Lad: A Dog Part 34

In spite of all this he was beautiful. His gold-and-white coat was almost as bright and luxuriant as any prize-winner's. He had, in a general way, the collie head and brush. But an expert, at the most casual glance, would have noted a shortness of nose and breadth of jaw and a shape of ear and shoulder that told dead against him.

The collie is supposed to be descended direct from the wolf, and Wolf looked far more like his original ancestors than like a thoroughbred collie. From puppyhood he had been the living image, except in color, of a timber-wolf, and it was from this queer throw-back trait that he had won his name.

Lad was the Mistress' dog. Bruce was the Master's. Wolf belonged to the Boy, having been born on the latter's birthday.

For the first six months of his life Wolf lived at The Place on sufferance. n.o.body except the Boy took any special interest in him. He was kept only because his better-formed brothers had died in early puppyhood and because the Boy, from the outset, had loved him.

At six months it was discovered that he was a natural watch-dog. Also that he never barked except to give an alarm. A collie is, perhaps, the most excitable of all large dogs. The veriest trifle will set him off into a thunderous paroxysm of barking. But Wolf, the Boy noted, never barked without strong cause.

He had the rare genius for guarding that so few of his breed possess. For not one dog in ten merits the t.i.tle of watch-dog. The duties that should go with that office are far more than the mere clamorous announcement of a stranger's approach, or even the attacking of such a stranger.

The born watch-dog patrols his beat once in so often during the night. At all times he must sleep with one ear and one eye alert. By day or by night he must discriminate between the visitor whose presence is permitted and the trespa.s.ser whose presence is not. He must know what cla.s.s of undesirable to scare off with a growl and what cla.s.s needs stronger measures. He must also know to the inch the boundaries of his own master's land.

Few of these things can be taught; all of them must be instinctive.

Wolf had been born with them. Most dogs are not.

His value as a watch-dog gave Wolf a settled position of his own on The Place. Lad was growing old and a little deaf. He slept, at night, under the piano in the music-room. Bruce was worth too much money to be left at large in the night time for any clever dog-thief to steal. So he slept in the study. Rex, a huge mongrel, was tied up at night, at the lodge, a furlong away. Thus Wolf alone was left on guard at the house. The piazza was his sentry-box. From this shelter he was wont to set forth three or four times a night, in all sorts of weather, to make his rounds.

The Place covered twenty-five acres. It ran from the high-road, a furlong above the house, down to the lake that bordered it on two sides. On the third side was the forest. Boating-parties, late at night, had a pleasant way of trying to raid the lakeside apple-orchard. Tramps now and then strayed down the drive from the main road. Prowlers, crossing the woods, sometimes sought to use The Place's sloping lawn as a short cut to the turnpike below the falls.

For each and all of these intruders Wolf had an ever-ready welcome. A whirl of madly pattering feet through the dark, a snarling growl far down in the throat, a furry shape catapulting into the air--and the trespa.s.ser had his choice between a scurrying retreat or a double set of white fangs in the easiest-reached part of his anatomy.

The Boy was inordinately proud of his pet's watchdog prowess. He was prouder yet of Wolf's almost incredible sharpness of intelligence, his quickness to learn, his knowledge of word meaning, his zest for romping, his perfect obedience, the tricks he had taught himself without human tutelage--in short, all the things that were a sign of the brain he had inherited from Lad.

But none of these talents overcame the sad fact that Wolf was not a show dog and that he looked positively underbred and shabby alongside of his sire or of Bruce. Which rankled at the Boy's heart; even while loyalty to his adored pet would not let him confess to himself or to anyone else that Wolf was not the most flawlessly perfect dog on earth.

Under-sized (for a collie), slim, graceful, fierce, affectionate, Wolf was the Boy's darling, and he was Lad's successor as official guardian of The Place. But all his youthful life, thus far, had brought him nothing more than this--while Lad and Bruce had been winning prize after prize at one local dog show after another within a radius of thirty miles.

The Boy was duly enthusiastic over the winning of each trophy; but always, for days thereafter, he was more than usually attentive to Wolf to make up for his pet's dearth of prizes.

Once or twice the Boy had hinted, in a veiled, tentative way, that young Wolf might perhaps win something, too, if he were allowed to go to a show. The Master, never suspecting what lay behind the cautious words, would always laugh in good-natured derision, or else he would point in silence to Wolf's head and then to Lad's.

The Boy knew enough about collies to carry the subject no further. For even his eyes of devotion could not fail to mark the difference in aspect between his dog and the two prize-winners.

One July morning both Lad and Bruce went through an hour of anguish.

Both of them, one after the other, were plunged into a bath-tub full of warm water and naphtha soap-suds and Lux; and were scrubbed right unmercifully, after which they were rubbed and curried and brushed for another hour until their coats shone resplendent. All day, at intervals, the brus.h.i.+ng and combing were kept up.

