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Further Adventures of Lad

A >> Albert Payson Terhune >> Further Adventures of Lad



FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD
by
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

FOREWORD

Sunnybank Lad won a million friends through my book, "LAD: A
DOG"; and through the Lad-anecdotes in "Buff: A Collie." These
books themselves were in no sense great. But Laddie was great in
every sense; and his life-story could not be marred, past
interest, by my clumsy way of telling it.

People have written in gratifying numbers asking for more stories
about Lad. More than seventeen hundred visitors have come all the
way to Sunnybank to see his grave. So I wrote the collection of
tales which are now included in "Further Adventures of Lad." Most
of them appeared, in condensed form, in the Ladies' Home Journal.

Very much, I hope you may like them.

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE "Sunnybank" Pompton Lakes, New Jersey



FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LAD


CHAPTER I. The Coming Of Lad

In the mile-away village of Hampton, there had been a veritable
epidemic of burglaries--ranging from the theft of a brand-new
ash-can from the steps of the Methodist chapel to the ravaging of
Mrs. Blauvelt's whole lineful of clothes, on a washday dusk.

Up the Valley and down it, from Tuxedo to Ridgewood, there had
been a half-score robberies of a very different
order--depredations wrought, manifestly, by professionals;
thieves whose motor cars served the twentieth century purpose of
such historic steeds as Dick Turpin's Black Bess and Jack
Shepard's Ranter. These thefts were in the line of jewelry and
the like; and were as daringly wrought as were the modest local
operators' raids on ash-can and laundry.

It is the easiest thing in the world to stir humankind's ever-
tense burglar-nerves into hysterical jangling. In house after
house, for miles of the peaceful North Jersey region, old pistols
were cleaned and loaded; window fastenings and doorlocks were
inspected and new hiding-places found for portable family
treasures.

Across the lake from the village, and down the Valley from a
dozen country homes, seeped the tide of precautions. And it
swirled at last around the Place,--a thirty-acre homestead,
isolated and sweet, whose grounds ran from highway to lake; and
whose wistaria-clad gray house drowsed among big oaks midway
between road and water; a furlong or more distant from either.

The Place's family dog,--a pointer,--had died, rich in years and
honor. And the new peril of burglary made it highly needful to
choose a successor for him.

The Master talked of buying a whalebone-and-steel-and-snow bull
terrier, or a more formidable if more greedy Great Dane. But the
Mistress wanted a collie. So they compromised by getting the
collie.

He reached the Place in a crampy and smelly crate; preceded by a
long envelope containing an intricate and imposing pedigree. The
burglary-preventing problem seemed solved.

But when the crate was opened and its occupant stepped gravely
forth, on the Place's veranda, the problem was revived.

All the Master and the Mistress had known about the
newcomer,--apart from his price and lofty lineage,--was that his
breeder had named him "Lad."

From these meager facts they had somehow built up a picture of a
huge and grimly ferocious animal that should be a terror to all
intruders and that might in time be induced to make friends with
the Place's vouched-for occupants. In view of this, they had had
a stout kennel made and to it they had affixed with double
staples a chain strong enough to restrain a bull.

(It may as well be said here that never in all the sixteen years
of his beautiful life did Lad occupy that or any other kennel nor
wear that or any other chain.)

Even the crate which brought the new dog to the Place failed
somehow to destroy the illusion of size and fierceness. But, the
moment the crate door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad
himself.

Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him
had a ridiculous air of a chrysalis from which some bright thing
had departed. For a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the
veranda floor. And into the middle of the warm bar of radiance
Laddie stepped,--and stood.

His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million
sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a
dazzle as of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small, even for a
puppy's. Above them the ridging of the stocky leg-bones gave as
clear promise of mighty size and strength as did the amazingly
deep little chest and square shoulders.

Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a
timber-wolf, lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry
tiger; a dog without fear or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain
and great lovingly loyal heart and, withal, a dancing sense of
fun. A dog with a soul.

All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the
compact frame, the proud head-carriage, the smolder in the
deep-set sorrowful dark eyes. To the casual observer, he was but
a beautiful and appealing and wonderfully cuddleable bunch of
puppyhood.

Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the
lawn, the flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below. Then, he
deigned to look at the group of humans at one side of him.
Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed them; not at all cowed or
strange in his new surroundings; courteously inquisitive as to
the twist of luck that had set him down here and as to the people
who, presumably, were to be his future companions.

Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory
went back to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers
and sisters and most of all, to the soft furry mother against
whose side he had nestled every night since he was born. But if
so, Lad was too valiant to show homesickness by so much as a
whimper. And, assuredly, this House of Peace was infinitely
better than the miserable crate wherein he had spent twenty
horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours.

From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful
gaze. After the swift inspection, Laddie's eyes rested again on
the Mistress. For an instant, he stood, looking at her, in that
mildly polite curiosity which held no hint of personal interest.

Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave. Into his sad
eyes sprang a flicker of warm friendliness. Unbidden--oblivious
of everyone else he trotted across to where the Mistress sat. He
put one tiny white paw in her lap; and stood thus, looking up
lovingly into her face, tail awag, eyes shining.

"There's no question whose dog he's going to be," laughed the
Master. "He's elected you,--by acclamation."

The Mistress caught up into her arms the halfgrown youngster,
petting his silken head, running her white fingers through his
shining mahogany coat; making crooning little friendly noises to
him.

Lad forgot he was a dignified and stately pocket-edition of a
collie. Under this spell, he changed in a second to an
excessively loving and nestling and adoring puppy.

"Just the same," interposed the Master, "we've been stung. I
wanted a dog to guard the Place and to be a menace to burglars
and all that sort of thing. And they've sent us a Teddy-Bear. I
think I'll ship him back and get a grown one. What sort of use
is--?"

"He is going to be all those things," eagerly prophesied the
Mistress. "And a hundred more. See how he loves to have me pet
him! And, look--he's learned, already, to shake hands; and--"

"Fine!" applauded the Master. "So when it comes our turn to be
visited by this motor-Raffles, the puppy will shake hands with
him, and register love of petting; and the burly marauder will be
so touched by Lad's friendliness that he'll not only spare our
house but lead an upright life ever after. I--"

"Don't send him back!" she pleaded. "He'll grow up, soon, and--"

"And if only the courteous burglars will wait till he's a couple
of years old," suggested the Master, "he--"

Set gently on the floor by the Mistress, Laddie had crossed to
where the Master stood. The man, glancing down, met the puppy's
gaze. For an instant he scowled at the miniature watchdog, so
ludicrously different from the ferocious brute he had expected.
Then,--for some queer reason,--he stooped and ran his hand
roughly over the tawny coat, letting it rest at last on the
shapely head that did not flinch or wriggle at his touch.

"All right," be decreed. "Let him stay. He'll be an amusing pet
for you, anyhow. And his eye has the true thoroughbred
expression,--'the look of eagles.' He may amount to something
after all. Let him stay. We'll take a chance on burglars."

So it was that Lad came to the Place. So it was that he demanded
and received due welcome which was ever Lad's way. The Master had
been right about the pup's proving "an amusing pet," for the
Mistress. From that first hour, Lad was never willingly out of
her sight. He had adopted her. The Master, too,--in only a little
lesser wholeheartedness,--he adopted. Toward the rest of the
world, from the first, he was friendly but more or less
indifferent.

Almost at once, his owners noted an odd trait in the dog's
nature. He would of course get into any or all of the thousand
mischief-scrapes which are the heritage of puppies. But, a single
reproof was enough to cure him forever of the particular form of
mischief which had just been chidden. He was one of those rare
dogs that learn the Law by instinct; and that remember for all
time a command or a prohibition once given them.

For example:--On his second day at the Place, he made a furious
rush at a neurotic mother hen and her golden convoy of chicks.
The Mistress,--luckily for all concerned,--was within call. At
her sharp summons the puppy wheeled, midway in his charge, and
trotted back to her. Severely, yet trying not to laugh at his
worried aspect, she scolded Lad for his misdeed.

An hour later, as Lad was scampering ahead of her, past the
stables, they rounded a corner and came flush upon the same
nerve-wrecked hen and her brood. Lad halted in his scamper, with
a suddenness that made him skid. Then, walking as though on eggs,
he made an idiotically wide circle about the feathered dam and
her silly chicks. Never thereafter did he assail any of the
Place's fowls.

It was the same, when he sprang up merrily at a line of laundry,
flapping in alluring invitation from the drying ground lines. A
single word of rebuke,--and thenceforth the family wash was safe
from him.

