than one of them, during the journey had run out toyap or growl at the wanderer, but as Lad had been big and had followedan unhesitant course they had not gone to the length of actual attack.
This mongrel, however, was less prudent. Or, perhaps, dog-fashion, herealized that the muzzle rendered Lad powerless and therefore sawevery prospect of a safe and easy victory. At all events, he gave nowarning bark or growl as he shot forward to the attack.
Lad--his eyes dim with fatigue and road dust, his ears dulled by waterand by noise--did not hear nor see the foe. His first notice of theattack was a flying weight of seventy-odd pounds that crashed againsthis flank. A double set of fangs in the same instant, sank into hisshoulder.
Under the onslaught Lad fell sprawlingly into the road on his leftside, his enemy upon him.
As Lad went down the mongrel deftly shifted his unprofitable shouldergrip to a far more promisingly murderous hold on his fallen victim'sthroat.
A cat has five sets of deadly weapons--its four feet and its jaws. Sohas every animal on earth--human and otherwise--except a dog. A dog isterrible by reason of its teeth. Encase the mouth in a muzzle and adog is as helpless for offensive warfare as is a newborn baby.
And Lad was thus pitiably impotent to return his foe's attack.Exhausted, flung prone to earth, his mighty jaws muzzled, heseemed as good as dead.
But a collie down is not a collie beaten. The wolf-strain providesagainst that. Even as he fell Lad instinctively gathered his legsunder him as he had done when he tumbled from the car.
And, almost at once, he was on his feet again, snarling horribly andlunging to break the mongrel's throat-grip. His weariness wasforgotten and his wondrous reserve strength leaped into play. Whichwas all the good it did him; for he knew as well as the mongrel thathe was powerless to use his teeth.
The throat of a collie--except in one small vulnerable spot--isarmored by a veritable mattress of hair. Into this hair the mongrelhad driven his teeth. The hair filled his mouth, but his grinding jawsencountered little else to close on.
A lurching jerk of Lad's strong frame tore loose the savagelyinefficient hold. The mongrel sprang at him for a fresh grip. Ladreared to meet him, opposing his mighty chest to the charge andsnapping powerlessly with his close-locked mouth
.
The force of Lad's rearing leap sent the mongrel spinning back bysheer weight, but at once he drove in again to the assault. This timehe did not give his muzzled antagonist a chance to rear, but sprang atLad's flank. Lad wheeled to meet the rush and, opposing his shoulderto it, broke its force.
Seeing himself so helpless, this was of course the time for Ladto take to his heels and try to outrun the enemy he could notoutfight. To stand his ground was to be torn, eventually, to death.Being anything but a fool Lad knew that; yet he ignored the chance ofsafety and continued to fight the worse-than-hopeless battle.
Twice and thrice his wit and his uncanny swiftness enabled him toblock the big mongrel's rushes. The fourth time, as he sought torear, his hind foot slipped on a skim of puddle-ice.
Down went Lad in a heap, and the mongrel struck.
Before the collie could regain his feet the mongrel's teeth had founda hold on the side of Lad's throat. Pinning down the muzzled dog, themongrel proceeded to improve his hold by grinding his way toward thejugular. Now his teeth encountered something more solid than merehair. They met upon a thin leather strap.
Fiercely the mongrel gnawed at this solid obstacle, his rage-hot brainpossibly mistaking it for flesh. Lad writhed to free himself and toregain his feet, but seventy-five pounds of fighting weight wereholding his neck to the ground.
Of a sudden, the mongrel growled in savage triumph. The strap wasbitten through!
Clinging to the broken end of the leather the victor gave one finaltug. The pull drove the steel bars excruciatingly deep into Lad'sbruised nose for a moment. Then, by magic, the torture-implement wasno longer on his head but was dangling by one strap between themuzzled mongrel's jaws.
With a motion so swift that the eye could not follow it, Lad was onhis feet and plunging deliriously into the fray. Through a miracle,his jaws were free; his torment was over. The joy of deliverance senta glow of Berserk vigor sweeping through him.
The mongrel dropped the muzzle and came eagerly to the battle. To hisdismay he found himself fighting not a helpless dog, but a maniacwolf. Lad sought no permanent hold. With dizzying quickness his headand body moved--and kept moving, and every motion meant a deep slashor a ragged tear in his enemy's short-coated hide.
With ridiculous ease the collie eluded the mongrel's awkwardcounter-attacks, and ever kept boring in. To the quivering bone hisshort front teeth sank. Deep and bloodily his curved tusks slashed--asthe wolf and the collie alone can slash.
The mongrel, swept off his feet, rolled howling into the road; and Ladtore grimly at the exposed under-body.
Up went a window in the hovel. A man's voice shouted. A woman in ahouse across the way screamed. Lad glanced up to note this newdiversion. The stricken mongrel yelping in terror and agony seizedthe second respite to scamper back to the doorstep, howling at everyjump.
Lad did not pursue him, but jogged along on his journey without onebackward look.
At a rivulet, a mile beyond, he stopped to drink. And he drank forten minutes. Then he went on. Unmuzzled and with his thirst slaked,he forgot his pain, his fatigue, his muddy and blood-caked and abradedcoat, and the memory of his nightmare day.
He was going home!
At gray dawn the Mistress and the Master turned in at the gateway ofThe Place. All night they had sought Lad; from one end of ManhattanIsland to the other--from Police Headquarters to dog pound--they haddriven. And now the Master was bringing his tired and heartsore wifehome to rest, while he himself should return to town and to thesearch.
The car chugged dispiritedly down the driveway to the house, butbefore it had traversed half the distance the dawn-hush was shatteredby a thundrous bark of challenge to the invaders.
Lad, from his post of guard on the veranda, ran stiffly forward to barthe way. Then as he ran his eyes and nose suddenly told him thesemysterious newcomers were his gods.
The Mistress, with a gasp of rapturous unbelief, was jumping down fromthe car before it came to a halt. On her knees, she caught Lad's muddyand bloody head tight in her arms.
"Oh, Lad;" she sobbed incoherently. "Laddie! _Laddie!_"
Whereat, by another miracle, Lad's stiffness and hurts and wearinesswere gone. He strove to lick the dear face bending so tearfully abovehim. Then, with an abandon of puppylike joy, he rolled on the groundwaving all four soiled little feet in the air and playfully pretendingto snap at the loving hands that caressed him.
Which was ridiculous conduct for a stately and full-grown collie. ButLad didn't care, because it made the Mistress stop crying andlaugh. And that was what Lad most wanted her to do.