Lad: A Dog — 10 - The Killer
THE KILLER
One of the jolliest minutes in Lad's daily cross-country tramp with the Mistress and the Master was his dash up Mount Pisgah.
This "mount" was little more than a foothill.
It was treeless, and covered with short grass and mullein; a slope where no crop but buckwheat could be expected to thrive.
It rose out of the adjoining mountain forests in a long and sweeping ascent.
Here, with no trees or undergrowth to impede him, Lad, from puppyhood, had ordained a racecourse of his own.
As he neared the hill he would always dash forward at top speed; flying up the rise like a tawny whirlwind, at unabated pace, until he stopped, panting and gloriously excited, on the summit; to await his slower-moving human escorts.
One morning in early summer, Lad, as usual, bounded ahead of the Mistress and the Master, as they drew near to the treeless "mount."
And, as ever, he rushed gleefully forward for his daily breather, up the long slope.
But, before he had gone fifty yards, he came to a scurrying halt, and stood at gaze.
His back was bristling and his lips curled back from his white teeth in sudden annoyance.
His keen nostrils, even before his eyes, told him something was amiss with his cherished race-track.
The eddying shift of the breeze, from west to north, had brought to his nose the odor which had checked his onrush; an odor that wakened all sorts of vaguely formless memories far back in Lad's brain; and which he did not at all care for.
Scent is ten times stronger, to a dog, than is sight.
The best dog is near sighted.
And the worst dog has a magic sense of smell.
Wherefore, a dog almost always uses his nose first and his eyes last.
Which Lad now proceeded to do.
Above him was the pale green hillside, up which he loved to gallop.
But its surface was no longer smoothly unencumbered.
Instead, it was dotted and starred--singly or in groups--with fluffy grayish-white creatures.
Lad was almost abreast of the lowest group of sheep when he paused.
Several of the feeding animals lifted their heads, snortingly, from the short herbage, at sight of him; and fled up the hill.
The rest of the flock joined them in the silly stampede.
The dog made no move to follow.
Instead, his forehead creased and his eyes troubled, he stared after the gray-white surge that swept upward toward the summit of his favored coursing ground.
The Mistress and the Master, too, at sight of the woolly avalanche, stopped and stared.
From over the brow of Mount Pisgah appeared the non-picturesque figure of a man in blue denim overalls--one Titus Romaine, owner of the sparse-grassed hill.
Drawn by the noisy multiple patter of his flock's hoofs, he emerged from under a hilltop boulder's shade; to learn the cause of their flight.
Now, in all his life, Lad had seen sheep just once before.
That one exception had been when Hamilcar Q. Glure, "the Wall Street Farmer," had corralled a little herd of his prize Merinos, overnight, at The Place, on the way to the Paterson Livestock Show.
On that occasion, the sheep had broken from the corral, and Lad, acting on ancestral instinct, had rounded them up, without injuring or scaring one of them.
The memory was not pleasing to Lad, and he wanted nothing more to do with such stupid creatures.
Indeed, as he looked now upon the sheep that were obstructing his run, he felt a distinct aversion to them.
Whining a little, he trotted back to where stood the Mistress and the Master.
And, as they waited, Titus Romaine bore wrathfully down upon them.
"I've been expectin' something like that!"
announced the land-owner.
"Ever since I turned these critters out here, this mornin'.
I ain't surprised a bit.
I----"
"What is it you've been expecting, Romaine?"
asked the Master.
"And how long have you been a sheep-raiser?
A sheep, here in the North Jersey hinterland, is as rare as----" "I been expectin' some savage dog would be runnin' 'em," retorted the farmer.
"Just like I've read they do.
An' now I've caught him at it!"
"Caught _whom?
_--at _what?
_" queried the perplexed Mistress; failing to note the man's baleful glower at the contemptuous Lad.
"That big ugly brute of your'n, of course," declared Romaine.
"I caught him, red-handed, runnin' my sheep.
He----" "Lad did nothing of the kind," denied the Mistress.
"The instant he caught sight of them he stopped running.
Lad wouldn't hurt anything that is weak and helpless.
Your sheep saw him and they ran away.
He didn't follow them an inch."
"I seen what I seen," cryptically answered the man.
"An' I give you fair warnin', if any of my sheep is killed, I'll know right where to come to look for the killer."
"If you mean Lad----" began the Master, hotly.
But the Mistress intervened.
"I am glad you have decided to raise sheep, Mr. Romaine," she said.
