<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></SPAN>CHAPTER XI<br/> WOLF</h2>
<p>There were but three collies on The Place
in those days. There was a long shelf in
the Master's study whereupon shimmered
and glinted a rank of silver cups of varying sizes
and shapes. Two of The Place's dogs had won
them all.</p>
<p>Above the shelf hung two huge picture-frames.
In the center of each was the small photograph of
a collie. Beneath each likeness was a certified
pedigree, a-bristle with the red-letter names of
champions. Surrounding the pictures and pedigrees,
the whole remaining space in both frames
was filled with blue ribbons—the very meanest bit
of silk in either was a semi-occasional "Reserve
Winners"—while, strung along the tops of the
frames from side to side, ran a line of medals.</p>
<p>Cups, medals, and ribbons alike had been won by
The Place's two great collies, Lad and Bruce.
(Those were their "kennel names." Their official
titles on the A. K. C. registry list were high-sounding
and needlessly long.)</p>
<p>Lad was growing old. His reign on The Place<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</SPAN></span>
was drawing toward a benignant close. His
muzzle was almost snow-white and his once graceful
lines were beginning to show the oncoming
heaviness of age. No longer could he hope to
hold his own, in form and carriage, with younger
collies at the local dog-shows where once he had
carried all before him.</p>
<p>Bruce—"Sunnybank Goldsmith"—was six years
Lad's junior. He was tawny of coat, kingly of
bearing; a dog without a fault of body or of disposition;
stately as the boar-hounds that the
painters of old used to love to depict in their portraits
of monarchs.</p>
<p>The Place's third collie was Lad's son, Wolf.
But neither cup nor ribbon did Wolf have to show
as an excuse for his presence on earth, nor would
he have won recognition in the smallest and least
exclusive collie-show.</p>
<p>For Wolf was a collie only by courtesy. His
breeding was as pure as was any champion's, but
he was one of those luckless types to be found in
nearly every litter—a throwback to some forgotten
ancestor whose points were all defective. Not even
the glorious pedigree of Lad, his father, could make
Wolf look like anything more than he was—a dog
without a single physical trait that followed the
best collie standards.</p>
<p>In spite of all this he was beautiful. His gold-and-white
coat was almost as bright and luxuriant
as any prize-winner's. He had, in a general way,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</SPAN></span>
the collie head and brush. But an expert, at the
most casual glance, would have noted a shortness
of nose and breadth of jaw and a shape of ear
and shoulder that told dead against him.</p>
<p>The collie is supposed to be descended direct
from the wolf, and Wolf looked far more like
his original ancestors than like a thoroughbred
collie. From puppyhood he had been the living
image, except in color, of a timber-wolf, and it
was from this queer throw-back trait that he had
won his name.</p>
<p>Lad was the Mistress' dog. Bruce was the
Master's. Wolf belonged to the Boy, having been
born on the latter's birthday.</p>
<p>For the first six months of his life Wolf lived
at The Place on sufferance. Nobody except the
Boy took any special interest in him. He was kept
only because his better-formed brothers had died
in early puppyhood and because the Boy, from the
outset, had loved him.</p>
<p>At six months it was discovered that he was a
natural watch-dog. Also that he never barked except
to give an alarm. A collie is, perhaps, the
most excitable of all large dogs. The veriest trifle
will set him off into a thunderous paroxysm of
barking. But Wolf, the Boy noted, never barked
without strong cause.</p>
<p>He had the rare genius for guarding that so
few of his breed possess. For not one dog in ten
merits the title of watch-dog. The duties that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</SPAN></span>
should go with that office are far more than the
mere clamorous announcement of a stranger's approach,
or even the attacking of such a stranger.</p>
<p>The born watch-dog patrols his beat once in so
often during the night. At all times he must sleep
with one ear and one eye alert. By day or by
night he must discriminate between the visitor
whose presence is permitted and the trespasser whose
presence is not. He must know what class of
undesirable to scare off with a growl and what class
needs stronger measures. He must also know to
the inch the boundaries of his own master's land.</p>
<p>Few of these things can be taught; all of them
must be instinctive. Wolf had been born with
them. Most dogs are not.</p>
<p>His value as a watch-dog gave Wolf a settled
position of his own on The Place. Lad was growing
old and a little deaf. He slept, at night, under the
piano in the music-room. Bruce was worth too
much money to be left at large in the night time
for any clever dog-thief to steal. So he slept in
the study. Rex, a huge mongrel, was tied up at
night, at the lodge, a furlong away. Thus Wolf
alone was left on guard at the house. The piazza
was his sentry-box. From this shelter he was wont
to set forth three or four times a night, in all sorts
of weather, to make his rounds.</p>
<p>The Place covered twenty-five acres. It ran from
the high-road, a furlong above the house, down to
the lake that bordered it on two sides. On the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</SPAN></span>
third side was the forest. Boating-parties, late at
night, had a pleasant way of trying to raid the
lakeside apple-orchard. Tramps now and then
strayed down the drive from the main road.
