Behind the house, these woods ran up to the highroad, a furlong above.
A driveway led twistingly down from the gate-lodge, to the house. Along this drive, was pacing a dog.
As the girl caught sight of him, the dog halted in his lazy stroll and stood eagerly erect, his nose upraised, his tulip ears p.r.i.c.ked. Sound or scent, or both, had been arrested by some unusual presence. And he paused to verify the warning.
As he stood there, an instant, in the shade-flecked driveway, the girl saw he was a collie; ma.s.sive, graceful, majestic; in the full strength of his early prime; his s.h.a.ggy coat of burnished mahogany-and-snow glinting back the showers of sun-rays that filtered down through the leaves.
Before the watching girl could take further note of him, the dog"s aspect of tense listening merged into certainty. With no further shadow of doubt as to direction, he set off at a sweeping run past the house and toward the point.
He ran with head down; and with tawny ruff abristle. There was something in his lithe gallop that was as ominous as it was beautiful.
And, nervous at the great collie"s approach, the girl squealed.
It had been a dull morning for Lad. The Mistress was in town for the day. The Master was shut up in his study, hard at work. And, for once, he had not remembered to call Lad to a resting place on the study rug; before closing the door on the outside world. Alone and bored, the collie had wandered into the woods; in quest of possible rabbits to chase or squirrels to tree. Finding the sport tame, he started homeward. Midway down the drive, his supersensitive nostrils caught the whiff of alien humans on the Place. At the same time, he heard the raucous gabbling of several voices. Though his near-sighted eyes did not yet show the intruders to him, yet scent and sound made it ridiculously easy for him to trace them.
From early puppyhood, Lad had been the official guardian of the Place.
He knew the limits of its thirty acres; from lake to highroad; from boundary fence to boundary fence. He knew, too, that visitors must not be molested as long as they were on the driveway; but that no stranger might be allowed to cross the land, by any other route; or to trespa.s.s on lawn or oak-grove.
And now, apparently, strangers were holding some sort of unlicensed revelry, down on the point. His sense of smell told him that neither the Master nor anyone else belonging to the Place was with them. True watchdog indignation swelled up in Lad"s heart. And he ran at top speed.
The girl"s three companions, turning at sight of her gesturing hand, beheld a mahogany-and-white thunderbolt whizzing down the hundred-yard slope toward them.
It chanced that both the men had served long apprenticeship as dog-fanciers; and that both of them knew collies. Thus, no second look was needed. One glimpse of the silently charging Lad told them all they needed to know. Not in this way does a blatant or bluffing watchdog seek to shoo off trespa.s.sers. This giant collie, with his lowered head and glinting fangs and ruffling hackles, meant business. And the men acted accordingly.
"Run for it!" bellowed one of them; setting a splendid example by reaching the beached canoe at a single scrambling bound. The second man was no whit behind him. Between them, the canoe, at one shove, was launched. The first man grabbed one of the girls by the arm and propelled her into the wobbling craft; while the other shoved off. The remaining girl,--she of the azure headgear and the verdant waist,--slipped on the gra.s.sy bank, in her flight, and sat down very hard, at the water"s edge. Already the canoe was six feet from sh.o.r.e; and both men were doing creditable acrobatic stunts to keep it from turning turtle.
"Stand perfec"ly still," one of them exhorted the damsel, as he saw with horror that she had been left ash.o.r.e in the tumbling flight.
"Stand still and don"t holler! Keep your hands high. It"s likely he won"t bother you. These highbred collies are pretty gentle with women; but some of "em are blue murder to strange men. He--"
The man swayed for balance. His fellow-hero had brought the canoe about, in an effort to smite with uplifted paddle at the oncoming dog without venturing too close to the danger-line.
In the same moment, Lad had gained the brink of the lake. Ignoring the panic-struck woman on the bank, he flashed past her and galloped, body-deep, into the water; toward the swaying canoe.
Here he paused. For Lad was anything but a fool. And, like other wise collies, he had sense enough to realize that a swimming dog is one of the most helpless creatures in the universe; when it comes to self-defense.
Ash.o.r.e, or in water shallow enough to maneuver his powerful body, Lad could give excellent account of himself against any normal foe. But, beyond his depth, he would fall easy victim to the first well-aimed paddle-stroke. And he knew it. Thus, hesitant, his snarling teeth not two yards from the canoe, he stood growling in futile indignation at the cranky craft"s crankier occupants.
