Lad: A Dog Part 30

Her worried frown gave way to a smile of positive inspiration. The Master's own darkling face cleared.

"Good!" he approved. "I think that cinches it. Marie's been with us for years. Her word is certainly as good as a Boche farmhand's. Even Maclay's 'judicial temperament' will have to admit that. Send her in here, won't you?"

When the maid appeared at the door of the study a minute later, the Master opened the examination with the solemn air of a legal veteran.

"You are the first person down here in the mornings, aren't you, Marie?" he began.

"Why, yes, sir," replied the wondering maid. "Yes, always, except when you get up early to go fis.h.i.+ng or when----"

"What time do you get down here in the mornings," pursued the Master.

"Along about six o'clock, sir, mostly," said the maid, bridling a bit as if scenting a criticism of her work-hours.

"Not earlier than six?" asked the Master.

"No, sir," said Marie, uncomfortably. "Of course, if that's not early enough, I suppose I could----"

"It's quite early enough," vouchsafed the Master. "There is no complaint about your hours. You always let Lad out as soon as you come into the music room?"

"Yes, sir," she answered, "as soon as I get downstairs. Those were the orders, you remember."

The Master breathed a silent sigh of relief. The maid did not get downstairs until six. The dog, then, could not get out of the house until that hour. If Schwartz had seen any dog in the Romaine barnyard at daybreak, it a.s.suredly was not Lad. Yet, racking his brain, the Master could not recall any other dog in the vicinity that bore even the faintest semblance to his giant collie. And he fell to recalling--from his happy memories of "_Bob, Son of Battle_"--that "Killers" often travel many miles from home to sate their mania for sheep-slaying.

In any event, it was no concern of his if some distant collie, drawn to the slaughter by the queer "sixth" collie-sense, was killing Romaine's new flock of sheep. Lad was cleared. The maid's very evidently true testimony settled that point.

"Yes, sir," rambled on Marie, beginning to take a faint interest in the examination now that it turned upon Lad whom she loved. "Yes, sir, Laddie always comes out from under his piano the minute he hears my step in the hall outside. And he always comes right up to me and wags that big plume of a tail of his, and falls into step alongside of me and walks over to the front door, right beside me all the way. He knows as much as many a human, that dog does, sir."

Encouraged by the Master's approving nod, the maid ventured to enlarge still further upon the theme.

"It always seems as if he was welcoming me downstairs, like," she resumed, "and glad to see me. I've really missed him quite bad this past few mornings." The approving look on the Master's face gave way to a glare of utter blankness.

"This past few mornings?" he repeated, blitheringly. "What do you mean?"

"Why," she returned, fl.u.s.tered afresh by the quick change in her interlocutor's manner. "Ever since those French windows are left open for the night--same as they always are when the hot weather starts in, you know, sir. Since then, Laddie don't wait for me to let him out. When he wakes up he just goes out himself. He used to do that last year, too, sir. He----"

"Thanks," muttered the Master, dizzily. "That's all. Thanks."

Left alone, he sat slumped low in his chair, trying to think. He was as calmly convinced as ever of his dog's innocence, but he had staked everything on Marie's court testimony. And, now, that testimony was rendered worse than worthless.

Crankily he cursed his own fresh-air mania which had decreed that the long windows on the ground floor be left open on summer nights. With Lad on duty, the house was as safe from successful burglary in spite of these open windows, as if guarded by a squad of special policemen. And the night-air, sweeping through, kept it pleasantly cool against the next day's heat. For this same coolness, a heavy price was now due.

Presently the daze of disappointment pa.s.sed leaving the Master pulsing with a wholesome fighting-anger. Rapidly he revised his defense and, with the Mistress' far cleverer aid, made ready for the afternoon's ordeal. He scouted Maclay's suggestion of hiring counsel and vowed to handle the defense himself. Carefully he and his wife went over their proposed line of action.

Peace Justice Maclay's court was held daily in a rambling room on an upper floor of the village's Odd Fellows' Hall. The proceedings there were generally marked by shrewd sanity rather than by any effort at formalism. Maclay, himself, sat at a battered little desk at the room's far end; his clerk using a corner of the same desk for the scribbling of his sketchy notes.

In front of the desk was a rather long deal table with kitchen chairs around it. Here, plaintiffs and defendants and prisoners and witnesses and lawyers were wont to sit, with no order of precedent or of other formality. Several other chairs were ranged irregularly along the wall to accommodate any overflow of the table's occupants.

Promptly at three o'clock that afternoon, the Mistress and the Master entered the courtroom. Close at the Mistress' side--though held by no leash--paced Lad. Maclay and Romaine and Schwartz were already on hand. So were the clerk and the constable and one or two idle spectators. At a corner of the room, wrapped in burlap, were huddled the bodies of the two slain sheep.