Prowlers, crossing the woods, sometimes sought to
use The Place's sloping lawn as a short cut to the
turnpike below the falls.</p>
<p>For each and all of these intruders Wolf had
an ever-ready welcome. A whirl of madly pattering
feet through the dark, a snarling growl far
down in the throat, a furry shape catapulting into
the air—and the trespasser had his choice between
a scurrying retreat or a double set of white fangs
in the easiest-reached part of his anatomy.</p>
<p>The Boy was inordinately proud of his pet's
watchdog prowess. He was prouder yet of Wolf's
almost incredible sharpness of intelligence, his
quickness to learn, his knowledge of word meaning,
his zest for romping, his perfect obedience,
the tricks he had taught himself without human
tutelage—in short, all the things that were a sign
of the brain he had inherited from Lad.</p>
<p>But none of these talents overcame the sad fact
that Wolf was not a show dog and that he looked
positively underbred and shabby alongside of his
sire or of Bruce. Which rankled at the Boy's heart;
even while loyalty to his adored pet would not let
him confess to himself or to anyone else that Wolf
was not the most flawlessly perfect dog on earth.</p>
<p>Under-sized (for a collie), slim, graceful, fierce,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</SPAN></span>
affectionate, Wolf was the Boy's darling, and he
was Lad's successor as official guardian of The
Place. But all his youthful life, thus far, had
brought him nothing more than this—while Lad
and Bruce had been winning prize after prize at
one local dog show after another within a radius of
thirty miles.</p>
<p>The Boy was duly enthusiastic over the winning
of each trophy; but always, for days thereafter,
he was more than usually attentive to Wolf to make
up for his pet's dearth of prizes.</p>
<p>Once or twice the Boy had hinted, in a veiled,
tentative way, that young Wolf might perhaps win
something, too, if he were allowed to go to a
show. The Master, never suspecting what lay behind
the cautious words, would always laugh in
good-natured derision, or else he would point in
silence to Wolf's head and then to Lad's.</p>
<p>The Boy knew enough about collies to carry the
subject no further. For even his eyes of devotion
could not fail to mark the difference in aspect between
his dog and the two prize-winners.</p>
<p>One July morning both Lad and Bruce went
through an hour of anguish. Both of them, one
after the other, were plunged into a bath-tub full of
warm water and naphtha soap-suds and Lux; and
were scrubbed right unmercifully, after which they
were rubbed and curried and brushed for another
hour until their coats shone resplendent. All day,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</SPAN></span>
at intervals, the brushing and combing were kept
up.</p>
<p>Lad was indignant at such treatment, and he
took no pains to hide his indignation. He knew
perfectly well, from the undue attention, that a
dog show was at hand. But not for a year or more
had he himself been made ready for one. His lake
baths and his daily casual brushing at the Mistress'
hands had been, in that time, his only form of
grooming. He had thought himself graduated forever
from the nuisance of going to shows.</p>
<p>"What's the idea of dolling up old Laddie like
that?" asked the Boy, as he came in for luncheon
and found the Mistress busy with comb and dandy-brush
over the unhappy dog.</p>
<p>"For the Fourth of July Red Cross Dog Show
at Ridgewood to-morrow," answered his mother,
looking up, a little flushed from her exertions.</p>
<p>"But I thought you and Dad said last year he
was too old to show any more," ventured the Boy.</p>
<p>"This time is different," said the Mistress. "It's
a specialty show, you see, and there is a cup offered
for 'the best <i>veteran</i> dog of any recognized breed.'
