Further Adventures of Lad Part 29

The blunted eyetooth made but a superficial furrow; which served only to madden its victim still further. Wheeling, she returned to the attack. Again, with a ghost of his old elusive speed; Laddie avoided her rush, by the narrowest of margins; and, snapping furiously, caught her by the ear.

Now, more than once, in other frays, Lad had subdued and scared trespa.s.sing pigs by this hold. But, in those days, his teeth had been keen and his jaw strong enough to crack a beef bone. Moreover, the pigs on which he had used it to such effect were not drunk with the l.u.s.t of killing.

The sow squealed, afresh, with pain; and once more braced herself and shook her head with all her might: Again, Lad was flung aside by that shake; this time with a fragment of torn ear between his teeth.

As she drove slaveringly at him once more, Lad swerved and darted in; diving for her forelegs. With the collie, as with his ancestor, the wolf, this dive for the leg of an enemy is a favorite and tremendously effective trick in battle. Lad found his hold, just above the right pastern. And he exerted every atom of his power to break the bone or to sever the tendon.

In all the Bible's myriad tragic lines there is perhaps none other so infinitely sad,--less for its actual significance than for what it implies to every man or woman or animal, soon or late,--than that which describes the shorn Samson going forth in jaunty confidence to meet the Philistines he so often and so easily had conquered:

"He wist not that the Lord was departed from him!"

To all of us, to whom the doubtful blessing of old age is granted, must come the black time when we shall essay a task which once we could accomplish with ease;--only to find its achievement has pa.s.sed forever beyond our waning powers. And so, this day, was it with Sunnybank Lad.

Of yore, such a grip as he now secured would have ham strung or otherwise maimed its victim and left her wallowing helpless. But the dull teeth merely barked the leg's tough skin. And a spasmodic jerk ripped it loose from the dog's hold.

Lad barely had time to spring aside, to dodge the wheeling sow. He was panting heavily. His wounds were hurting and weakening him. His wind was gone. His heart was doing queer things which made him sick and dizzy. His strength was turning to water. His courage alone blazed high and undimmed.

Not once did it occur to him to seek safety in flight. He must have known the probable outcome. For Lad knew much. But the great heart did not flinch at the prospect. Feebly, yet dauntlessly, he came back to the hopeless battle. The Mistress was in danger. And he alone could help.

No longer able to avoid the rushes, he met some of them with pathetically useless jaws; going down under others and rising with ever greater slowness and difficulty. The sow's ravening teeth found a goal, more than once, in the burnished mahogany coat which the Mistress brushed every day with such loving care. The p.r.o.nged hoofs had twice more cut him as he strove to roll aside from their onslaught after one of his heavy tumbles.

The end of the fight seemed very near. Yet Lad fought on. To the attack, after each upset or wound, he crawled with deathless courage.

The Mistress, at Lad's first charge, had stepped back. But, at once she had caught up again the stick and belabored the sow with all her frail muscular might. She might as well have been beating the side of a concrete wall. Heedless of the flailing, the sow ignored her; and continued her maddened a.s.sault on Lad. The maids, attracted by the noise, crowded the front doorway; clinging together and jabbering. To them the Mistress called now for the Master's shotgun, from the study wall, and for a handful of sh.e.l.ls.

She kept her head; though she saw she was powerless to save the dog she loved. And her soul was sick within her at his peril which her puny efforts could not avert.

Running across the lawn, toward the house, she met half way the maid who came trembling forth with the gun and two sh.e.l.ls. Without stopping to glance at the cartridges,--nor to realize that they were filled with Number Eight shot, for quails,--she thrust two of them into the breech and, turning, fired pointblank at the sow.

Lad was down again; and the sow,--no longer in a squealing rush, but with a new cold deadliness,--was gauging the distance to his exposed throat. The first shot peppered her shoulder; the tiny pellets scarce scratching the tough hide.

The Mistress had, halted, to fire. Now, she ran forward: With the muzzle not three feet from the sow's head, she pulled trigger again.

The pig's huge jaws road opened with deliberate width. One forefoot was pinning the helplessly battling dog to earth, while she made ready to tear out his throat.

The second shot whizzed about her head and face. Two or three of the pellets entered the open mouth.

With a sound that was neither grunt nor howl, yet which savored of both, the sow lurched back from the flash and roar and the anguis.h.i.+ng pain in her tender mouth. The Mistress whirled aloft the empty and useless gun and brought it cras.h.i.+ng down on the pig's skull. The carved mahogany stock broke in two. The jar of impact knocked the weapon from its wielder's numbed fingers.

The sow seemed scarce to notice the blow. She continued backing away; and champed her jaws as if to locate the cause of the agony in her mouth. Her eyes were inflamed and dazed by the flash of the gun.

The Mistress took advantage of the moment's breathing s.p.a.ce to bend over the staggeringly rising Lad; and, catching him by the ruff, to urge him toward the house. For once, the big collie refused to obey. He knew pig nature better than did she. And he knew the sow was not yet finished with the battle. He strove to break free from the loved grasp and to stagger back to his adversary.

The Mistress, by main strength, drew him, snarling and protesting, toward the safety of the house. Panting, bleeding, reeling, pitiably weak, yet he resisted the tender urging; and kept twisting his b.l.o.o.d.y head back for a glimpse of his foe. Nor was the precaution useless.

For, before the Mistress and her wounded dog were half-way across the remaining strip of lawn, the sow recovered enough of her deflected wits and fury to lower her head and gallop down after them.

