Lad: A Dog Part 12

"Can I take him away now?" she asked, still stroking Lad's fur.

"Yes," rasped the judge, "and take this along with him."

In his outstretched hand fluttered a little bunch of silk--dark blue, with gold lettering on it.

The blue ribbon! First prize in the Novice cla.s.s! And this grouchy little judge was awarding it--to _Lad!_

The Mistress looked very hard at the bit of blue and gold in her fingers. She saw it through a queer mist. Then, as she stooped to fasten it to Lad's collar, she furtively kissed the tiny white spot on the top of his head.

"It's something like the 'Bar Sinister' victory after all!" she exclaimed joyously as she rejoined the delighted Master at the ring gate. "But, oh, it was terrible for a minute or two, wasn't it?"

Now, Angus McGilead, Esq. (late of Linlithgow, Scotland), had a knowledge of collies such as is granted to few men, and this very fact made him a wretchedly bad dog-show judge; as the Kennel Club, which--on the strength of his fame--had engaged his services for this single occasion, speedily learned. The greatest lawyer makes often the worst judge. Legal annals prove this; and the same thing applies to dog-experts. They are sane rather than judicial.

McGilead had scant patience with the ultra-modern, inbred and grayhoundlike collies which had so utterly departed from their ancestral standards. At one glimpse he had recognized Lad as a dog after his own heart--a dog that brought back to him the murk and magic of the Highland moors.

He had noted the deep chest, the mighty forequarters, the tiny white paws, the incredible wealth of outer- and under-coat, the brush, the grand head, and the soul in the eyes. This was such a dog as McGilead's shepherd ancestors had admitted as an honored equal, at hearth and board--such a dog, for brain and brawn and beauty, as a Highland master would no sooner sell than he would sell his own child.

McGilead, therefore, had waved Lad aside while he judged the lesser dogs of his cla.s.s, lest he be tempted to look too much at Lad and too little at them; and he rejoiced, at the last, to give honor where all honor was due.

Through dreary hours that day Lad lay disconsolate in his cell, nose between paws, while the stream of visitors flowed sluggishly past him. His memory of the Guest-Law prevented him from showing his teeth when some of these pa.s.sing humans paused in front of the compartment to pat him or to consult his number in their catalogues. But he accorded not so much as one look--to say nothing of a handshake--to any of them.

A single drop of happiness was in his sorrow-cup. He had, seemingly, done something that made both the Master and the Mistress very, _very_ proud of him. He did not know just why they should be for he had done nothing clever. In fact, he had been at his dullest. But they _were_ proud of him--undeniably proud, and this made him glad, through all his black despondency.

Even the collie man seemed to regard him with more approval than before--not that Lad cared at all; and two or three exhibitors came over for a special look at him. From one of these exhibitors the Mistress learned of a dog-show rule that was wholly new to her.

She was told that the winning dog of each and every cla.s.s was obliged to return later to the ring to compete in what was known as the Winners' cla.s.s--a contest whose entrants included every cla.s.s-victor from Novice to Open. Briefly, this special compet.i.tion was to determine which cla.s.s-winner was the best collie in the whole list of winners and, as such, ent.i.tled to a certain number of "points" toward a champions.h.i.+p. There were eight of these winners.

One or two such world-famed champions as Grey Mist and Southport Sample were in the show "for exhibition only." But the pick of the remaining leaders must compete in the winners' cla.s.s--Sunnybank Lad among them. The Master's heart sank at this news.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "You see, it's one thing to win as a Novice against a bunch of untried dogs, and quite another to compete against the best dogs in the show. I wish we could get out of it."

"Never mind!" answered the Mistress. "Laddie has won his ribbon. They can't take that away from him. There's a silver cup for the Winners'

cla.s.s, though. I wish there had been one for the Novices."

The day wore on. At last came the call for "Winners!" And for the second time poor Lad plodded reluctantly into the ring with the Mistress. But now, instead of novice dogs, he was confronted by the cream of colliedom.

Lad's heartsick aspect showed the more intensely in such company. It grieved the Mistress bitterly to see his disconsolate air. She thought of the three days and nights to come--the nights when she and the Master could not be with him, when he must lie listening to the babel of yells and barks all around, with n.o.body to speak to him except some neglectful and sleepy attendant. And for the sake of a blue ribbon she had brought this upon him!

The Mistress came to a sudden and highly unsportsmanlike resolution.