Isn't that fine? We didn't hear of the Veteran
Cup till Dr. Hooper telephoned to us about it this
morning. So we're getting Lad ready. There <i>can't</i>
be any other veteran as splendid as he is."</p>
<p>"No," agreed the Boy, dully, "I suppose not."</p>
<p>He went into the dining-room, surreptitiously
helped himself to a handful of lump-sugar and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</SPAN></span>
passed on out to the veranda. Wolf was sprawled
half-asleep on the driveway lawn in the sun.</p>
<p>The dog's wolflike brush began to thump against
the shaven grass. Then, as the Boy stood on the
veranda edge and snapped his fingers, Wolf got
up from his soft resting-place and started toward
him, treading mincingly and with a sort of
swagger, his slanting eyes half shut, his mouth
a-grin.</p>
<p>"You know I've got sugar in my pocket as well
as if you saw it," said the Boy. "Stop where you
are."</p>
<p>Though the Boy accompanied his order with no
gesture nor change of tone, the dog stopped dead
short ten feet away.</p>
<p>"Sugar is bad for dogs," went on the Boy. "It
does things to their teeth and their digestions.
Didn't anybody ever tell you that, Wolfie?"</p>
<p>The young dog's grin grew wider. His slanting
eyes closed to mere glittering slits. He fidgeted a
little, his tail wagging fast.</p>
<p>"But I guess a dog's got to have <i>some</i> kind of
consolation purse when he can't go to a show,"
resumed the Boy. "Catch!"</p>
<p>As he spoke he suddenly drew a lump of sugar
from his pocket and, with the same motion, tossed
it in the direction of Wolf. Swift as was the
Boy's action, Wolf's eye was still quicker. Springing
high in air, the dog caught the flung cube of
sugar as it flew above him and to one side. A<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</SPAN></span>
second and a third lump were caught as deftly as
the first.</p>
<p>Then the Boy took from his pocket the fourth
and last lump. Descending the steps, he put his
left hand across Wolf's eyes. With his right he
flipped the lump of sugar into a clump of shrubbery.</p>
<p>"Find it!" he commanded, lifting the blindfold
from the eyes of his pet.</p>
<p>Wolf darted hither and thither, stopped once or
twice to sniff, then began to circle the nearer
stretch of lawn, nose to ground. In less than two
minutes he merged from the shrubbery placidly
crunching the sugar-lump between his mighty jaws.</p>
<p>"And yet they say you aren't fit to be shown!"
exclaimed the Boy, fondling the dog's ears. "Gee,
but I'd give two years' growth if you could have
a cup! You deserve one, all right; if only those
judges had sense enough to study a collie's brain
as well as the outside of his head!"</p>
<p>Wolf ran his nose into the cupped palm and
whined. From the tone underlying the words, he
knew the Boy was unhappy, and he wanted to be
of help.</p>
<p>The Boy went into the house again to find his
parents sitting down to lunch. Gathering his
courage in both hands, he asked:</p>
<p>"Is there going to be a Novice Class for collies
at Ridgewood, Dad?"</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Why, yes," said the Master, "I suppose so.
There always is."</p>
<p>"Do—do they give cups for the Novice Class?"
inquired the Boy, with studied carelessness.</p>
<p>"Of course they don't," said the Master, adding
reminiscently, "though the first time we showed
Lad we put him in the Novice Class and he won
the blue ribbon there, so we had to go into the
Winners' Class afterward. He got the Winner's
Cup, you remember. So, indirectly, the Novice
Class won him a cup."</p>
<p>"I see," said the Boy, not at all interested in
this bit of ancient history. Then speaking very
fast, he went on:</p>
<p>"Well, a ribbon's better than nothing! Dad,
will you do me a favor? Will you let me enter
Wolfie for the Novice Class to-morrow? I'll pay
the fee out of my allowance. Will you, Dad?"</p>
<p>The Master looked at his son in blank amazement.
Then he threw back his head and laughed
loudly. The Boy flushed crimson and bit his lips.</p>
<p>"Why, dear!" hurriedly interposed the Mistress,
noting her son's discomfiture. "You wouldn't
want Wolf to go there and be beaten by a lot of
dogs that haven't half his brains or prettiness! It
wouldn't be fair or kind to Wolf. He's so clever,
he'd know in a moment what was happening. He'd
know he was beaten. Nearly all dogs do. No, it
wouldn't be fair to him."</p>
<p>"There's a 'mutt' class among the specials, Dr.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</SPAN></span>
Hopper says," put in the Master, jocosely. "You
might——"</p>
<p>"Wolf's <i>not</i> a mutt!" flashed the Boy, hotly.
"He's no more of a mutt than Bruce or Lad, or
Grey Mist, or Southport Sample, or any of the
best ones. He has as good blood as all of them.
