Lad: A Dog — 09 - Speaking of Utility

SPEAKING OF UTILITY

The man huddled frowzily in the tree crotch, like a rumpled and sick raccoon.

At times he would crane his thin neck and peer about him, but more as if he feared rescue than as though he hoped for it.

Then, before slumping back to his sick-raccoon pose, he would look murderously earthward and swear with lurid fervor.

At the tree foot the big dog wasted neither time nor energy in frantic barking or in capering excitedly about.

Instead, he lay at majestic ease, gazing up toward the treed man with grave attentiveness.

Thus, for a full half-hour, the two had remained--the treer and the treed.

Thus, from present signs, they would continue to remain until Christmas.

There is, by tradition, something intensely comic in the picture of a man treed by a dog.

The man, in the present case, supplied the only element of comedy in the scene.

The dog was anything but comic, either in looks or in posture.

He was a collie, huge of bulk, massive of shoulder, deep and shaggy of chest.

His forepaws were snowy and absurdly small.

His eyes were seal-dark and sorrowful--eyes that proclaimed not only an uncannily wise brain, but a soul as well.

In brief, he was Lad; official guard of The Place's safety.

It was in this role of guard that he was now serving as jailer to the man he had seen slouching through the undergrowth of the forest which grew close up to The Place's outbuildings.

From his two worshipped deities--the Mistress and the Master--Lad had learned in puppyhood the simple provisions of the Guest Law.

He knew, for example, that no one openly approaching the house along the driveway from the furlong-distant highroad was to be molested.

Such a visitor's advent--especially at night--might lawfully be greeted by a salvo of barks.

But the barks were a mere announcement, not a threat.

On the other hand, the Law demanded the instant halting of all prowlers, or of anyone seeking to get to the house from road or lake by circuitous and stealthy means.

Such roundabout methods spell Trespass.

Every good watchdog knows that.

But wholly good watchdogs are far fewer than most people--even their owners--realize.

Lad was one of the few.

To-day's trespasser had struck into The Place's grounds from an adjoining bit of woodland.

He had moved softly and obliquely and had made little furtive dashes from one bit of cover to another, as he advanced toward the outbuildings a hundred yards north of the house.

He had moved cleverly and quietly.

No human had seen or heard him.

Even Lad, sprawling half-asleep on the veranda, had not seen him.

For, in spite of theory, a dog's eye by daylight is not so keen or so far-seeing as is a human's. But the wind had brought news of a foreign presence on The Place--a presence which Lad's hasty glance at driveway and lake edge did not verify.

So the dog had risen to his feet, stretched himself, collie-fashion, fore and aft, and trotted quickly away to investigate.

Scent, and then sound, taught him which way to go.

Two minutes later he changed his wolf trot to a slow and unwontedly stiff-legged walk, advancing with head lowered, and growling softly far down in his throat.

He was making straight for a patch of sumac, ten feet in front of him and a hundred feet behind the stables.

Now, when a dog bounds toward a man, barking and with head up, there is nothing at all to be feared from his approach.

But when the pace slackens to a stiff walk and his head sinks low, that is a very good time, indeed, for the object of his attentions to think seriously of escape or of defense.

Instinct or experience must have imparted this useful truth to the lurker in the sumac patch, for as the great dog drew near the man incontinently wheeled and broke cover.

At the same instant Lad charged.

The man had a ten-foot start.

This vantage he utilized by flinging himself bodily at a low-forked hickory tree directly in his path.

Up the rough trunk to the crotch he shinned with the speed of a chased cat.

Lad arrived at the tree bole barely in time to collect a mouthful of cloth from the climber's left trouser ankle.

After which, since he was not of the sort to clamor noisily for what lurked beyond his reach, the dog yawned and lay down to keep guard on his arboreal prisoner.

For half an hour he lay thus, varying his vigil once or twice by sniffing thoughtfully at a ragged scrap of trouser cloth between his little white forepaws.

He sniffed the thing as though trying to commit its scent to memory.

The man did not seek help by shouting.

Instead, he seemed oddly willing that no other human should intrude on his sorry plight.

A

single loud yell would have brought aid from the stables or from the house or even from the lodge up by the gate.

Yet, though the man must have guessed this, he did not yell.

Instead, he cursed whisperingly at intervals and snarled at his captor.

At last, his nerve going, the prisoner drew out a jackknife, opened a blade at each end of it and hurled the ugly missile with all his force at the dog.

As the man had shifted his position to get at the knife, Lad had risen expectantly to his feet with some hope that his captive might be going to descend.

It was lucky for Lad that he was standing when the knife was thrown for the aim was not bad, and a dog lying down cannot easily dodge.