"Everyone ought to, who can.
I read, only the other day, that America is using up more sheep than it can breed; and that the price of fodder and the scarcity of pasture were doing terrible things to the mutton-and-wool supply.
I hope you'll have all sorts of good luck.
And you are wise to watch your sheep so closely.
But don't be afraid of Lad harming any of them.
He wouldn't, for worlds, I know.
Because I know Lad.
Come along, Laddie!"
she finished, as she turned to go away.
But Titus Romaine stopped her.
"I've put a sight of money into this flock of sheep," he declared.
"More'n I could reely afford.
An' I've been readin' up on sheep, too.
I've been readin' that the worst en'my to sheep is 'pred'tory dogs.'
An' if that big dog of your'n ain't 'pred'tory,' then I never seen one that was.
So I'm warnin' you, fair----" "If your sheep come to any harm, Mr. Romaine," returned the Mistress, again forestalling an untactful outbreak from her husband, "I'll guarantee Lad will have nothing to do with it."
"An' I'll guarantee to have him shot an' have you folks up in court, if he does," chivalrously retorted Mr. Titus Romaine.
With which exchange of goodfellowship, the two groups parted, Romaine returning to his scattered sheep, while the Mistress, Lad at her heels, lured the Master away from the field of encounter.
The Master was fuming.
"Here's where good old Mr. Trouble drops in on us for a nice long visit!"
he grumbled, as they moved homeward.
"I can see how it is going to turn out.
Because a few stray curs have chased or killed sheep, now and then, every decent dog is under suspicion as a sheep-killer.
If one of Romaine's wethers gets a scratch on its leg, from a bramble, Lad will be blamed.
If one of the mongrels from over in the village should chase his sheep, Lad will be accused.
And we'll be in the first 'neighborhood squabble' of our lives."
The Master spoke with a pessimism his wife did not share, and which he, himself, did not really believe.
The folk at The Place had always lived in goodfellowship and peace with their few rural neighbors, as well as with the several hundred inhabitants of the mile-distant village, across the lake.
And, though livestock is the foundation of ninety rustic feuds out of ninety-one, the dogs of The Place had never involved their owners in any such row.
Yet, barely three days later, Titus Romaine bore down upon The Place, before breakfast, breathing threatenings and complaining of slaughter.
He was waiting on the veranda in blasphemous converse with The Place's foreman, when the Master came out.
At Titus's heels stood his "hired man"--a huge and sullen person named Schwartz, who possessed a scarce-conquered accent that fitted the name.
"Well!"
orated Romaine, in glum greeting, as he sighted the Master.
"Well, I guessed right!
He done it, after all!
He done it.
We all but caught him, red-handed.
Got away with four of my best sheep!
Four of 'em.
The cur!"
"What are you talking about?"
demanded the Master, as the Mistress, drawn by the visitor's plangent tones, joined the veranda-group.
"'Bout that ugly big dog of your'n!"
answered Romaine.
"I knew what he'd do, if he got the chance.
I knew it, when I saw him runnin' my poor sheep, last week.
I warned you then.
The two of you.
An' now he's done it!"
"Done what?"
insisted the Master, impatient of the man's noise and fury.
"What dog?"
asked the Mistress, at the same time.
"Are you talking about Lad?
If you are----" "I'm talkin' about your big brown collie cur!"
snorted Titus.
"He's gone an' killed four of my best sheep.
Did it in the night an' early this mornin'.
My man here caught him at the last of 'em, an' drove him off, just as he was finishin' the poor critter.
He got away with the rest of 'em."
"Nonsense!"
denied the Master.
"You're talking rot.
Lad wouldn't touch a sheep.
And----" "That's what all folks say when their dogs or their children is charged with doin' wrong!"
scoffed Romaine.
"But this time it won't do no good to----" "You say this happened last night?"
interposed the Mistress.
"Yes, it did.
Last night an' early in the mornin', too.
Schwartz, here----" "But Lad sleeps in the house, every night," objected the Mistress.
"He sleeps under the piano, in the music room.
He has slept there every night since he was a puppy.
The maid who dusts the downstairs rooms before breakfast lets him out, when she begins work.
So he----" "Bolster it up any way you like!"
broke in Romaine.
"He was out last night, all right.
An' early this morning, too."
"How early?"
questioned the Master.
"Five o'clock," volunteered Schwartz, speaking up, from behind his employer.
"I know, because that's the time I get up.