Lad caught the scent of the victims the instant he set foot in the room, and he sniffed vibrantly once or twice. t.i.tus Romaine, his eyes fixed scowlingly on the dog, noted this, and he nudged Schwartz in the ribs to call the German's attention to it.

Lad turned aside in fastidious disgust from the b.u.mpy burlap bundle. Seeing the Judge and recognizing him as an old acquaintance, the collie wagged his plumed tail in gravely friendly greeting and stepped forward for a pat on the head.

"Lad!" called the Mistress, softly.

At the word the dog paused midway to the embarra.s.sed Maclay's desk and obediently turned back. The constable was drawing up a chair at the deal table for the Mistress. Lad curled down beside her, resting one snowy little forepaw protectingly on her slippered foot. And the hearing began.

Romaine repeated his account of the collie's alleged depredations, starting with Lad's first view of the sheep. Schwartz methodically retold his own story of twice witnessing the killing of sheep by the dog.

The Master did not interrupt either narrative, though, on later questioning he forced the sulkily truthful Romaine to admit he had not actually seen Lad chase the sheep-flock that morning on Mount Pisgah, but had merely seen the sheep running, and the dog standing at the hill-foot looking upward at their scattering flight. Both the Mistress and the Master swore that the dog on that occasion, had made no move to pursue or otherwise hara.s.s the sheep.

Thus did Lad win one point in the case. But, in view of the after-crimes wherewith he was charged, the point was of decidedly trivial value. Even if he had not attacked the flock on his first view of them he was accused of killing no less than eight of their number on two later encounters. And Schwartz was an eye-witness to this--Schwartz, whose testimony was as clear and as simple as daylight.

With a glance of apology at the Mistress, Judge Maclay ordered the sheep-carca.s.ses taken from their burlap cerements and laid on the table for court-inspection.

While he and Schwartz arranged the grisly exhibits for the judge's view, t.i.tus Romaine expatiated loudly on the value of the murdered sheep and on the brutally useless wastage in their slaying. The Master said nothing, but he bent over each of the sheep, carefully studying the throat-wounds. At last he straightened himself up from his task and broke in on Romaine's Antony-like funeral-oration by saying quietly:

"Your honor, these sheep's throats were not cut by a dog. Neither by Lad nor by any 'killer.' Look for yourself. I've seen dog-killed sheep. The wounds were not at all like these."

"Not killed by a dog, hey?" loudly scoffed Romaine. "I s'pose they was chewed by lightnin', then? Or, maybe they was bit by a skeeter? Huh!"

"They were not bitten at all," countered the Master. "Still less, were they chewed. Look! Those gashes are ragged enough, but they are as straight as if they were made by a machine. If ever you have seen a dog worry a piece of meat----"

"Rubbis.h.!.+" grunted t.i.tus. "You talk like a fool! The sheeps' throats is torn. Schwartz seen your cur tear 'em. That's all there is to it.

Whether he tore 'em straight or whether he tore 'em crooked don't count in Law. He _tore_ 'em. An' I got a reli'ble witness to prove it."

"Your Honor," said the Master, suddenly. "May I interrogate the witness?"

Maclay nodded. The Master turned to Schwartz, who faced him in stolid composure.

"Schwartz," began the Master, "you say it was light enough for you to recognize the sheep-killing dog both mornings in Romaine's barnyard.

How near to him did you get?"

Schwartz pondered for a second, then made careful answer:

"First time, I ran into the barnyard from the house side and your dog cut and run out of it from the far side when he saw me making for him.

That time, I don't think I got within thirty feet of him. But I was near enough to see him plain, and I'd seen him often enough before on the road or in your car; so I knew him all right. The next time--this morning, Judge--I was within five feet of him, or even nearer. For I was near enough to hit him with the stick I'd just picked up and to land a kick on his ribs as he started away. I saw him then as plain as I see you. And nearer than I am to you. And the light was 'most good enough to read by, too."

"Yes?" queried the Master. "If I remember rightly you told Judge Maclay that you were on watch last night in the cowshed, just alongside the barnyard where the sheep were; and you fell asleep; and woke just in time to see a dog----"

"To see your dog----" corrected Schwartz.

"To see a dog growling over a squirming and bleating sheep he had pulled down. How far away from you was he when you awoke?"

"Just outside the cowshed door. Not six feet from me. I ups with the stick I had with me and ran out at him and----"

"Were he and the sheep making much noise?"

"Between 'em they was making enough racket to wake a dead man,"