Lad's his father, and Squire of Tytton was his
grandfather, and Wishaw Clinker was his——"</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, son," interposed the Master, catching
his wife's eye and dropping his tone of banter.
"I apologize to you and Wolf. He's not a 'mutt.'
There's no better blood in colliedom than his, on
both sides. But Mother is right. You'd only be
putting him up to be beaten, and you wouldn't
like that. He hasn't a single point that isn't hopelessly
bad from a judge's view. We've never taken
a loser to a show from The Place. You don't
want us to begin now, do you?"</p>
<p>"He has more brains that any dog alive, except
Lad!" declared the Boy, sullenly. "That ought to
count."</p>
<p>"It ought to," agreed the Mistress, soothingly,
"and I wish it did. If it did, I know he'd win."</p>
<p>"It makes me sick to see a bushel of cups go
to dogs that don't know enough to eat their own
dinners," snorted the Boy. "I'm not talking about
Lad and Bruce, but the thoroughbreds that are
brought up in kennels and that have all their sense
sacrificed for points. Why, Wolf's the cleverest<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</SPAN></span>—best—and
he'll never even have one cup to show
for it. He——"</p>
<p>He choked, and began to eat at top speed. The
Master and the Mistress looked at each other and
said nothing. They understood their son's chagrin,
as only a dog-lover could understand it. The
Mistress reached out and patted the Boy gently
on the shoulder.</p>
<p>Next morning, directly after early breakfast,
Lad and Bruce were put into the tonneau of the
car. The Mistress and the Master and the Boy
climbed in, and the twelve-mile journey to Ridgewood
began.</p>
<p>Wolf, left to guard The Place, watched the departing
show-goers until the car turned out of the
gate, a furlong above. Then, with a sigh, he curled
up on the porch mat, his nose between his snowy
little paws, and prepared for a day of loneliness.</p>
<p>The Red Cross dog show, that Fourth of July,
was a triumph for The Place.</p>
<p>Bruce won ribbon after ribbon in the collie
division, easily taking "Winners" at the last, and
thus adding another gorgeous silver cup to his collection.
Then, the supreme event of the day—"Best
dog in the show"—was called. And the
winners of each breed were led into the ring. The
judges scanned and handled the group of sixteen
for barely five minutes before awarding to Bruce
the dark-blue rosette and the "Best Dog" cup.</p>
<p>The crowd around the ring's railing applauded<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</SPAN></span>
loudly. But they applauded still more loudly a
little later, when, after a brief survey of nine aged
thoroughbreds, the judge pointed to Lad, who was
standing like a mahogany statue at one end of
the ring.</p>
<p>These nine dogs of various breeds had all been
famed prize-winners in their time. And above all
the rest, Lad was adjudged worthy of the "veteran
cup!" There was a haze of happy tears in the
Mistress' eyes as she led him from the ring. It
seemed a beautiful climax for his grand old life.
She wiped her eyes, unashamed, whispering praise
the while to her stately dog.</p>
<p>"Why don't you trundle your car into the ring?"
one disgruntled exhibitor demanded of the Mistress.
"Maybe you'd win a cup with <i>that</i>, too.
You seem to have gotten one for everything else
you brought along."</p>
<p>It was a celebration evening for the two prize
dogs, when they got home, but everybody was tired
from the day's events, and by ten o'clock the house
was dark. Wolf, on his veranda mat, alone of all
The Place's denizens, was awake.</p>
<p>Vaguely Wolf knew the other dogs had done
some praiseworthy thing. He would have known
it, if for no other reason, from the remorseful hug
the Boy had given him before going to bed.</p>
<p>Well, some must win honors and petting and the
right to sleep indoors; while others must plod along
at the only work they were fit for, and must sleep<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</SPAN></span>
out, in thunderstorm or clear, in heat or freezing
cold. That was life. Being only a dog, Wolf was
too wise to complain of life. He took things as he
found them, making the very best of his share.</p>
<p>He snoozed, now, in the warm darkness. Two
hours later he got up, stretched himself lazily fore
and aft, collie-fashion, and trotted forth for the
night's first patrol of the grounds.</p>
<p>A few minutes afterward he was skirting the
lake edge at the foot of the lawn, a hundred yards
below the house. The night was pitch dark, except
for pulses of heat-lightning, now and then, far
to westward. Half a mile out on the lake two
men in an anchored scow were cat-fishing.</p>
<p>A small skiff was slipping along very slowly, not
fifty feet off shore.</p>
<p>Wolf did not give the skiff a second glance.
