The great dog had braced himself, with all his might, for the muscle-wrenching heave. Wherefore, he had no chance to spring clear, in time to avoid the car. This, no doubt, he had realized, when he sprang to his adored mate's rescue. For Lad's brain was uncanny in its cleverness. That same cleverness, more likely than mere chance,--now came to his own aid.
The left front wheel struck him and struck him fair. It hit his massive shoulder, dislocating the joint and knocking the eighty-pound dog prone to earth, his ruff within an inch of the wheel. There was no time to gather his feet under him or to coerce the dislocated shoulder into doing its share toward lifting him in a sideways spring that should carry him out of the machine's way. There was but one thing Lad could do. And he did it.
His body in a compact bunch, he rolled midway between the wheels;making the single revolution at a speed the eye could scarce follow,--a speed which jerked him from under the impending left wheel which already had smitten him down.
Over him slid the wheel-locked car, through the mud of a recent rain; while the boy clung to the emergency brake and yelled.
Over him and past him skidded the car. It missed the prostrate dog,--missed him with all four wheels; though the rear axle's housing smeared his snowy ruff with a blur of black grease.
On went the machine for another ten feet, before it could halt.
Then a chalk-faced delivery boy peered backward in fright,--to see Lad getting painfully to his feet and holding perplexedly aloft his tiny right forepaw in token of the dislocated shoulder.
The delivery boy saw more. In a swirl of black bad temper, Lady had gathered herself up from the ditch where Lad's toss had landed her. Without a moment's pause she threw herself upon the luckless dog whose rough toss had saved her life. Teeth aglint, growling ferociously, she dug her fangs into the hurt shoulder and slung her whole weight forward in the bite.
Thus was it the temperamental Lady's wont to punish real or fancied injuries from the Place's other animals,--and from humans as well, except only the Mistress and the Master. She charged first, and did her thinking afterward. Apparently, her brain, just then, could hold no impression except that her interfering mate had picked her up by the neck-scruff and had thrown her, head over heels, into a ditch. And such treatment called for instant penalty.
Under her fifty-pound impact, poor Lad's three-cornered balance gave way. Down he went in an awkward heap; while Lady snarled viciously and snapped for his momentarily exposed throat. Lad turned his head aside to guard the throat; but he made no move to resent this ungrateful onslaught; much less to fight back. Which was old Lad's way,--with Lady.
Dislocated shoulder or not, he would have flown at any male dog that assailed him; and would have made the aggressor fight for dear life. But his mate was sacred. And he merely protected his throat and let her nip agonizingly at his ears and paws; until her brief flurry of wrath should be past.
A shout from the veranda,--whither the racket had drawn the Master from his study,--put a sudden stop to Lady's brainstorm.
Obedience was the first and foremost rule drilled into the Little People of the Place. And, from puppy days, the collies were taught to come,--and to come at a run,--at call from the Mistress or the Master.
Lady, with no good grace, desisted from her punitive task, and galloped down the drive to the house. Lad, rising with difficulty, followed; as fast as a three-legged gait would permit. And behind them chugged the delivery boy, bawling explanations.
A sharp word of reproof sent Lady skulking into a corner; anger forgotten in humiliation at the public rebuke. The Master paid no heed to her. Running up the drive, he met Lad, and picked up the suffering collie in his arms. Carrying him into the study, the Master gave first aid to the serious dislocation; then phoned for the nearest good vet.
As he left the study, to telephone, he encountered Lady, very woebegone and cringing, at the door. When he returned, he beheld the remorseful little gold-and-white vixen licking her mate's hurt shoulder and wagging a propitiatory tail in plea for forgiveness from the dog she had bitten and from the Master whose Law she had broken by her attack on the car.
Always, after her brief rages, Lady was prettily and genuinely repentant and eager to make friends again. And, as ever, Lad was meeting her apologies more than half-way;--absurdly blissful at her dainty attentions.
In the days that followed, Lady at first spent the bulk of her time near her lame mate. She was unusually gentle and affectionate with him; and seemed trying to make up to him for the enforced idleness of strained sinews and dislocated joint. In her friendliness and attention, Lad was very, very happy.
The vet had bandaged his shoulder and had anointed it with pungently smelly medicines whose reek was disgusting and even painful to the thoroughbred's supersensitive nostrils. Moreover, the vet had left orders that Lad be made to keep quiet until the hurt should heal; and that he risk no setback by undue exertion of any sort. It was sweet to lie in the Master's study,--one white forepaw or the great shapely head laid lovingly on the man's hiking boot; and with an occasional pat or a friendly word from his deity, as the latter pounded away on a clicky typewriter whose jarring noise Lad had long ago taught himself to tolerate.
Sweeter it was to be made much of and "poored" by the Mistress;and to have her light hands adjust his bandages; and to hear her tell him what a dear dog he was and praise his bravery in rescuing Lady.
Perhaps sweetest of all, in those early days of convalescence, was the amazing solicitude of Lady herself; and her queerly maternal tenderness toward him.