At her first step, Lad, by a stupendous effort, wrenched free from the Mistress's clasp; and flung himself between her and the charging ma.s.s of pork. But, as he did so, he found breath for a trumpet-bark that sounded more like a rallying cry.

For, dulled as were his ears, they were still keener than any human's.

And they had caught the sound of eight flying paws amid the dead leaves of the drive. Wolf and Bruce, coming home at a leisurely trot, from their ramble in the forest, had heard the two reports of the shotgun; and had broken into a run. They read the meaning in Lad's exhausted bark, as clearly as humans might read a printed word. And it lent wings to their feet.

Around the corner of the house tore the two returning collies. In a single glance, they seemed to take in the whole grisly scene. They, too, had had their bouts with marauding swine; and they were still young enough to enjoy such clashes and to partake of them without danger.

The sow, too blind with pain and rage to know reinforcements were coming to the aid of the half-dead hero, tore forward. The Mistress, with both hands, sought to drag Lad behind her. The maids screeched in plangent chorus.

Then, just as the sow was launching herself on the futilely snapping Lad, she was stupidly aware that the dog had somehow changed to three dogs. One of these three the Mistress was still holding. The two others, with excellent teamwork, were a.s.sailing the sow from opposite sides.

She came to a sliding stop in her charge; blinking in bewildered fury.

Bruce had caught her by the torn left ear; and was keeping easily out of her way, while he inflicted torture thereon. Wolf, like a furry whirlwind, had stopped only long enough to slash her bleeding nose to the bone; and now was tearing away at her hind leg in an industrious and very promising effort to hamstring her. In front, Lad was still straining to break the Mistress's loving hold; and to get at his pestered enemy.

This was more than the huge porker had bargained for. Through all her murder-rage, she had sense enough to know she was outnumbered and beaten. She broke into a clumsy gallop; heading homeward.

But Bruce and Wolf would not have it so. Delightedly they tore in to the attack. Their slas.h.i.+ng fangs and their keenly nipping front teeth were everywhere. They were all over her. In sudden panic, blinded by terror and pain, the sow put her six hundred pounds of unwieldy weight into the fastest motion she could summon. At a scrambling run, she set off, around the house; head down, bitten tail aloft; the two dogs at her bleeding haunches.

Dimly, she saw a big and black obstacle loom up in her path. It was coming noisily toward her. But she was going too fast and too blindly to swerve. And she met it, headlong; throwing her vast weight forward in an attempt to smash through it. At the same time, Wolf and Bruce left off harrying her flanks and sprang aside.

Dugan had reached the garage unseen. There, he had backed out the car, by hand; shoving it into the open, lest the motor-whirr give premature announcement of his presence. Then, as he boarded the machine and reached for the self-starter, all bedlam broke loose, from somewhere in the general direction of the house, fifty yards away.

Dugan, glancing up apprehensively, beheld the first phases of the fight. Forgetting the need of haste and of secrecy, he sat there, open-mouthed, watching a scrimmage which was beyond all his sporting experience and which thrilled him as no prize-fight had ever done.

Moveless, wide eyed, he witnessed the battle.

But the arrival of the two other dogs and the flight of the sow roused him to a sense of the business which had brought him thither. The Mistress and the maids had no eyes or ears for anything but the wounded Lad. Dugan knew he could, in all probability, drive to the main road unnoticed; if he should keep the house between him and the women.

He pressed the self-starter; threw off the brake and put the car into motion. Then, as he struck the level stretch of driveway, back of the house, he stepped hard on the accelerator. Here, for a few rods, was danger of recognition; and it behooved him to make speed. He made it.

Forward bounded the car and struck a forty-mile gait. And around the house's far corner and straight toward Dugan came flying the sow and the two collies. The dogs, at sight of the onrus.h.i.+ng car, sprang aside.

The sow did not.

In the narrow roadway there was no room for Dugan to turn out. Nor did he care to. Again and again he had run over dogs, without harming his car or slackening its pace. And of course it would be the same with a pig. He stepped harder on the accelerator.

Alf Dugan came to his senses in the hospital ward of the Paterson jail.

He had not the faintest idea how he chanced to be there. When they told him the car had turned turtle and that he and a broken-necked pig had been hauled out of the wreckage, he asked in all honesty:

"What car? What pig? Quit stringing me, can't you? Which of my legs did you say is bust, and which one is just twisted? They both feel as bad as each other. How'd I get here, anyhow? What happened me?"

When the vet had worked over Lad for an hour and had patched him up and had declared there was no doubt at all about his getting well, Wolf and Bruce were brought in to see the invalid. The Mistress thought he might be glad to see them.

He was not.

Indeed, after one scornful look in their direction, Laddie turned away from the visitors, in cold disgust. Also, he was less demonstrative with the Mistress, than usual. Anyone could see his feelings were deeply hurt. And anyone who knew Lad could tell why.

He had borne the brunt of the fight. And, at the last, these lesser dogs had won the victory without his aid. Still worse, his beloved Mistress,--for whom he had so blithely staked his aged life,--the Mistress had held him back by force from joining in the delirious last phases of the battle. She had made him stand tamely by, while others finished the grand work he had begun.

It was not fair. And Laddie let everyone in sight know it was not fair; and that he had no intention of being petted into a good humor.

Still, when, by and by, the Mistress sat down on the floor beside him and told him what a darling and wonderful and heroic dog he was and how proud she felt of his courage, and when her dear hand rumpled the soft hair behind his ears,--well, somehow Lad found himself laying his head in her lap; and making croony low sounds at her and pretending to bite her little white hand.