Part 2 (2/2)
Lad started toward the house Then, pausing, he picked up the bag which had been so exhilarating a plaything for hiotten in his pain
It was Lad's collie way to pick up offerings (ranging from slippers to very dead fish) and to carry them to the Mistress So was lifted gingerly between aloof fingers and tossed back into the lake But, nobody could well refuse so jingly and pretty a gift as this satchel
The Master, sketchily attired, caht in hand Past him, unnoticed, as he sped toward the ditch, a collie pup li puppy who carried in his
”It doesn't make sense to me!” complained the Master, next day, as he told the story for the dozenth tiroup of callers ”I heard the shots and I went out to investigate There he was lying, half in and half out of the ditch The felloas unconscious He didn't get his senses back till after the police ca yarn about a creature that had stolen his bag of loot and that had lured him to the ditch He was all unnerved and upset, and alh trouble in 'sweating' hi he knew And there's a wholesale round-up of theon this afternoon as a result of it But what I can't understand--”
”It's as clear as day,” insisted the Mistress, stroking a silken head that pressed lovingly against her knee ”As clear as day I was standing in the doorway here when Laddie ca up to me and laid a little satchel atof value in it that had been in the safe over there That and the thief's story ht theaway fro as he went And he stuhed the Master ”I'll grant all you say about Lad's being the most marvelous puppy on earth And I'll even believe all theof jewelry fro back here to you with the bag--”
”Then how do you account--?”
”I don't None of it makes sense to me As I just said But, whatever happened, it's turned Laddie into a real watchdog Did you notice hoent for the police when they started down the drive, last night?
We've got a watchdog at last”
”We've got ,” a would just scare away thieves or bite theht the stolen jewelry back to us No other dog could have done that”
Lad, enraptured by the note of praise in the Mistress's soft voice, looked adoringly up into the face that s the sound of a step on the drive, he dashed out to bark in murderous fashi+on at a wholly harmless delivery boy who can't afford to relax vigilance, for a single instant,--especially at the responsible age of five ht of the robbery, Lad's high position at the Place was assured
Even in the enerally separate furry puppyhood froave sure pro as is found perhaps once in a generation; the super-collie that neither knows nor needs such things as whip and chain; and that learns the Laith bewildering swiftness
A dog with a brain and a hty heart, as well as an endless fund of loveableness and of gay courage
Month by iant; his orange-th, his deep chest prorace His mind and his oddly human traits developed as fast as did his body
After the first es never to be accorded to any other of the Place's dogs in Lad's lifetiht under the ht At -room, where he lay on the floor at the Master's left hand He had the run of the house, as fully as any huhteen e; and reached its crawly tentacles out across the lake to the e street, one day, trotted an enorrel; full in the center of the roadway The rel's heavy head was low, and lolled fro body
The eyes were bloodshot Fro dewlaps, flecks of foarel was sick of et out of that abode of men and to find solitude in the forests and hills beyond the village
For this is the considerate way of dogs; and of cats as well When dire sickness s sy for endless attention All they want is to get out of the way,--well out of the way, into the woods and swamps and mountains; where they may wrestle with their life-or-death problem in their own primitive manner; and where, if need be, theyanyone else
Especially is this true with dogs If their e, they make every possible attempt to escape from home and to be as far away frooad the those they love
And, when so beast is seen, on his way to solitude, we hu the idiotic bellow of ”Mad dog!”
and by chasing and torturing the victi in a thousand, thus assailed, has any disease which is even reainst helpless anie ression; but which may orscare sweeps your own neighborhood
Down the rel Five minutes earlier, he had escaped from the damp cellar in which his owner had imprisoned him when first he fell ill And now, his one purpose was to leave the village behind hie of the foothills beyond