Lad was indignant at such treatment, and he took no pains to hide his indignation. He knew perfectly well, from the undue attention, that a dog show was at hand. But not for a year or more had he himself been made ready for one. His lake baths and his daily casual brus.h.i.+ng at the Mistress' hands had been, in that time, his only form of grooming. He had thought himself graduated forever from the nuisance of going to shows.

"What's the idea of dolling up old Laddie like that?" asked the Boy, as he came in for luncheon and found the Mistress busy with comb and dandy-brush over the unhappy dog.

"For the Fourth of July Red Cross Dog Show at Ridgewood to-morrow,"

answered his mother, looking up, a little flushed from her exertions.

"But I thought you and Dad said last year he was too old to show any more," ventured the Boy.

"This time is different," said the Mistress. "It's a specialty show, you see, and there is a cup offered for 'the best _veteran_ dog of any recognized breed.' Isn't that fine? We didn't hear of the Veteran Cup till Dr. Hooper telephoned to us about it this morning. So we're getting Lad ready. There _can't_ be any other veteran as splendid as he is."

"No," agreed the Boy, dully, "I suppose not."

He went into the dining-room, surrept.i.tiously helped himself to a handful of lump-sugar and pa.s.sed on out to the veranda. Wolf was sprawled half-asleep on the driveway lawn in the sun.

The dog's wolflike brush began to thump against the shaven gra.s.s.

Then, as the Boy stood on the veranda edge and snapped his fingers, Wolf got up from his soft resting-place and started toward him, treading mincingly and with a sort of swagger, his slanting eyes half shut, his mouth a-grin.

"You know I've got sugar in my pocket as well as if you saw it," said the Boy. "Stop where you are."

Though the Boy accompanied his order with no gesture nor change of tone, the dog stopped dead short ten feet away.

"Sugar is bad for dogs," went on the Boy. "It does things to their teeth and their digestions. Didn't anybody ever tell you that, Wolfie?"

The young dog's grin grew wider. His slanting eyes closed to mere glittering slits. He fidgeted a little, his tail wagging fast.

"But I guess a dog's got to have _some_ kind of consolation purse when he can't go to a show," resumed the Boy. "Catch!"

As he spoke he suddenly drew a lump of sugar from his pocket and, with the same motion, tossed it in the direction of Wolf. Swift as was the Boy's action, Wolf's eye was still quicker. Springing high in air, the dog caught the flung cube of sugar as it flew above him and to one side. A second and a third lump were caught as deftly as the first.

Then the Boy took from his pocket the fourth and last lump. Descending the steps, he put his left hand across Wolf's eyes. With his right he flipped the lump of sugar into a clump of shrubbery.

"Find it!" he commanded, lifting the blindfold from the eyes of his pet.

Wolf darted hither and thither, stopped once or twice to sniff, then began to circle the nearer stretch of lawn, nose to ground. In less than two minutes he merged from the shrubbery placidly crunching the sugar-lump between his mighty jaws.

"And yet they say you aren't fit to be shown!" exclaimed the Boy, fondling the dog's ears. "Gee, but I'd give two years' growth if you could have a cup! You deserve one, all right; if only those judges had sense enough to study a collie's brain as well as the outside of his head!"

Wolf ran his nose into the cupped palm and whined. From the tone underlying the words, he knew the Boy was unhappy, and he wanted to be of help.

The Boy went into the house again to find his parents sitting down to lunch. Gathering his courage in both hands, he asked:

"Is there going to be a Novice Cla.s.s for collies at Ridgewood, Dad?"

"Why, yes," said the Master, "I suppose so. There always is."

"Do--do they give cups for the Novice Cla.s.s?" inquired the Boy, with studied carelessness.

"Of course they don't," said the Master, adding reminiscently, "though the first time we showed Lad we put him in the Novice Cla.s.s and he won the blue ribbon there, so we had to go into the Winners' Cla.s.s afterward. He got the Winner's Cup, you remember. So, indirectly, the Novice Cla.s.s won him a cup."

"I see," said the Boy, not at all interested in this bit of ancient history. Then speaking very fast, he went on:

"Well, a ribbon's better than nothing! Dad, will you do me a favor?

Will you let me enter Wolfie for the Novice Cla.s.s to-morrow? I'll pay the fee out of my allowance. Will you, Dad?"

The Master looked at his son in blank amazement. Then he threw back his head and laughed loudly. The Boy flushed crimson and bit his lips.

"Why, dear!" hurriedly interposed the Mistress, noting her son's discomfiture. "You wouldn't want Wolf to go there and be beaten by a lot of dogs that haven't half his brains or prettiness! It wouldn't be fair or kind to Wolf. He's so clever, he'd know in a moment what was happening. He'd know he was beaten. Nearly all dogs do. No, it wouldn't be fair to him."

"There's a 'mutt' cla.s.s among the specials, Dr. Hopper says," put in the Master, jocosely. "You might----"