Then I shut her up for the night in the tool-house. She--"He broke off, to look at Lad.
As the collie had jumped down from the car and had started toward the house, he had struck Lady's trail; and he had followed it. It had led him to the tool-house. Finding Lady was locked inside and unhappy, he had come galloping back to the Master.
Standing in front of the man, and whining softly, he was scanning the faces of his two deities with troubled eagerness. Evidently, he considered that Lady had been locked in by mistake; and he was pleading for her release. As these humans did not seem to catch the idea his eyes and expression conveyed, he trotted a few steps toward the tool-house and then paused to look invitingly back at them.
Twice he did this. Then, coming up to the Master, he caught the latter's coat-hem lightly between his teeth and tugged on it as he backed toward the tool-house.
"No, old friend," said the Master, petting the silken head so appealingly upraised to him. "I know what you're getting at. But I can't let her out. Tomorrow morning. Not till then. Come on up to dinner."Unwillingly and with wistful backward looks, Lad followed the Mistress and the Master to the house and into the dining room and to his wonted place on the floor at the Master's left side. But, more than once during the meal, the man caught the collie's eyes fixed on him in worried supplication; and was hard put to it not to grant the plea which fairly clamored in his chum's mute gaze.
After dinner, when the Mistress and the Master set off on their usual evening walk, Lad was not on hand to accompany them. As a rule, he was all around them and in front and behind, in a series of gay rushes, as they started on these walks. But not until the Master called him, tonight, did he appear. And then he came up dolorously from the tool-house.
Lad did not understand, at all, what was wrong. He knew only that Lady had been shut up in a place she detested and that she was horribly unhappy and that the Master would not let her out. It perplexed him; and it made him increasingly wretched. Not only did he miss his playfully capricious young mate, but her unhappiness made him heartsick.
Vainly, he tried to plead with the Master for her release, as the walk began; and again at its end.
There were such a lot of things in the world that even the cleverest collie could not make head or tail of! And most of these things were sad.
That night, when the house was shut, Lad crept as usual into his cave under the piano. And he lay down with a sigh, his great head between his two absurdly small white forepaws. 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. At one moment he is sound asleep. At the next he is broad awake; with every faculty alert.
So ever it was, with Lad. So it was with him, this night. An hour before dawn, he woke with sharp suddenness; and at once he was on his feet; tense, on guard. He did not know what had roused him.
Yet, now that he was awake, two of his senses recorded something which banished from him all thought of further sleep.
To his ears came a far-off muffled wail;--a wail which held more than unhappiness;--a wail which vibrated with real terror. And he knew the voice for Lady's.
To his sensitive nostrils, through the intervening distance and the obstructing walls and windows, drifted a faint reek of smoke.
Now, the smoke-smell, by itself, meant nothing whatever to Lad.
All evening a trace of it had hung in the air; from the brush fire. And, in any case, this whiff was too slight to have emanated from the house or from any spot near the house. Yet, taken together with Lady's cry of fear--Lad crossed to the front door, and scratched imperiously at it.
The locked door did not yield to his push. Too sensible to keep on at a portal he could not open, he ran upstairs, to the closed door of the Master's room. There, again he scratched; this time harder and more loudly. Twice and thrice he scratched; whining under his breath.
At last the deep-slumbering Master heard him. Rousing himself, and still three-quarters asleep, he heard not only the scratching and the whimper but, in the distance, Lady's wail of fear. And, sleep-drugged, he mumbled "Shut up, Laddie!--I hear her.--Let her howl.--If she's lonely, down there, she'll--she'll remember the lesson--all the better.
Go downstairs and--be quiet!"
He fell sound asleep again. Obedient to the slumbrous mandate, Lad turned and pattered mournfully away. But, he was not content to return to his own nap, with that terror-cry of Lady's echoing in his ears. And he made a second attempt to get out.
At each side of the piano, in the music room, was a long French window. Often, by day, Lad used to pass in or out of these door-like windows. He knew that they, as well as the doors, were a recognized means of exit. Now, with eagerly scratching paw, he pushed at the nearest of them.
The house was but carelessly locked at night. For Lad's presence downstairs was a better burglar-preventive than the best bolts ever forged. Tired and drowsy, the Master, this night, had neglected to bar the French windows.
The window gave, at Lad's vehement scratch; and swung outward on its hinges. A second later, the big dog was running at top speed toward the tool-house.
