Part 18 (2/2)

Nor had punish cured her of the trait She was an addict at car-chasing She holly incurable There are such dogs

Soon or late, h for the habit

In early days, Lad also had dashed after ht him that this was one of the direst breaches of the Place's sierness,--he stood statue-still when an autoly past him

More,--he had cured pup after pup, at the Place, of car-chasing But Lady he could not cure; though he never gave up the useless attempt

Down the drive careat skill Before it had covered half the distance between gate and house, Lady was alongside A wheel grazed her shoulder fur as, deftly, she slipped fro up at its tonneau

With a ceaseless fanfare of barks,--delirious in her excite

The delivery boy checked speed and shouted futile warnings to the insane collie As he slowed down a bit on the steep grade, Lady hurled herself in front of theits hot pace on her account

Again and again had she run, head on, at advancing cars It seeht her when such cars slackened speed or swerved, in order not to kill her

Now, as she whizzed backward, her vibrant muzzle a bare six inches fro feet slipped in a one, she tumbled

A collie down is a collie up, in less than a second But there was still less than a second's space between to overthrown Lady and the car's front wheels

The boy slah his ht of his fate at the hands of his es that he had run over and killed a good custorounds

In that single breathless instant, a huge any-and-snow shape flashed forward, into the path of thehis mate, had tried to shoulder her aside and to herd her too far back froer zone, until the car should have passed More than once, at other tihty shoulder and had flung herself back to the assault

As she fell, she rolled over, twice, from her own momentum The second revolution left her directly in front of the skidding wheels One of theripped her by the scruff of the neck Those teeth could crush a mutton-bone as a child cracks a peanut But, on Lady, today, their poas exerted only to the extent of lifting her, in one srench, clear of the ground and high in air

The h space like a lithe olden fluff; and cae of the drive; well clear of the reat dog had braced hi heave Wherefore, he had no chance to spring clear, in time to avoid the car This, no doubt, he had realized, when he sprang to his adored mate's rescue For Lad's brain was uncanny in its cleverness That same cleverness, more likely than mere chance,--now came to his own aid

The left front wheel struck him and struck hi the joint and knocking the eighty-pound dog prone to earth, his ruff within an inch of the wheel There was no tiather his feet under hi its share toward lifting hi that should carry hi Lad could do And he did it

His body in a co the single revolution at a speed the eye could scarce follow,--a speed which jerked hi left wheel which already had smitten hih the ency brake and yelled

Over hi,--h the rear axle's housing srease

On went the machine for another ten feet, before it could halt Then a chalk-faced delivery boy peered backward in fright,--to see Lad getting painfully to his feet and holding perplexedly aloft his tiny right forepaw in token of the dislocated shoulder

The delivery boy saw athered herself up from the ditch where Lad's toss had landed her

Without awhose rough toss had saved her life Teeth aglint, growling ferociously, she dug her fangs into the hurt shoulder and slung her whole weight forward in the bite