Boats were no novelty to him, nor did they interest
him in the least—except when they showed signs
of running ashore somewhere along his beat.</p>
<p>This skiff was not headed for land, but was
paralleling the shore. It crept along at a snail-pace
and in dead silence. A man, its only occupant, sat
at the oars, scarcely moving them as he kept his
boat in motion.</p>
<p>A dog is ridiculously near-sighted. More so
than almost any other beast. Keen hearing and
keener scent are its chief guides. At three hundred
yards' distance it cannot, by eye, recognize its
master, nor tell him from a stranger. But at close<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</SPAN></span>
quarters, even in the darkest night, a dog's vision
is far more piercing and accurate than man's under
like conditions.</p>
<p>Wolf thus saw the skiff and its occupant, while
he himself was still invisible. The boat was no concern
of his; so he trotted on to the far end of The
Place, where the forest joined the orchard.</p>
<p>On his return tour of the lake edge he saw the
skiff again. It had shifted its direction and was
now barely ten feet off shore—so near to the bank
that one of the oars occasionally grated on the
pebbly bottom. The oarsman was looking intently
toward the house.</p>
<p>Wolf paused, uncertain. The average watchdog,
his attention thus attracted, would have barked.
But Wolf knew the lake was public property. Boats
were often rowed as close to shore as this without
intent to trespass. It was not the skiff that
caught Wolf's attention as he paused there on the
brink, it was the man's furtive scrutiny of the
house.</p>
<p>A pale flare of heat-lightning turned the world,
momentarily, from jet black to a dim sulphur-color.
The boatman saw Wolf standing, alert and suspicious,
among the lakeside grasses, not ten feet
away. He started slightly, and a soft, throaty
growl from the dog answered him.</p>
<p>The man seemed to take the growl as a challenge,
and to accept it. He reached into his pocket and
drew something out. When the next faint glow of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</SPAN></span>
lightning illumined the shore, the man lifted the
thing he had taken from his pocket and hurled it
at Wolf.</p>
<p>With all the furtive swiftness bred in his wolf-ancestry,
the dog shrank to one side, readily dodging
the missile, which struck the lawn just behind
him. Teeth bared in a ferocious snarl, Wolf
dashed forward through the shallow water toward
the skiff.</p>
<p>But the man apparently had had enough of the
business. He rowed off with long strokes into deep
water, and, once there, he kept on rowing until distance
and darkness hid him.</p>
<p>Wolf stood, chest deep in water, listening to the
far-off oar-strokes until they died away. He was
not fool enough to swim in pursuit; well knowing
that a swimming dog is worse than helpless against
a boatman.</p>
<p>Moreover, the intruder had been scared away.
That was all which concerned Wolf. He turned
back to shore. His vigil was ended for another
few hours. It was time to take up his nap where
he had left off.</p>
<p>Before he had taken two steps, his sensitive
nostrils were full of the scent of raw meat. There,
on the lawn ahead of him, lay a chunk of beef as
big as a fist. This, then, was what the boatman had
thrown at him!</p>
<p>Wolf pricked up his ears in appreciation, and his
brush began to vibrate. Trespassers had once or<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</SPAN></span>
twice tried to stone him, but this was the first time
any of them had pelted him with delicious raw
beef. Evidently, Lad and Bruce were not the only
collies on The Place to receive prizes that day.</p>
<p>Wolf stooped over the meat, sniffed at it, then
caught it up between his jaws.</p>
<p>Now, a dog is the easiest animal alive to poison,
just as a cat is the hardest, for a dog will usually
bolt a mouthful of poisoned meat without pausing
to chew or otherwise investigate it. A cat, on the
contrary, smells and tastes everything first and
chews it scientifically before swallowing it. The
slightest unfamiliar scent or flavor warns her to
sheer off from the feast.</p>
<p>So the average dog would have gulped this toothsome
windfall in a single swallow; but Wolf was
not the average dog. No collie is, and Wolf was
still more like his eccentric forefathers of the wilderness
than are most collies.</p>
<p>He lacked the reasoning powers to make him
suspicious of this rich gift from a stranger, but a
queer personal trait now served him just as well.</p>
<p>Wolf was an epicure; he always took three times
as long to empty his dinner dish as did the other
dogs, for instead of gobbling his meal, as they did,
he was wont to nibble affectedly at each morsel,
gnawing it slowly into nothingness; and all the
time showing a fussily dainty relish of it that used
to delight the Boy and send guests into peals of
laughter.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>This odd little trait that had caused so much
ridicule now saved Wolf's life.</p>
<p>He carried the lump of beef gingerly up to the
veranda, laid it down on his mat, and prepared to
revel in his chance banquet after his own deliberate
fashion.</p>
<p>Holding the beef between his forepaws, he proceeded
to devour it in mincing little squirrel-bites.
