Further Adventures of Lad

by Albert Payson Terhune

The Mistress, by main strength, drew him, snarling and protesting, toward the safety of the house. Panting, bleeding, reeling, pitiably weak, yet he resisted the tender urging; and kept twisting his bloody head back for a glimpse of his foe. Nor was the precaution useless. For, before the Mistress and her wounded dog were half-way across the remaining strip of lawn, the sow recovered enough of her deflected wits and fury to lower her head and gallop down after them.

At her first step, Lad, by a stupendous effort, wrenched free from the Mistress's clasp; and flung himself between her and the charging mass of pork. But, as he did so, he found breath for a trumpet-bark that sounded more like a rallying cry.

For, dulled as were his ears, they were still keener than any human's. And they had caught the sound of eight flying paws amid the dead leaves of the drive. Wolf and Bruce, coming home at a leisurely trot, from their ramble in the forest, had heard the two reports of the shotgun; and had broken into a run. They read the meaning in Lad's exhausted bark, as clearly as humans might read a printed word. And it lent wings to their feet.

Around the corner of the house tore the two returning collies. In a single glance, they seemed to take in the whole grisly scene. They, too, had had their bouts with marauding swine; and they were still young enough to enjoy such clashes and to partake of them without danger.

The sow, too blind with pain and rage to know reinforcements were coming to the aid of the half-dead hero, tore forward. The Mistress, with both hands, sought to drag Lad behind her. The maids screeched in plangent chorus.

Then, just as the sow was launching herself on the futilely snapping Lad, she was stupidly aware that the dog had somehow changed to three dogs. One of these three the Mistress was still holding. The two others, with excellent teamwork, were assailing the sow from opposite sides.

She came to a sliding stop in her charge; blinking in bewildered fury.

Bruce had caught her by the torn left ear; and was keeping easily out of her way, while he inflicted torture thereon. Wolf, like a furry whirlwind, had stopped only long enough to slash her bleeding nose to the bone; and now was tearing away at her hind leg in an industrious and very promising effort to hamstring her. In front, Lad was still straining to break the Mistress's loving hold; and to get at his pestered enemy.

This was more than the huge porker had bargained for. Through all her murder-rage, she had sense enough to know she was outnumbered and beaten. She broke into a clumsy gallop; heading homeward.

But Bruce and Wolf would not have it so. Delightedly they tore in to the attack. Their slashing fangs and their keenly nipping front teeth were everywhere. They were all over her. In sudden panic, blinded by terror and pain, the sow put her six hundred pounds of unwieldy weight into the fastest motion she could summon. At a scrambling run, she set off, around the house; head down, bitten tail aloft; the two dogs at her bleeding haunches.