But the courtroom shook with a wild-beast yell—a yell of insane fury. And Schwartz drew back his half-extended left foot in sudden terror; as a great furry shape came whizzing through the air at him.
The sight of the half-delivered kick, at his worshipped master, had had precisely the effect on Lad that the Mistress had foreseen when she planned the manœuver. Almost any good dog will attack a man who seeks to strike its owner. And Lad seemed to comprehend that a kick is a more contemptuous affront than is a blow.
Schwartz's kick at the Master had thrown the adoring dog into a maniac rage against this defiler of his idol. The memory of Schwartz's blow at himself was as nothing to it. It aroused in the collie's heart a deathless blood-feud against the man. As the Mistress had known it would.
The Mistress' sharp command, and the Master's hastily outflung arm barely sufficed to deflect Lad's charge. He writhed in their dual grasp, snarling furiously, his eyes red; his every giant muscle strained to get at the cowering Schwartz.
"We've had enough of this!" imperatively ordained Maclay, above the babel of Titus Romaine's protests. "In spite of the informality of hearing, this is a court of law: not a dog-kennel. I——"
"I crave your Honor's pardon," apologized the Master. "I was merely trying to show that Lad is not the sort of dog to let a stranger strike and kick him as this man claims to have done with impunity. I think I have shown, from Lad's own regrettable actions, that it was some other dog—if any—which cheered Romaine's barnyard, this morning, and yesterday morning.
"It was your dog!" cried Schwartz, getting his breath, in a swirl of anger. "Next time I'll be on watch with a shotgun and not a stick. I'll——"
"There ain't going to be no 'next time,'" asserted the equally angry Romaine. "Judge, I call on you to order that sheep-killer shot; an' to order his master to indemnify me for th' loss of my eight killed sheep!"
"Your Honor!" suavely protested the Master, "may I ask you to listen to a counter-proposition? A proposition which I think will be agreeable to Mr. Romaine, as well as to myself?"
"The only prop'sition I'll agree to, is the shootin' of that cur and the indemnifyin' of me for my sheep!" persisted Romaine.