A

dog standing on all fours is different, especially if he is a collie.

Lad sprang to one side instinctively as the thrower's arm went back.

The knife whizzed, harmless, into the sumac patch.

Lad's teeth bared themselves in something that looked like a smile and was not.

Then he lay down again on guard.

A minute later he was up with a jump.

From the direction of the house came a shrill whistle followed by a shout of "Lad!

_La-ad!

_" It was the Master calling him.

The summons could not be ignored.

Usually it was obeyed with eager gladness, but now--Lad looked worriedly up into the tree.

Then, coming to a decision, he galloped away at top speed.

In ten seconds he was at the veranda where the Master stood talking with a newly arrived guest.

Before the Master could speak to the dog, Lad rushed up to him, whimpering in stark appeal, then ran a few steps toward the stables, paused, looked back and whimpered again.

"What's the matter with him?"

loudly demanded the guest--an obese and elderly man, right sportily attired.

"What ails the silly dog?"

"He's found something," said the Master.

"Something he wants me to come and see--and he wants me to come in a hurry."

"How do you know?"

asked the guest.

"Because I know his language as well as he knows mine," retorted the Master.

He set off in the wake of the excited dog.

The guest followed in more leisurely fashion complaining: "Of all the idiocy!

To let a measly dog drag you out of the shade on a red-hot day like this just to look at some dead chipmunk he's found!"

"Perhaps," stiffly agreed the Master, not slackening his pace.

"But if Lad behaves like that, unless it's pretty well worth while, he's changed a lot in the past hour.

A man can do worse sometimes than follow a tip his dog gives him."

"Have it your own way," grinned the guest.

"Perhaps he may lead us to a treasure cave or to a damsel in distress.

I'm with you."

"Guy me if it amuses you," said the Master.

"It does," his guest informed him.

"It amuses me to see any grown man think so much of a dog as you people think of Lad.

It's maudlin."

"My house is the only one within a mile on this side of the lake that has never been robbed," was the Master's reply.

"My stable is the only one in the same radius that hasn't been rifled by harness-and-tire thieves.

Thieves who seem to do their work in broad daylight, too, when the stables won't be locked.

I have Lad to thank for all that.

He----" The dog had darted far ahead.

Now he was standing beneath a low-forked hickory tree staring up into it.

"He's treed a cat!"

guffawed the guest, his laugh as irritating as a kick.

"Extra!

Come out and get a nice sunstroke, folks!

Come and see the cat Lad has treed!"

The Master did not answer.

There was no cat in the tree.

There was nothing visible in the tree.

Lad's aspect shrank from hope to depression.

He looked apologetically at the Master.

Then he began to sniff once more at a scrap of cloth on the ground.

The Master picked up the cloth and presently walked over to the tree.

From a jut of bark dangled a shred of the same cloth.

The Master's hand went to Lad's head in approving caress.

"It was not a cat," he said.

"It was a man.

See the rags of----" "Oh, piffle!"

snorted the guest.

"Next you'll be reconstructing the man's middle name and favorite perfume from the color of the bark on the tree.

You people are always telling about wonderful stunts of Lad's. And that's all the evidence there generally is to it."

"No, Mr. Glure," denied the Master, taking a strangle hold on his temper.

"No. That's not quite all the evidence that we have for our brag about Lad.

For instance, we had the evidence of your own eyes when he herded that flock of stampeded prize sheep for you last spring, and of your own eyes again when he won the 'Gold Hat' cup at the Labor Day Dog Show.

No, there's plenty of evidence that Lad is worth his salt.

Let it go at that.

Shall we get back to the house?

It's fairly cool on the veranda.

By the way, what was it you wanted me to call Lad for?

You asked to see him.

And----" "Why, here's the idea," explained Glure, as they made their way through the heat back to the shade of the porch.

"It's what I drove over here to talk with you about.

I'm making the rounds of all this region.

And, say, I didn't ask to see Lad.

I asked if you still had him.

I asked because----" "Oh," apologized the Master.

"I thought you wanted to see him.

Most people ask to if he doesn't happen to be round when they call.

We----" "I asked you if you still had him," expounded Mr. Glure, "because I hoped you hadn't. I hoped you were more of a patriot."

"Patriot?"

echoed the Master, puzzled.

"Yes.

That's why I'm making this tour of the country: to rouse dog owners to a sense of their duty.

I've just formed a local branch of the Food Conservation League and----" "It's a splendid organization," warmly approved the Master, "but what have dog owners to----" "To do with it?"

supplemented Glure.

"They have nothing to do with it, more's the pity.

But they ought to.

That's why I volunteered to make this canvass.

It was my own idea.