About a quarter of the meat had disappeared when
Wolf became aware that his tongue smarted and
that his throat was sore; also that the interior of
the meat-ball had a ranky pungent odor, very different
from the heavenly fragrance of its outside and
not at all appetizing.</p>
<p>He looked down at the chunk, rolled it over with
his nose, surveyed it again, then got up and moved
away from it in angry disgust.</p>
<p>Presently he forgot his disappointment in the
knowledge that he was very, very ill. His tongue
and throat no longer burned, but his body and
brain seemed full of hot lead that weighed a ton.
He felt stupid, and too weak to stir. A great
drowsiness gripped him.</p>
<p>With a grunt of discomfort and utter fatigue, he
slumped down on the veranda floor to sleep off his
sick lassitude. After that, for a time, nothing
mattered.</p>
<p>For perhaps an hour Wolf lay sprawling there,
dead to his duty, and to everything else. Then
faintly, through the fog of dullness that enwrapped<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</SPAN></span>
his brain, came a sound—a sound he had long ago
learned to listen for. The harshly scraping noise
of a boat's prow drawn up on the pebbly shore at
the foot of the lawn.</p>
<p>Instinct tore through the poison vapors and
roused the sick dog. He lifted his head. It was
strangely heavy and hard to lift.</p>
<p>The sound was repeated as the prow was pulled
farther up on the bank. Then came the crunch of
a human foot on the waterside grass.</p>
<p>Heredity and training and lifelong fidelity took
control of the lethargic dog, dragging him to his
feet and down the veranda steps through no volition
of his own.</p>
<p>Every motion tired him. He was dizzy and
nauseated. He craved sleep; but as he was just a
thoroughbred dog and not a wise human, he did
not stop to think up good reasons why he should
shirk his duty because he did not feel like performing
it.</p>
<p>To the brow of the hill he trotted—slowly,
heavily, shakily. His sharp powers of hearing told
him the trespasser had left his boat and had taken
one or two stealthy steps up the slope of lawn toward
the house.</p>
<p>And now a puff of west wind brought Wolf's
sense of smell into action. A dog remembers odors
as humans remember faces. And the breeze bore to
him the scent of the same man who had flung<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</SPAN></span>
ashore that bit of meat which had caused all his
suffering.</p>
<p>He had caught the man's scent an hour earlier,
as he had stood sniffing at the boat ten feet away
from him. The same scent had been on the meat
the man had handled.</p>
<p>And now, having played such a cruel trick on
him, the joker was actually daring to intrude on
The Place!</p>
<p>A gust of resentful rage pierced the dullness of
Wolf's brain and sent a thrill of fierce energy
through him. For the moment this carried him out
of his sick self and brought back all his former
zest as a watch-dog.</p>
<p>Down the hill, like a furry whirlwind, flew Wolf,
every tooth bared, his back a-bristle from neck to
tail. Now he was well within sight of the intruder.
He saw the man pausing to adjust something to
one of his hands. Then, before this could be accomplished,
Wolf saw him pause and stare through
the darkness as the wild onrush of the dog's feet
struck upon his hearing.</p>
<p>Another instant and Wolf was near enough to
spring. Out of the blackness he launched himself,
straight for the trespasser's face. The man saw
the dim shape hurtling through the air toward him.