And so on with the myriad perplexing "Don'ts" which spatter the
career of a fun-loving collie pup. Versed in the patience-fraying
ways of pups in general, the Mistress and the Master marveled and
bragged and praised.

All day and every day, life was a delight to the little dog. He
had friends everywhere, willing to romp with him. He had
squirrels to chase, among the oaks. He had the lake to splash
ecstatically in: He had all he wanted to eat; and he had all the
petting his hungry little heart could crave.

He was even allowed, with certain restrictions, to come into the
mysterious house itself. Nor, after one defiant bark at a
leopard-skin rug, did he molest anything therein. In the house,
too, he found a genuine cave:--a wonderful place to lie and watch
the world at large, and to stay cool in and to pretend he was a
wolf. The cave was the deep space beneath the piano in the music
room. It seemed to have a peculiar charm to Lad. To the end of
his days, by the way, this cave was his chosen resting place.
Nor, in his lifetime, did any other dog set foot therein.

So much for "all day and every day." But the nights were
different.

Lad hated the nights. In the first place, everybody went to bed
and left him alone. In the second, his hard-hearted owners made
him sleep on a fluffy rug in a corner of the veranda instead of
in his delectable piano-cave. Moreover, there was no food at
night. And there was nobody to play with or to go for walks with
or to listen to. There was nothing but gloom and silence and
dullness. When a puppy takes fifty cat-naps in the course of the
day, he cannot always be expected to sleep the night through. It
is too much to ask. And Lad's waking hours at night were times of
desolation and of utter boredom. True, he might have consoled
himself, as does many a lesser pup, with voicing his woes in a
series of melancholy howls. That, in time, would have drawn
plenty of human attention to the lonely youngster; even if the
attention were not wholly flattering.

But Lad did not belong to the howling type. When he was unhappy,
he waxed silent. And his sorrowful eyes took on a deeper woe. By
the way, if there is anything more sorrowful than the eyes of a
collie pup that has never known sorrow, I have yet to see it.

No, Lad could not howl. And he could not hunt for squirrels. For
these enemies of his were not content with the unsportsmanliness
of climbing out of his reach in the daytime, when he chased them;
but they added to their sins by joining the rest of the
world,--except Lad,--in sleeping all night. Even the lake that
was so friendly by day was a chilly and forbidding playfellow on
the cool North Jersey nights.

There was nothing for a poor lonely pup to do but stretch out on
his rug and stare in unhappy silence up the driveway, in the
impossible hope that someone might happen along through the
darkness to play with him.

At such an hour and in such lonesomeness, Lad would gladly have
tossed aside all prejudices of caste,--and all his natural
dislikes, and would have frolicked in mad joy with the veriest
stranger. Anything was better than this drear solitude throughout
the million hours before the first of the maids should be
stirring or the first of the farmhands report for work. Yes,
night was a disgusting time; and it had not one single redeeming
trait for the puppy.

Lad was not even consoled by the knowledge that he was guarding
the slumbrous house. He was not guarding it. He had not the very
remotest idea what it meant to be a watchdog. In all his five
months he had never learned that there is unfriendliness in the
world; or that there is anything to guard a house against.

True, it was instinctive with him to bark when People came down
the drive, or appeared at the gates without warning. But more
than once the Master had bidden him be silent when a rackety
Puppy salvo of barking had broken in on the arrival of some
guest. And Lad was still in perplexed doubt as to whether barking
was something forbidden or merely limited.

One night,--a solemn, black, breathless August night, when
half-visible heat lightning turned the murk of the western
horizon to pulses of dirty sulphur, Lad awoke from a fitful dream
of chasing squirrels which had never learned to climb.

He sat up on his rug, blinking around through the gloom in the
half hope that some of those non-climbing squirrels might still
be in sight. As they were not, he sighed unhappily and prepared
to lay his classic young head back again on the rug for another
spell of night-shortening sleep.

But, before his head could touch the rug, he reared it and half
of his small body from the floor and focused his nearsighted eyes
on the driveway. At the same time, his tail began to wag a
thumping welcome.

Now, by day, a dog cannot see so far nor so clearly as can a
human. But by night,--for comparatively short distances,--he can
see much better than can his master. By day or by darkness, his
keen hearing and keener scent make up for all defects of
eyesight.