Some of the others were foolish enough to object, but as I had founded and financed this Hampton branch of the League----" "What 'canvass' are you talking about?"

asked the Master, who was far too familiar with Glure's ways to let the man become fairly launched on a paean of self-adulation.

"You say it's 'to rouse dog owners to a sense of their duty.'

Along what line?

We dog men have raised a good many thousand dollars this past year by our Red Cross shows and by our subscriptions to all sorts of war funds.

The Blue Cross, too, and the Collie Ambulance Fund have----" "This is something better than the mere giving of surplus coin," broke in Glure.

"It is something that involves sacrifice.

A needful sacrifice for our country.

A sacrifice that may win the war."

"Count me in on it, then!"

cordially approved the Master.

"Count in all real dog men.

What is the 'sacrifice'?"

"It's my own idea," modestly boasted Glure, adding: "That is, of course, it's been agitated by other people in letters to newspapers and all that, but I'm the first to go out and put it into actual effect."

"Shoot!"

suggested the weary Master.

"That's the very word!"

exclaimed Glure.

"That's the very thing I want dog owners to combine in doing.

To shoot!"

"To--what?"

"To shoot--or poison--or asphyxiate," expounded Glure, warming to his theme.

"In short, to get rid of every dog."

The Master's jaw swung ajar and his eyes bulged.

His face began to assume an unbecoming bricky hue.

Glure went on: "You see, neighbor, our nation is up against it.

When war was declared last month it found us unprepared.

We've got to pitch in and economize.

Every mouthful of food wasted here is a new lease of life to the Kaiser.

We're cutting down on sugar and meat and fat, but for every cent we save that way we're throwing away a dollar in feeding our dogs.

Our dogs that are a useless, senseless, costly luxury!

They serve no utilitarian end.

They eat food that belongs to soldiers.

I'm trying to brighten the corner where I am by persuading my neighbors to get rid of their dogs.

When I've proved what a blessing it is I'm going to inaugurate a nation-wide campaign from California to New York, from----" "Hold on!"

snapped the Master, finding some of his voice and, in the same effort, mislaying much of his temper.

"What wall-eyed idiocy do you think you're trying to talk?

How many dog men do you expect to convert to such a crazy doctrine?

Have you tried any others?

Or am I the first mark?"

"I'm sorry you take it this way," reproved Glure.

"I had hoped you were more broad-minded, but you are as pig-headed as the rest."

"The 'rest,' hey?"

the Master caught him up.

"The 'rest?'

Then I'm not the first?

I'm glad they had sense enough to send you packing."

"They were blind animal worshipers, both of them," said Glure aggrievedly, "just as you are.

One of them yelled something after me that I sincerely hope I didn't hear aright.

If I did, I have a strong action for slander against him.

The other chucklehead so far forgot himself as to threaten to take a shotgun to me if I didn't get off his land."

"I'm sorry!"

sighed the Master.

"For both of them seem to have covered the ground so completely that there isn't anything unique for me to say--or do.

Now listen to me for two minutes.

I've read a few of those anti-dog letters in the newspapers, but you're the first person I've met in real life who backs such rot.

And I'm going----" "It is not a matter for argument," loftily began Glure.

"Yes it is," asserted the Master.

"Everything is, except religion and love and toothache.

You say dogs ought to be destroyed as a patriotic duty because they aren't utilitarian.

There's where you're wrong at the very beginning.

Dead wrong.

I'm not talking about the big kennels where one man keeps a hundred dogs as he'd herd so many prize hogs.

Though look what the owners of such kennels did for the country at the last New York show at Madison Square Garden!

Every penny of the thousands and thousands of dollars in profits from the show went to the Red Cross.

I'm speaking of the man who keeps one dog or two or even three dogs, and keeps them as pets.

I'm speaking of myself, if you like.

Do you know what it costs me per week to feed my dogs?"

"I'm not looking for statistics in----" "No, I suppose not.

Few fanatics are.

Well, I figured it out a few weeks ago, after I read one of those anti-dog letters.

The total upkeep of all my dogs averages just under a dollar a week.

A bare fifty dollars a year.

That's true.

And----" "And that fifty dollars," interposed Glure eagerly, "would pay for a soldier's----" "It would not!"

contradicted the Master, trying to keep some slight grip on his sliding temper.

"But I can tell you what it _would_ do: Part of it would go for burglar insurance, which I don't need now, because no stranger dares to sneak up to my house at night.

Part of it would go to make up for things stolen around The Place.

For instance, in the harness room of my stable there are five sets of good harness and two or three extra automobile tires.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, the best of those would be gone now if Lad hadn't just treed the man who was after them."

"Pshaw!"

exploded Glure in fine scorn.