He dropped what he was carrying and flung up
both hands to guard his neck.</p>
<p>At that, he was none too soon, for just as the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</SPAN></span>
thief's palm reached his own throat, Wolf's teeth
met in the fleshy part of the hand.</p>
<p>Silent, in agony, the man beat at the dog with
his free hand; but an attacking collie is hard to locate
in the darkness. A bulldog will secure a grip
and will hang on; a collie is everywhere at once.</p>
<p>Wolf's snapping jaws had already deserted the
robber's mangled hand and slashed the man's left
shoulder to the bone. Then the dog made another
furious lunge for the face.</p>
<p>Down crashed the man, losing his balance under
the heavy impact; Wolf atop of him. To guard
his throat, the man rolled over on his face, kicking
madly at the dog, and reaching back for his
own hip-pocket. Half in the water and half on the
bank, the two rolled and thrashed and struggled—the
man panting and wheezing in mortal terror;
the dog growling in a hideous, snarling fashion as
might a wild animal.</p>
<p>The thief's torn left hand found a grip on Wolf's
fur-armored throat. He shoved the fiercely writhing
dog backward, jammed a pistol against Wolf's
head, and pulled the trigger!</p>
<p>The dog relaxed his grip and tumbled in a huddled
heap on the brink. The man staggered, gasping,
to his feet; bleeding, disheveled, his clothes
torn and mud-coated.</p>
<p>The echoes of the shot were still reverberating
among the lakeside hills. Several of the house's<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</SPAN></span>
dark windows leaped into sudden light—then more
windows in another room—and in another.</p>
<p>The thief swore roundly. His night's work was
ruined. He bent to his skiff and shoved it into the
water; then he turned to grope for what he had
dropped on the lawn when Wolf's unexpected attack
had interfered with his plans.</p>
<p>As he did so, something seized him by the ankle.
In panic terror the man screamed aloud and jumped
into the water, then, peering back, he saw what had
happened.</p>
<p>Wolf, sprawling and unable to stand, had reached
forward from where he lay and had driven his
teeth for the last time into his foe.</p>
<p>The thief raised his pistol again and fired at the
prostrate dog, then he clambered into his boat and
rowed off with frantic speed, just as a salvo of
barks told that Lad and Bruce had been released
from the house; they came charging down the lawn,
the Master at their heels.</p>
<p>But already the quick oar-beats were growing
distant; and the gloom had blotted out any chance
of seeing or following the boat.</p>
<p>Wolf lay on his side, half in and half out of
the water. He could not rise, as was his custom,
to meet the Boy, who came running up, close behind
the Master and valorously grasping a target
rifle; but the dog wagged his tail in feeble greeting,
then he looked out over the black lake, and
snarled.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>The bullet had grazed Wolf's scalp and then had
passed along the foreleg; scarring and numbing it.
No damage had been done that a week's good nursing
would not set right.</p>
<p>The marks in the grass and the poisoned meat
on the porch told their own tale; so did the neat kit
of burglar tools and a rubber glove found near the
foot of the lawn; and then the telephone was put
to work.</p>
<p>At dawn, a man in torn and muddy clothes, called
at the office of a doctor three miles away to be
treated for a half-dozen dog-bites received, he said,
from a pack of stray curs he had met on the turnpike.
By the time his wounds were dressed, the
sheriff and two deputies had arrived to take him
in charge. In his pockets were a revolver, with
two cartridges fired, and the mate of the rubber
glove he had left on The Place's lawn.</p>
<p>"You—you wouldn't let Wolfie go to any show
and win a cup for himself," half-sobbed the Boy,
as the Master worked over the injured dog's wound,
"but he's saved you from losing all the cups the
other dogs ever won!"</p>
<p>Three days later the Master came home from a
trip to the city. He went directly to the Boy's
room. There on a rug lounged the convalescent
Wolf, the Boy sitting beside him, stroking the dog's
bandaged head.</p>
<p>"Wolf," said the Master, solemnly, "I've been<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</SPAN></span>
talking about you to some people I know. And we
all agree——"</p>
<p>"Agree <i>what?</i>" asked the Boy, looking up in mild
curiosity.</p>
<p>The Master cleared his throat and continued:</p>
<p>"We agree that the trophy-shelf in my study
hasn't enough cups on it. So I've decided to add
still another to the collection. Want to see it, son?"</p>
<p>From behind his back the Master produced a
gleaming silver cup—one of the largest and most
ornate the Boy had ever seen—larger even than
Bruce's "Best Dog" cup.</p>
<p>The Boy took it from his father's outstretched
hand.</p>
<p>"Who won this?" he asked. "And what for?
Didn't we get all the cups that were coming to us
at the shows. Is it——"</p>
<p>The Boy's voice trailed away into a gurgle of bewildered
rapture. He had caught sight of the lettering
on the big cup. And now, his arm around
Wolf, he read the inscription aloud, stammering
with delight as he blurted out the words:</p>
<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Hero Cup. Won by WOLF, Against All
Comers.</span>"</p>
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