Further Adventures of Lad [88]
paused. Out of an ever-vigilant eye-corner, he saw an automobile turn in at the gateway, two hundred yards up the wooded slope; and start down the drive.
The Mistress and the Master were returning from the post office.
Dugan's smile vanished. He stopped in his tracks; and did some fast thinking. Then, mounting the veranda steps, he knocked boldly at a side door; the door nearest to him. As the maids were in the kitchen or making up the bedrooms, his knock was unheard. Half hidden by the veranda vines, he waited.
The car came down the driveway and circled the house to the side farthest from Dugan. There, at the front door, it halted. The Mistress and Lad got out. The Master did not go down to the garage. Instead, he circled the house again; and chugged off up the drive; bound for the station to meet a guest whose train was due in another ten minutes. Dugan drew a long breath; and swaggered toward the garage. His walk and manner had in them an easy openness that no honest man's could possibly have acquired in a lifetime.
The Mistress, deposited at the front veranda, chirped to Lad; and started across the lawn toward the chrysanthemum bed, a hundred feet away.
The summer's flowers were gone--even to the latest thin stemmed Teplitz rose and the last stalk of rose-tinted cosmos. For dining table, now, and for living-room and guest rooms, nothing was left but the mauve and bronze hardy chrysanthemums which made gay the flower border at the crest of the lawn overlooking the lake. Thither fared the Mistress, in search of blossoms.
Between her and the chrysanthemum border was a bed of canvas. Frost had smitten the tall, dark stems; leaving only a copse of brown stalks. 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.
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. And Lad cleared the porch steps at one long leap.
For the instant, he forgot he was aged and stout and that his joints ached at any sudden motion; and that his wind and his heart were not what they had been;--and that his once-terrible fangs were yellowed and blunt; and that his primal vulnerable spot, (as Lad knew) in her bristling pigskin armor.
Lad got his grip. And, with all his fragile old strength, he hung on; grinding the outworn fangs further and further into the sensitive nose of his squealing foe.
This stopped the sow's impetuous charge; for good and all. With a heavy collie hanging to one's tortured nose and that collie's teeth sunk deep into it, there is no scope for thinking of any other opponent. She halted, striking furiously, with her sharp cloven fore-hoofs, at the writhing dog beneath her.
One ferociously driving hoof cut a gash in Lad's chest. Another tore the skin from his shoulder. Unheeding, he hung on. The sow braced herself, solid, on outspread legs; and shook her head and forequarters with all her muscular might.
Lad was hurled free, his weakened jaws failing to withstand such a yank. Over and over he rolled, to one side; the sow charging after him. She had lost
The Mistress and the Master were returning from the post office.
Dugan's smile vanished. He stopped in his tracks; and did some fast thinking. Then, mounting the veranda steps, he knocked boldly at a side door; the door nearest to him. As the maids were in the kitchen or making up the bedrooms, his knock was unheard. Half hidden by the veranda vines, he waited.
The car came down the driveway and circled the house to the side farthest from Dugan. There, at the front door, it halted. The Mistress and Lad got out. The Master did not go down to the garage. Instead, he circled the house again; and chugged off up the drive; bound for the station to meet a guest whose train was due in another ten minutes. Dugan drew a long breath; and swaggered toward the garage. His walk and manner had in them an easy openness that no honest man's could possibly have acquired in a lifetime.
The Mistress, deposited at the front veranda, chirped to Lad; and started across the lawn toward the chrysanthemum bed, a hundred feet away.
The summer's flowers were gone--even to the latest thin stemmed Teplitz rose and the last stalk of rose-tinted cosmos. For dining table, now, and for living-room and guest rooms, nothing was left but the mauve and bronze hardy chrysanthemums which made gay the flower border at the crest of the lawn overlooking the lake. Thither fared the Mistress, in search of blossoms.
Between her and the chrysanthemum border was a bed of canvas. Frost had smitten the tall, dark stems; leaving only a copse of brown stalks. 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.
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. And Lad cleared the porch steps at one long leap.
For the instant, he forgot he was aged and stout and that his joints ached at any sudden motion; and that his wind and his heart were not what they had been;--and that his once-terrible fangs were yellowed and blunt; and that his primal vulnerable spot, (as Lad knew) in her bristling pigskin armor.
Lad got his grip. And, with all his fragile old strength, he hung on; grinding the outworn fangs further and further into the sensitive nose of his squealing foe.
This stopped the sow's impetuous charge; for good and all. With a heavy collie hanging to one's tortured nose and that collie's teeth sunk deep into it, there is no scope for thinking of any other opponent. She halted, striking furiously, with her sharp cloven fore-hoofs, at the writhing dog beneath her.
One ferociously driving hoof cut a gash in Lad's chest. Another tore the skin from his shoulder. Unheeding, he hung on. The sow braced herself, solid, on outspread legs; and shook her head and forequarters with all her muscular might.
Lad was hurled free, his weakened jaws failing to withstand such a yank. Over and over he rolled, to one side; the sow charging after him. She had lost