And now three of Lad's senses told him he was no longer alone in
his tedious vigil. Down the drive, moving with amusing slowness
and silence, a man was coming. He was on foot. And he was fairly
well dressed. Dogs, the foremost snobs in creation,--are quick to
note the difference between a well-clad and a disreputable
stranger.

Here unquestionably was a visitor:--some such man as so often
came to the Place and paid such flattering attention to the
puppy. No longer need Lad be bored by the solitude of this
particular night. Someone was coming towards the house;--and
carrying a small bag under his arm. Someone to make friends with.
Lad was very happy.

Deep in his throat a welcoming bark was born. But he stilled it.
Once, when he had barked at the approach of a stranger, the
stranger had gone away. If this stranger were to go away, all the
night's fun would go with him. Also, no later than yesterday, the
Master had scolded Lad for barking at a man who had called.
Wherefore the dog held his peace.

Getting to his feet and stretching himself, fore and aft, in true
collie fashion, the pup gamboled up the drive to meet the
visitor.

The man was feeling his way through the pitch darkness, groping
cautiously; halting once or twice for a smolder of lightning to
silhouette the house he was nearing. In a wooded lane, a quarter
mile away, his lightless motor car waited.

Lad trotted up to him, the tiny white feet noiseless in the soft
dust of the drive. The man did not see him, but passed so close
to the dog's hospitably upthrust nose that he all but touched it.

Only slightly rebuffed at such chill lack of cordiality, Lad fell
in behind him, tail awag, and followed him to the porch. When the
guest should ring the bell, the Master or one of the maids would
come to the door. There would be lights and talk; and perhaps
Laddie himself might be allowed to slip in to his beloved cave.

But the man did not ring. He did not stop at the door at all. On
tiptoe he skirted the veranda to the old-fashioned bay windows at
the south side of the living room; windows with catches as
old-fashioned and as simple to open as themselves.

Lad padded along, a pace or so to the rear;--still hopeful of
being petted or perhaps even romped with. The man gave a faint
but promising sign of intent to romp, by swinging his small and
very shiny brown bag to and fro as he walked. Thus ever did the
Master swing Lad's precious canton flannel doll before throwing
it for him to retrieve. Lad made a tentative snap at the bag, his
tail wagging harder than ever. But he missed it. And, in another
moment the man stopped swinging the bag and tucked it under his
arm again as he began to mumble with a bit of steel.

There was the very faintest of clicks. Then, noiselessly the
window slid upward. A second fumbling sent the wooden inside
shutters ajar. The man worked with no uncertainty. Ever since his
visit to the Place, a week earlier, behind the aegis of a big and
bright and newly forged telephone-inspector badge, he had carried
in his trained memory the location of windows and of obstructing
furniture and of the primitive small safe in the living room
wall, with its pitifully pickable lock;--the safe wherein the
Place's few bits of valuable jewelry and other compact treasures
reposed at night.

Lad was tempted to follow the creeping body and the fascinatingly
swinging bag indoors. But his one effort to enter the
house,--with muddy paws,--by way of an open window, had been
rebuked by the Lawgivers. He had been led to understand that
really well-bred little dogs come in by way of the door; and then
only on permission.

So he waited, doubtfully, at the veranda edge; in the hope that
his new friend might reappear or that the Master might perhaps
want to show off his pup to the caller, as so often the Master
was wont to do.

Head cocked to one side, tulip ears alert, Laddie stood
listening. To the keenest human ears the thief's soft progress
across the wide living room to the wall-safe would have been all
but inaudible. But Lad could follow every phase of it; the
cautious skirting of each chair; the hesitant pause as a bit of
ancient furniture creaked; the halt in front of the safe; the
queer grinding noise, muffled but persevering, at the lock; then
the faint creak of the swinging iron door, and the deft groping
of fingers.

Soon, the man started back toward the pale oblong of gloom which
marked the window's outlines from the surrounding black. Lad's
tail began to wag again. Apparently, this eccentric person was
coming out, after all, to keep him company. Now, the man was
kneeling on the window-seat. Now, in gingerly fashion, he reached
forward and set the small bag down on the veranda; before
negotiating the climb across the broad seat,--a climb that might
well call for the use of both his hands.