I went out, first thing, to open the barnyard gate and drive the sheep to the pasture.
First thing I saw was that big dog growling over a sheep he'd just killed.
He saw me, and he wiggled out through the barnyard bars--same way he had got in.
Then I counted the sheep.
One was dead,--the one he had just killed--and three were gone.
We've been looking for their bodies ever since, and we can't find them."
"I suppose Lad swallowed them," ironically put in The Place's foreman.
"That makes about as much sense as the rest of the yarn.
The Old Dog would no sooner----" "Do you really mean to say you saw Lad--saw and _recognized_ him--in Mr. Titus's barnyard, growling over a sheep he had just killed?"
demanded the Mistress.
"I sure do," affirmed Schwartz.
"And I----" "An' he's ready to go on th' stand an' take oath to it!"
supplemented Titus.
"Unless you'll pay me the damages out of court.
Them sheep cost me exac'ly . 10 a head, in the Pat'son market, one week ago.
An' sheep on the hoof has gone up a full forty cents more since then.
You owe me for them four sheep exac'ly----" "I owe you not one red cent!"
denied the Master.
"I hate law worse than I hate measles.
But I'll fight that idiotic claim all the way up to the Appellate Division before I'll----" The Mistress lifted a little silver whistle that hung at her belt and blew it.
An instant later Lad came galloping gaily up the lawn from the lake, adrip with water from his morning swim.
Straight, at the Mistress' summons, he came, and stood, expectant, in front of her, oblivious of others.
The great dog's mahogany-and-snow coat shone wetly in the sunshine.
Every line of his splendid body was tense.
His eyes looked up into the face of the loved Mistress in eager anticipation.
For a whistle-call usually involved some matter of more than common interest.
"That's the dog!"
cried Schwartz, his thick voice betraying a shade more of its half-lost German accent, in the excitement of the minute.
"That's the one.
He has washed off the blood.
But that is the one.
I could know him anywhere at all.
And I knew him, already.
And Mr. Romaine told me to be looking out for him, about the sheep, too.
So I----" The Master had bent over Lad, examining the dog's mouth.
"Not a trace of blood or of wool!"
he announced.
"And look how he faces us!
If he had anything to be ashamed of----" "I got a witness to prove he killed my sheep," cut in Romaine.
"Since you won't be honest enough to square the case out of court, then the law'll take a tuck in your wallet for you.
The law will look after a poor man's int'rest.
I don't wonder there's folks who want all dogs done 'way with.
Pesky curs!
Here, the papers say we are short on sheep, an' they beg us to raise 'em, because mutton is worth double what it used to be, in open market.
Then, when I buy sheep, on that sayso, your dog gets four of 'em the very first week.
Think what them four sheep would 'a meant to----" "I'm sorry you lost them," the Master interrupted.
"Mighty sorry.
And I'm still sorrier if there is a sheep-killing dog at large anywhere in this region.
But Lad never----" "I tell ye, he _did!
_" stormed Titus.
"I got proof of it.
Proof good enough for any court.
An' the court is goin' to see me righted.
It's goin' to do more.
It's goin' to make you shoot that killer, there, too.
I know the law.
I looked it up.
An' the law says if a sheep-killin' dog----" "Lad is not a sheep-killing dog!"
flashed the Mistress.
"That's what he is!"
snarled Romaine.
"An', by law, he'll be shot as sech.
He----" "Take your case to law, then!"
retorted the Master, whose last shred of patience went by the board, at the threat.
"And take it and yourself off my Place!
Lad doesn't 'run' sheep.
But, at the word from me, he'll ask nothing better than to 'run' you and your German every step of the way to your own woodshed.
Clear out!"
He and the Mistress watched the two irately mumbling intruders plod out of sight up the drive.
Lad, at the Master's side, viewed the accusers' departure with sharp interest.
Schooled in reading the human voice, he had listened alertly to the Master's speech of dismissal.
And, as the dog listened, his teeth had come slowly into view from beneath a menacingly upcurled lip.
His eyes, half shut, had been fixed on Titus with an expression that was not pretty.
"Oh, dear!"
sighed the Mistress miserably, as she and her husband turned indoors and made their way toward the breakfast room.
"You were right about 'good old Mr. Trouble dropping in on us.'
Isn't it horrible?
But it makes my blood boil to think of Laddie being accused of such a thing.
It is crazily absurd, of course.
But----" "Absurd?"
the Master caught her up.
