Read Lad: A Dog for Free Online Page B

wolf in his queer brain. He seeks a hold, it is true. But at an instant’s notice, he is ready to shift that hold for a better. He may bite or slash a dozen times in as many seconds and in as many parts of the body. He is everywhere at once—he is nowhere in particular. He is not a pleasant opponent.
    Lad did not wait for the thief’s knife to find his heart. As the man lunged, the dog transferred his profitless shoulder-hold to a grip on the stabbing arm. The knife blade plowed an ugly furrow along his side. And the dog’s curved eyetooth slashed the man’s arm from elbow to wrist, clean through to the bone.
    The knife clattered to the floor. The burglar wheeled and made a leap for the open window; he had not cleared half the space when Lad bounded for the back of his neck. The dog’s upper set of teeth raked the man’s hard skull, carrying away a handful of hair and flesh; and his weight threw the thief forward on hands and knees again. Twisting, the man found the dog’s furry throat and with both hands sought to strangle him, at the same time backing out through the window. But it is not easy to strangle a collie. The piles of tumbled ruff-hair form a protection no other breed of dog can boast. Scarcely had the hands found their grip when one of them was crushed between the dog’s viselike jaws.
    The man flung off his enemy and turned to clear the veranda at a single jump. But before he had half made the turn, Lad was at his throat again, and the two crashed through the vines together and down onto the driveway below. The entire combat had not lasted for more than thirty seconds.
    The Master, pistol and flashlight in hand, ran down to find the living room amuck with blood and with smashed furniture, and one of the windows open. He flashed the electric ray through the window. On the ground below, stunned by striking against a stone jardiniere in his fall, the burglar sprawled senseless upon his back. Above him was Lad, his searching teeth at last having found their coveted throat-hold. Steadily, the great dog was grinding his way through toward the jugular.
    There was a deal of noise and excitement and light after that. The man was trussed up and the local constable was summoned by telephone. Everybody seemed to be doing much loud talking.
    Lad took advantage of the turmoil to slip back into the house and to his “cave” under the piano, where he proceeded to lick solicitously the flesh wound on his left side.
    He was very tired; and he was very unhappy and he was very much worried. In spite of all his own precautions as to silence, the burglar had made a most ungodly lot of noise. The commandment “Quiet!” had been fractured past repair. And, somehow, Lad felt blame for it all. It was really his fault—and he realized it now—that the man had made such a racket. Would the Master punish him? Perhaps. Humans have such odd ideas of Justice. He—
    Then it was that the Master found him and called him forth from his place of refuge. Head adroop, tail low, Lad crept out to meet his scolding. He looked very much like a puppy caught tearing a new rug.
    But suddenly, the Master and everyone else in the room was patting him and telling him how splendid he was. And the Master had found the deep scratch on his side and was dressing it, and stopping every minute or so, to praise him again. And then, as a crowning reward, he was taken upstairs for the Mistress to stroke and make much of.
    When at last he was sent downstairs again, Lad did not return to his piano lair. Instead, he went out of doors and away from The Place. And, when he thought he was far enough from the house, he solemnly sat down and began to bark.
    It was good— passing good—to be able to make a noise again. He had never before known how needful to canine happiness a bark really is. He had long and pressing arrears of barks in his system. And thunderously he proceeded to divest himself of them for