"We saw no man there.

There was no proof of----" "There was proof enough for me," continued the Master.

"And if Lad hadn't scented the fellow one of the other dogs would.

As I told you, mine is the only house--and mine is the only stable--on this side of the lake that has never been looted.

Mine is the only orchard--and mine is the only garden--that is never robbed.

And this is the only place, on our side of the lake, where dogs are kept at large for twelve months of the year.

My dogs' entry fees at Red Cross shows have more than paid for their keep, and those fees went straight to charity."

"But----" "The women of my family are as safe here, day and night, as if I had a machine-gun company on guard.

That assurance counts for more than a little, in peace of mind, back here in the North Jersey hinterland.

I'm not taking into account the several other ways the dogs bring in cash income to us.

Not even the cash Lad turned over to the Red Cross when we sent that 'Gold Hat' cup he won, to be melted down.

And I'm not speaking of our dogs' comradeship, and what that means to us.

Our dogs are an asset in every way--not a liability.

They aren't deadheads either.

For I pay the state tax on them every year.

They're true, loyal, companionable chums, and they're an ornament to The Place as well as its best safeguard.

All in return for table scraps and skim milk and less than a weekly dollar's worth of stale bread and cast-off butcher-shop bones.

Where do you figure out the 'saving' for the war chest if I got rid of them?"

"As I said," repeated Glure with cold austerity, "it's not a matter for argument.

I came here hoping to----" "I'm not given to mawkish sentiment," went on the Master shamefacedly, "but on the day your fool law for dog exterminating goes into effect there'll be a piteous crying of little children all over the whole world--of little children mourning for the gentle protecting playmates they loved.

And there'll be a million men and women whose lives have all at once become lonely and empty and miserable.

Isn't this war causing enough crying and loneliness and misery without your adding to it by killing our dogs?

For the matter of that, haven't the army dogs over in Europe been doing enough for mankind to warrant a square deal for their stay-at-home brothers?

Haven't they?"

"That's a mass of sentimental bosh," declared Glure.

"All of it."

"It is," willingly confessed the Master.

"So are most of the worth-while things in life, if you reduce them to their lowest terms."

"You know what a fine group of dogs I had," said Glure, starting off on a new tack.

"I had a group that cost me, dog for dog, more than any other kennel in the state.

Grand dogs too.

You remember my wonderful Merle, for instance, and----" "And your rare 'Prussian sheep dog'--or was it a prune-hound?

--that a Chicago man sold to you for ," supplemented the Master, swallowing a grin.

"I remember.

I remember them all.

What then?"

"Well," resumed Glure, "no one can accuse me of not practicing what I preach.

I began this splendid campaign by getting rid of every dog I owned.

So I----" "Yes," agreed the Master.

"I read all about that last month in your local paper.

Distemper had run through your kennel, and you tried doctoring the dogs on a theory of your own instead of sending for a vet.

So they all died.

Tough luck!

Or perhaps you got rid of them that way on purpose?

For the good of the Cause?

I'm sorry about the Merle.

He was----" "I see there's no use talking to you," sighed Glure in disgust, ponderously rising and waddling toward his car.

"I'm disappointed;

because I hoped you were less bone-brained and more patriotic than these yokels round here."

"I'm not," cheerily conceded the Master.

"I'm not, I'm glad to say.

Not a bit."

"Then," pursued Glure, climbing into the car, "since you feel that way about it, I suppose there's no use asking you to come to the little cattle show I'm organizing for week after next, because that's for the Food Conservation League too.

And since you're so out of sympathy with----" "I'm not out of sympathy with the League," asserted the Master.

"Its card is in our kitchen window.

We've signed its pledge and we're boosting it in every way we know how, except by killing our dogs; and that's no part of the League's programme, as you know very well.

Tell me more about the cattle show."

"It's a neighborhood affair," said Glure sulkily, yet eager to secure any possible entrants.

"Just a bunch of home-raised cattle.

Cup and rosette for best of each recognized breed, and the usual ribbons for second and third.

Three dollars an entry.

Only one class for each breed.

Every entrant must have been raised by the exhibitor.

Gate admission fifty cents.

Red Cross to get the gross proceeds.

I've offered the use of my south meadow at Glure Towers--just as I did for the specialty dog show.

I've put up a hundred dollars toward the running expenses too.

Micklesen's to judge."

"I don't go in for stock raising," said the Master.

"My little Alderney heifer is the only head of quality stock I ever bred.

I doubt if she is worth taking up there, but I'll be glad to take her if only to swell the competition list.

Send me a blank, please."

Lad trotted dejectedly back to the house as Glure's car chugged away up the drive.