Albert Payson Terhune

“ Lad knew well what he might expect, for this thing he had done. He knew the Law. He knew, almost from birth, the courteous tolerance due to folk among whom his deities took him. And now he had made an industrious effort to kill one of these people.
It was no light offense for a dog to attack a human. Lad, like every well-trained collie, knew that. His own death might well follow. Indeed, from the babel of voices on the veranda, squalling confusedly such hackneyed sentiments as "Mad dog!" and "Get a gun!" it seemed highly probable that Lad was due to suffer full penalty, from the man-pack. ”

“ As a rule, before going to sleep for the night, Lad used to spend much time in licking those same snowy forepaws into shining cleanliness. The paws were his one gross vanity; and he wasted more than an hour a day in keeping them spotlessly white. But tonight he was too depressed to think of anything but the whimpering little dog imprisoned down in the tool-house.
After a while, he fell asleep.
A true watchdog sleeps with all his senses or the very edge of wakefulness. And when he wakens, he does not waken as do we humans;—yawningly, dazedly, drunk with slumber. ”

“ Lad's sense of smell, like his hearing, was far less keen than once it had been. But, it was still strong enough to register the trace of intruders. His hackles bristled. Up went the classically splendid head, to sniff the light breeze, for further information as to the reek of pig and the lighter but more disquieting scent of man.
Turning his head, to reinforce with his near-sighted eyes the failing evidence of his nostrils, he saw the sow emerge from the canna-clump. He saw, too—or he divined—the look in her pale little red-rimmed eyes; as they glared defiantly at the Mistress. ”

“ Lad, one eye ever on his foe, saw the onrush. Fiercely he redoubled his efforts to bite through the rope, before the bear should be upon him. But the task was not one to be achieved in a handful of seconds.
Moving with a swiftness amazing for an animal of his clumsy bulk, the bear swarmed up the hillock. He gained the summit; not three yards from where Laddie struggled. And the collie knew the rope was not more than half gnawed through. There was no further time for biting at it. The enemy was upon him.
Fear did not enter the big dog's soul. ”

“ No longer in doubt as to Bruin's intent, he slithered out of reach of the grasping arms, with all the amazing speed of a wolf-descended collie of the best sort. And, in practically the same fraction of a second, he had flashed back to the attack.
Diving in under the other's surprisingly agile arms, he slashed the bear's stomach with one of his razorlike eyeteeth; then spun to one side and was out of reach. Down came the bear, on all fours; raging from the slash. Lurching forward, he flung his huge bulk at the dog. Lad flashed out of reach, but with less leeway than he would have expected. ”

“ But, out of the jumble of cries and stamping feet and explosive shouts from the scared onlookers on the veranda above, one staccato yell pierced the swirl of rage-mists in the avenging collie's brain.
"LAD!" came the Master's sharp, scandalized mandate. "LAD!!!"
Hating the thought of desisting from his cherished revenge, the dog heard and heeded. With visible reluctance, he drew back from the slaughter; and turned his noble head to face the man who was running down the steps toward him. ”

“ To the keenest human ears the thief's soft progress across the wide living room to the wall-safe would have been all but inaudible. But Lad could follow every phase of it; the cautious skirting of each chair; the hesitant pause as a bit of ancient furniture creaked; the halt in front of the safe; the queer grinding noise, muffled but persevering, at the lock; then the faint creak of the swinging iron door, and the deft groping of fingers.
Soon, the man started back toward the pale oblong of gloom which marked the window's outlines from the surrounding black. Lad's tail began to wag again. ”

“ Out of this copse, chewing greedily at an uprooted bunch of canna-bulbs, slouched Romaine's wandering sow. At, sight of the Mistress, she paused in her leisurely progress and, with the bunch of bulbs still hanging from one corner of her shark-mouth, stood blinking truculently at the astonished woman.
Now, Lad had not obeyed the Mistress's soft chirp. It had not reached his dulling ears;—the ears which, of old, had caught her faintest whisper. Yet, he would have followed her, as ever, without such summons, had not his nostrils suddenly become aware of an alien scent. ”

“ All winter, Lady's sleeping quarters had been the tool-house in the back garden, behind the stables. Here, on a sweet-smelling (and flea-averting) bed of cedar shavings, she had been comfortable and wholly satisfied. But, at once, on her promotion, she appeared to look upon the once-homelike tool-house as a newly rich daylaborer might regard the tumbledown shack where he had spent the days of his poverty.
She avoided the tool-house; and even made wide detours to avoid passing close to it. There is no more thoroughgoing snob, in certain ways, than a high-bred dog. ”

“ The sound disturbed a half-breed spaniel from his doze in the dust, and sent him out to continue the harrying his injured terrier chum had begun.
The spaniel flew at the black dog; nipping at the plodding forepaws. The mongrel raged; as might some painfully sick human who is pestered when he asks only to be let alone. His dull apathy gave place to sullen anger. He bit growlingly at the spaniel, throwing himself to one side in pursuit of the elusive foe. And he snapped with equal rage at an Irish terrier that had come out to add to the turmoil. ”