Part 21 (1/2)
The Master si, obediently, dropped to the ground, the Master bent to exaer In this Samaritan task he was joined by one or two of the club's more venturesoer was all-but delirious with fright His throat was scored by the first raking of Lad's teeth; but in the merest of flesh-wounds The chewed arm was ht of care would see it as good as new By more or less of a miracle, no bones had been broken and no concussion caused by the backward dive down the flight of steps There were bad bruises a-plenty; but there was nothing worse
As the Master and the few others who had descended the steps orking over the fallen man, the Mistress checked the turmoil on the veranda At Lad's leap, memory of this speed-mad motorist had rushed back to her
Now, tersely, for the benefit of those around, she was identifying him with the killer of Lady; whose death had roused so e And, as she spoke, the people who had clas and who had called so frantically for a gun, waxed silent The er were not loving Someone even said, loudly:
”GOOD old Laddie!”
As the Mistress and the Master were closing the house for the night, a car came down the drive Out of it stepped their friend of many years, Maclay, the local Justice of the Peace
”hello, Mac!” hailed the Master ”Here to take us all to jail for assault-and-battery; or just to serve a 'dangerous dog' notice on us?”
He spoke lightly; but he was troubled Today's escapade nizance of Lad's ferocious deed
”No,” laughed Maclay ”Neither of those things I'ht like to know a few things, before you go to bed In the first place, the doctor patched up Rhuburger's bites and took hier's own car For sootten at that
What they did to that 6,000 runabout was a cri They threw the carburetor and the wheels and the steering gear and a lot of other parts into the lake”
”WHAT?”
”Then they left their cards pinned to the diso further into theall that, the club's Governors had a hurry-callIt was unanier from the club Then we--By the here's Laddie? Curled up by Lady's grave, as usual, I suppose? Poor old dog!”
”No,” denied the Mistress ”He's asleep in his 'cave' under the piano
He went there, of his own accord And he ate a perfectly treht He's--he's CURED!”
CHAPTER VIII In Strange Co in years
Not yet had age begun to claw at hi the classicthe sweepingly free gait; dulling the sharp ears or doing any of the other pitiably tragic things that nature does to the dog who is progressing in his teens Those, hu for Lad, one by one; beyond the next Turn of the Road
Yet the ro fun and the lavishly needless exercise--these wereinto sobriety True, at rare times, with the Mistress or the Master--especially with the Mistress, Lad would forget he was nified; and would play like a crazy puppy But, for the un to carry his years a trifle seriously
He was not yet in the winter or even the Indian Summer of his beautiful life But, at least, he had strolled into its early autumn
And this, be it well remembered, is the curse which Step, when he elected to turn his back on his own kind, and to become the only one of the world's four-footed folk to serve Man of his own accord To punish the Dog for this abnorin to fail, allory of its early pri is not at his best, in mind or in body, until he has passed his third year And, before he nears the ten-year un to decline At twelve or thirteen, he is as decrepit as is the average hu in a hundred can be expected to live to fourteen
(Lad, by some miracle, was destined to endure past his own sixteenth birthday; a record seldo his race)
And so to our story:--
When the car and the loaded equipolden October day, Lad forgot his advancing years In a moment, he was once more a puppy For he knehat it all meant It did not need the advent of the Mistress and the Master fro of duffle-bags and the like into the car's tonneau, to send Laddie into a transport of truht and sniff of the tents, rolled tight in the truck, had done that Lad understood Lad always understood
This geartrip in the back reaches of the Ramapo Mountains, soht of tent-life, of shooting, of fishi+ng, of bracingly chill nights and white-s