Again the dogs paraded the ring. Again the judge studied them from between half-shut eyes. But this time he did not wave Lad to one side. The Mistress had noted, during the day, that McGilead had always made known his decisions by first laying his hand on the victor's head. And she watched breathless for such a gesture.

One by one the dogs were weeded out until only two remained. Of these two, one was Lad--the Mistress' heart banged crazily--and the other was Champion Coldstream Guard. The Champion was a grand dog, gold-and-white of hue, perfect of coat and line, combining all that was best in the old and new styles of collies. He carried his head n.o.bly aloft with no help from the choke-collar. His "tulip" ears hung at precisely the right curve.

Lad and Coldstream Guard were placed shoulder to shoulder on the platform. Even the Mistress could not fail to contrast her pet's woe-begone aspect with the Champion's alert beauty.

"Lad!" she said, very low, and speaking with slow intentness as McGilead compared the two. "Laddie, we're going home. Home! _Home_, Lad!"

Home! At the word, a thrill went through the great dog. His shoulders squared. Up went his head and his ears. His dark eyes fairly glowed with eagerness as he looked expectantly up at the Mistress. _Home!_

Yet, despite the transformation, the other was the finer dog--from a mere show viewpoint. The Mistress could see he was. Even the new uptilt of Lad's ears could not make those ears so perfect in shape and att.i.tude as were the Champion's.

With almost a gesture of regret McGilead laid his hand athwart Coldstream Guard's head. The Mistress read the verdict, and she accepted it.

"Come, Laddie, dear," she said tenderly. "You're second, anyway, Reserve-Winner. That's _something_."

"Wait!" snapped McGilead.

The judge was seizing one of Champion Coldstream Guard's supershapely ears and turning it backward. His sensitive fingers, falling on the dog's head in token of victory, had encountered an odd stiffness in the curve of the ear. Now he began to examine that ear, and then the other, and thereby he disclosed a most clever bit of surgical bandaging.

Neatly crisscrossed, inside each of the Champion's ears, was a succession of adhesive-plaster strips cut thin and running from tip to orifice. The scientific applying of these strips had painfully imparted to the p.r.i.c.k-ears (the dog's one flaw) the perfect tulip-shape so desirable as a show-quality. Champion Coldstream Guard's silken ears could not have had other than ideal shape and posture if he had wanted them to--while that crisscross of sticky strips held them in position!

Now, this was no new trick--the ruse that the Champion's handlers had employed. Again and again in bench-shows, it had been employed upon bull-terriers. A year or two ago a woman was ordered from the ring, at the Garden, when plaster was found inside her terrier's ears, but seldom before had it been detected in a collie--in which a p.r.i.c.k-ear usually counts as a fatal blemish.

McGilead looked at the Champion. Long and searchingly he looked at the man who held the Champion's leash--and who fidgeted grinningly under the judge's glare. Then McGilead laid both hands on Lad's great honest head--almost as in benediction.

"Your dog wins, Madam," he said, "and while it is no part of a judge's duty to say so, I am heartily glad. I won't insult you by asking if he is for sale, but if ever you have to part with him----"

He did not finish, but abruptly gave the Mistress the "Winning Cla.s.s"

rosette.

And now, as Lad left the ring, hundreds of hands were put out to pat him. All at once he was a celebrity.

Without returning the dog to the bench, the Mistress went directly to the collie man.

"When do they present the cups?" she asked.

"Not until Sat.u.r.day night, I believe," said the man. "I congratulate you both on----"

"In order to win his cup, Lad will have to stay in this--this inferno--for three days and nights longer?"

"Of course. All the dogs----"

"If he doesn't stay, he won't get the cup?"

"No. It would go to the Reserve, I suppose, or to----"

"Good!" declared the Mistress in relief. "Then he won't be defrauding anyone, and they can't rob him of his two ribbons because I have those."

"What do you mean?" asked the puzzled collie man.

But the Master understood--and approved.

"Good!" he said. "I wanted all day to suggest it to you, but I didn't have the nerve. Come around to the Exhibitors' Entrance. I'll go ahead and start the car."

"But what's the idea?" queried the collie man in bewilderment.

"The idea," replied the Mistress, "is that the cup can go to any dog that wants it. Lad's coming _home_. He knows it, too. Just look at him. I promised him he should go home. We can get there by dinner-time, and he has a day's fast to make up for."