Lad: A Dog

by Albert Payson Terhune

So the dog had risen to his feet, stretched himself, collie-fashion, fore and aft, and trotted quickly away to investigate. Scent, and then sound, taught him which way to go.

Two minutes later he changed his wolf trot to a slow and unwontedly stiff-legged walk, advancing with head lowered, and growling softly far down in his throat. He was making straight for a patch of sumac, ten feet in front of him and a hundred feet behind the stables.

Now, when a dog bounds toward a man, barking and with head up, there is nothing at all to be feared from his approach. But when the pace slackens to a stiff walk and his head sinks low, that is a very good time, indeed, for the object of his attentions to think seriously of escape or of defense.

Instinct or experience must have imparted this useful truth to the lurker in the sumac patch, for as the great dog drew near the man incontinently wheeled and broke cover. At the same instant Lad charged.

The man had a ten-foot start. This vantage he utilized by flinging himself bodily at a low-forked hickory tree directly in his path.

Up the rough trunk to the crotch he shinned with the speed of a chased cat. Lad arrived at the tree bole barely in time to collect a mouthful of cloth from the climber's left trouser ankle.

After which, since he was not of the sort to clamor noisily for what lurked beyond his reach, the dog yawned and lay down to keep guard on his arboreal prisoner. For half an hour he lay thus, varying his vigil once or twice by sniffing thoughtfully at a ragged scrap of trouser cloth between his little white forepaws. He sniffed the thing as though trying to commit its scent to memory.

The man did not seek help by shouting. Instead, he seemed oddly willing that no other human should intrude on his sorry plight. A single loud yell would have brought aid from the stables or from the house or even from the lodge up by the gate. Yet, though the man must have guessed this, he did not yell. Instead, he cursed whisperingly at intervals and snarled at his captor.

At last, his nerve going, the prisoner drew out a jackknife, opened a blade at each end of it and hurled the ugly missile with all his force at the dog. As the man had shifted his position to get at the knife, Lad had risen expectantly to his feet with some hope that his captive might be going to descend.

It was lucky for Lad that he was standing when the knife was thrown for the aim was not bad, and a dog lying down cannot easily dodge. A dog standing on all fours is different, especially if he is a collie.