"It's the most absurd thing I ever heard of.
If it was about any other dog than Lad, it would be good for a laugh.
I mean, Romaine's charge of the dog's doing away with no less than four sheep and not leaving a trace of more than one of them.
That, alone, would get his case laughed out of court.
I remember, once in Scotland, I was stopping with some people whose shepherd complained that three of the sheep had fallen victim to a 'killer.'
We all went up to the moor-pasture to look at them.
They weren't a pretty sight, but they were all _there_.
A dog doesn't devour a sheep he kills.
He doesn't even lug it away.
Instead, he just----" "Perhaps you'd rather describe it _after_ breakfast," suggested the Mistress, hurriedly.
"This wretched business has taken away all of my appetite that I can comfortably spare."
At about mid-morning of the next day, the Master was summoned to the telephone.
"This is Maclay," said the voice at the far end.
"Why, hello, Mac!"
responded the Master, mildly wondering why his old fishing-crony, the village's local Peace Justice, should be calling him up at such an hour.
"If you're going to tell me this is a good day for small-mouth bass to bite I'm going to tell you it isn't. It isn't because I'm up to my neck in work.
Besides, it's too late for the morning fishing, and too early for the bass to get up their afternoon appetites.
So don't try to tempt me into----" "Hold on!"
broke in Maclay.
"I'm not calling you up for that.
I'm calling up on business; rotten unpleasant business, too."
"What's wrong?"
asked the Master.
"I'm hoping Titus Romaine is," said the Justice.
"He's just been here--with his North Prussian hired man as witness--to make a complaint about your dog, Lad.
Yes, and to get a court order to have the old fellow shot, too."
"What!"
sputtered the Master.
"He hasn't actually----" "That's just what he's done," said Maclay.
"He claims Lad killed four of his new sheep night before last, and four more of them this morning or last night.
Schwartz swears he caught Lad at the last of the killed sheep both times.
It's hard luck, old man, and I feel as bad about it as if it were my own dog.
You know how strong I am for Lad.
He's the greatest collie I've known, but the law is clear in such----" "You speak as if you thought Lad was guilty!"
flamed the Master.
"You ought to know better than that.
He----" "Schwartz tells a straight story," answered Maclay, sadly, "and he tells it under oath.
He swears he recognized Lad first time.
He says he volunteered to watch in the barnyard last night.
He had had a hard day's work and he fell asleep while he was on watch.
He says he woke up in gray dawn to find the whole flock in a turmoil, and Lad pinning one of the sheep to the ground.
He had already killed three.
Schwartz drove him away.
Three of the sheep were missing.
One Lad had just downed was dying.
Romaine swears he saw Lad 'running' his sheep last week.
It----" "What did you do about the case?"
asked the dazed Master.
"I told them to be at the courtroom at three this afternoon with the bodies of the two dead sheep that aren't missing, and that I'd notify you to be there, too."
"Oh, I'll be there!"
snapped the Master.
"Don't worry.
And it was decent of you to make them wait.
The whole thing is ridiculous!
It----" "Of course," went on Maclay, "either side can easily appeal from any decision I make.
That is as regards damages.
But, by the township's new sheep-laws, I'm sorry to say there isn't any appeal from the local Justice's decree that a sheep-killing dog must be shot at once.
The law leaves me no option if I consider a dog guilty of sheep-killing.
I have to order such a dog put to death at once.
That's what's making me so blue.
I'd rather lose a year's pay than have to order old Lad killed."
"You won't have to," declared the Master, stoutly; albeit he was beginning to feel a nasty sinking in the vicinity of his stomach.
"We'll manage to prove him innocent.
I'll stake anything you like on that."
"Talk the case over with Dick Colfax or any other good lawyer before three o'clock," suggested Maclay.
"There may be a legal loophole out of the muddle.
I hope to the Lord there is."
"We're not going to crawl out through any 'loopholes,' Lad and I," returned the Master.
"We're going to come through, _clean_.
See if we don't!"
Leaving the telephone, he went in search of the Mistress, and more and more disheartened told her the story.
"The worst of it is," he finished, "Romaine and Schwartz seem to have made Maclay believe their fool yarn."
"That is because they believe it, themselves," said the Mistress, "and because, just as soon as even the most sensible man is made a Judge, he seems to lose all his common sense and intuition and become nothing but a walking statute-book.
But you--you think for a moment, do you, that they can persuade Judge Maclay to have Lad shot?"