Lad was entranced. Here was a game he understood. Thus, more than
once, had the Mistress tossed out to him his flannel doll, as he
had stood in pathetic invitation on the porch, looking in at her
as she read or talked. She had laughed at his wild tossings and
other maltreatments of the limp doll. He had felt he was scoring
a real hit. And this hit he decided to repeat.

Snatching up the swollen little satchel, almost before it left
the intruder's hand, Lad shook it, joyously, reveling in the
faint clink and jingle of the contents. He backed playfully away;
the bag-handle swinging in his jaws. Crouching low, he wagged his
tail in ardent invitation to the stranger to chase him and get
back the satchel. Thus did the Master romp with Lad, when the
flannel doll was the prize of their game. And Lad loved such
races.

Yes, the stranger was accepting the invitation. The moment he had
crawled out on the veranda he reached down for the bag. As it was
not where he thought he had left it, he swung his groping hand
forward in a half-circle, his fingers sweeping the floor.

Make that enticing motion, directly in front of a playful collie
pup; specially if he has something he doesn't want you to take
from him;--and watch the effect.

Instantly, Lad was athrill with the spirit of the game. In one
scurrying backward jump, he was off the veranda and on the lawn,
tail vibrating, eyes dancing; satchel held tantalizingly towards
its would-be possessor.

The light sound of his body touching ground reached the man.
Reasoning that the sweep of his own arm had somehow knocked the
bag off the porch, he ventured off the edge of the veranda and
flashed a swathed ray of his pocket light along the ground in
search of it.

The flashlight's lens was cleverly muffled; in a way to give
forth but a single subdued finger of illumination. That one brief
glimmer was enough to show the thief a right impossible sight.
The glow struck answering lights from the polished sides of the
brown bag. The bag was hanging in air, some six inches above the
grass and perhaps five feet away from him. Then he saw it swig
frivolously to one side and vanish in the night.

The astonished man had seen more. Feeble was the flashlight's
shrouded ray, too feeble to outline against the night the small
dark body behind the shining brown bag. But that same ray caught
and reflected back to the incredulous beholder two splashes of
pale fire;--glints from a pair of deep-set collie-eyes.

As the bag disappeared, the eerie fire-points were gone. The
thief all but dropped his flashlight. He gaped in nervous dread;
and sought vainly to account for the witch-work he had witnessed.
He had plenty of nerve. He had plenty of experience along his
chosen line of endeavor. But, while a crook may control his
nerve, he cannot make it phlegmatic or steady. Always, he must
be conscious of holding it in check, as a clever driver checks
and steadies and keeps in subjection a plunging horse. Let the
vigilance slacken, and there is a runaway.

Now this particular marauder had long ago keyed his nerve to the
chance of interruption from some gun-brandishing householder; and
to the possible pursuit of police; and to the need of fighting or
of fleeing. But all his preparations had not taken into account
this newest emergency. He had not steeled himself to watch
unmoved the gliding away of a treasure-satchel, apparently moving
of its own will; nor the shimmer of two greenish sparks in the
air just above it. And, for an instant, the man had to battle
against a craven desire to bolt.

Lad, meanwhile, was having a beautiful time. Sincerely, he
appreciated the playful grab his nocturnal friend had made in his
general direction. Lad had countered this, by frisking away for
another five or six feet, and then wheeling about to face once
more his playfellow and to await the next move in the blithe
gambol. The pup could see tolerably well, in the darkness quite
well enough to play the game his guest had devised. And of
course, he had no way of knowing that the man could not see
equally well.

Shaking off his momentary terror, the thief once more pressed the
button of his flashlight; swinging the torch in a swift
semicircle and extinguishing it at once; lest the dim glow be
seen by any wakeful member of the family.

That one quick sweep revealed to his gaze the shiny brown bag a
half-dozen feet ahead of him, still swinging several inches above
ground. He flung himself forward at it; refusing to believe he
also saw that queer double glow of pale light just above. He
dived for the satchel with the speed and the accuracy of a
football tackle. And that was all the good it did him.

Perhaps there is something in nature more agile and dismayingly
elusive than a romping young collie. But that "something" is not
a mortal man. As the thief sprang, Lad sprang in unison with him;
darting to the left and a yard or so backward. He came to an
expectant standstill once more; his tail wildly vibrating, his
entire furry body tingling with the glad excitement of the game.
This sportive visitor of his was a veritable godsend. If only he
could be coaxed into coming to play with him every night--!

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