Albert Payson Terhune

“ For at least two miles, the snail-like progress continued; most of the way through woods. At last, with a gasp, the Master found himself wallowing knee-deep in a bog. Maclay, a step behind him, also plunged splashingly into the soggy mire.
“What’s the matter with the dog?” grumpily demanded the Judge. “He’s led us into the Pancake Hollow swamp. Schwartz never in the world carried a ninety pound sheep through here.”
“Maybe not,” puffed the Master. “But he has carried it over one of the half-dozen paths that lead through this marsh. Lad is in too big a hurry to bother about paths. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 hill-top boulder’s shade; to learn the cause of their flight.
Now, in all his life, Lad had seen sheep just once before. ”

“ The sight of the half-delivered kick, at his worshipped master, had had precisely the effect on Lad that the Mistress had foreseen when she planned the manœuver. Almost any good dog will attack a man who seeks to strike its owner. And Lad seemed to comprehend that a kick is a more contemptuous affront than is a blow. ”

“ If it was Schwartz—well, that’s why I made him try to hit Lad and why I made him try to kick me. The dog went for him both times, and that was enough to make Schwartz want him killed for his own safety as well as for revenge. So he was certain to arrange another killing within the twenty-four hours if only to force me to shoot Lad. He couldn’t steal or kill sheep by daylight. I picked the only hours he could do it in. If he’d gotten Lad killed, he’d probably have invented another sheep-killer dog to help him swipe the rest of the flock, or until Romaine decided to do the watching. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Maclay told him. “But you seem to me to have done a mighty foolish thing. To get a thousand dollars Romaine is capable of scouring the whole country for a sheep-killing dog. So is Schwartz—if only to get Lad shot. Did you see the way Schwartz looked at Lad as he went out? He hates him.”
“Yes,” said the Master. “And I saw the way Lad looked at him. Lad will never forget that kick at me. He’ll attack Schwartz for it, if they come together a year from now. That’s why we arranged it. Say, Mac; I want you to do me a big favor. A favor that comes within the square and angle of your work. ”

“ We will give him twenty seconds’ start and then—”
“Good!” babbled Maclay, in true buck-ague fever of excitement. “It’s worked out, to a charm! But how in the blazes can we track him through this dark? It’s as black as the inside of a cow. And if we show the flashlights—”
“Trust Lad to track him,” rejoined the Master, who had been slipping a leash around the dog’s low-growling throat. “That’s what the old fellow’s here for. He has a kick to punish. He would follow Schwartz through the Sahara desert, if he had to. Come on.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Turning to the Master, he added:
“I suppose one of us will have to stand guard over him while the other one hunts up the sheep. Shall I—”
“Neither of us need do that,” said the Master. “Lad!”
The collie started eagerly forward, and Schwartz started still more eagerly backward.
“Watch him!” commanded the Master. “Watch him!”
It was an order Lad had learned to follow in the many times when the Mistress and the Master left him to guard the car or to do sentry duty over some other article of value. He understood. He would have preferred to deal with this enemy according to his own lights. ”

“ Maclay glanced again at the Mistress. In spite of the prospect of seeing her husband kicked, her face wore a most pleased smile. The Judge noted, though, that she was stroking Lad’s head and that she was unobtrusively turning that head so that the dog faced Schwartz.
“Now, then!” adjured the Master. “Whenever you’re ready, Schwartz! A German doesn’t get a chance, like this, every day, to kick an American. And I’ll promise not to go for your throat, as Laddie tried to. ”

“ Ever since those French windows are left open for the night—same as they always are when the hot weather starts in, you know, sir. Since then, Laddie don’t wait for me to let him out. When he wakes up he just goes out himself. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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!” ”

“ In less than a half-minute the plaintive ba-a-a of a sheep guided the searchers to the left of the knoll where stood a thick birch-and-alder copse. Around this they circled until they reached a narrow opening where the branch-ends, several feet above ground, were flecked with hanks of wool. ”