The girl who remained on sh.o.r.e plucked up enough panic-courage to catch her gaudy pink parasol by the ferule and to swing its heavy handle with all her fear-driven strength at Lad"s skull. Luckily, the aim was as bad as it was vehement. The handle grazed the dog"s shoulder, then struck the lake with a force that snapped the flimsy parasol in two.
Whereat the girl shrieked aloud; and scuttled back as Lad spun around to face her.
But she might as well have spared herself the scream. She was in no danger. True, the collie had whirled to seek and resent this new source of attack. But, seeing only a yelling and retreating woman behind him, he contented himself with a menacing growl, and turned again toward the canoe.
One of the men, poising himself, had swung aloft his paddle. Now, with full strength, he brought down the edged blade at the dog"s head.
But it is one thing to aim a blow, from a tilting canoe; and quite another to make that blow land in the spot aimed for.
The whizzing paddle-blade missed Lad, clean. Not only because the dog veered sharply aside as it descended, but because the canoe, under the jarring heave of the striker"s body, proceeded to turn turtle.
Into the water plopped the two men. Into the water, with them, splashed their rescued companion. This gentle soul had not ceased screaming, from the time she was hauled aboard. But now, submergence cut short her cries. A second later, the lamentations recommenced; in higher if more liquid volume. For, the sh.o.r.e, at the point sloped very gradually out to deeper water. And immediately, she and the two men had regained their foothold.
There, chest deep the trio stood or staggered. And, there, between them and the beach, raged Lad. None of the three cared to risk wading sh.o.r.eward, with such an obstacle between themselves and land. The girl on the bank added her quota of squalls to those of her semi-engulfed friend; and one of the men began to reach far under water for a rock to throw at the guard dog.
The first shrill cry had reached the Master, as he sat at work in his study. Down the slope he came running; and stopped in slack-jawed amaze at the tableau in front of him.
On the bank hopped and wriggled a woman in vivid garments,--a woman who waved a broken parasol and seemed to be practicing an Indian war-howl.
Elbow deep in the placid waters of the lake floundered another woman almost as wonderfully attired as the first, and quite as vocal. On either side of her was a drenched and gesticulating man. In the background bobbed an upset canoe. Between the two disrupted factions of the happy picnic party stood Lad.
The collie had ceased to growl; and, with head on one side, was looking in eager inquiry at the Master. Lad had carried this watchdog exploit to a point where the next move was hard to figure out. He was glad the Master had arrived, to take charge of the situation. It seemed to call for human, rather than canine, solution. And Lad was profoundly interested as to the sequel. All of which showed as clearly in the collie"s whimsically expressive face as ever it could have been set forth in print.
Both men began to talk at once; with lurid earnestness and vast wealth of gesture. So did the women.
There was no need. The Master, already, had caught sight of the half-spread lunch on the gra.s.s. And it was by no means his first or his tenth experience with trespa.s.sers. He understood. Snapping his fingers, to summon Lad to his side, he patted the dog"s silken head; and strove not to laugh.
"And just as we was sitting down, peaceful, to eat, and not harming no one at all and minding our own business," came a fragment of one man"s oration, above the clamor of the others, "that big dark-sable collie of yours came tearing down on us and--"
The triple opposition of outcry and complaint blurred the rest of his enraged whine. But the Master looked out at him in new interest. The man had used the term, "dark-sable collie"; which, by the way, was the technical phrase for Lad"s coloring. Not one non-collie-man in a thousand would have known the meaning of the term; to say nothing of using it by instinct. The Master stared curiously at the floundering and sputtering speaker.
"Aren"t you the manager of the Lochaber Collie Kennels, up at Beauville?" he asked, speaking loud enough to be heard above the subsiding din. "I think I"ve seen you at Westminster and at some of the local shows. Higham is your name, isn"t it?"
"Yes, it is," returned the kennel man, truculent, but surprised almost into civility. "And this is my a.s.sistant, Mister Rice. And these two young lady friends of ours are--Say!" he broke off, furiously, remembering his plight and swinging back to rage, as he began to wade sh.o.r.eward. "We"re going to have the law on you, friend! Your collie tackled us when we was peaceably-"
"When you were peaceably ignoring this trespa.s.s sign of mine?" finished the Master. "Don"t forget that. If you didn"t have these girls with you, I"d keep my hands off Lad"s collar and let him hold you out in the lake till it freezes for the winter. As it is, one of you men can swim out for your canoe and tow it in; and then the rest of you can bundle aboard it and finish your picnic on somebody else"s land."
"Well!" shrilled the wet damsel, striding sh.o.r.eward like some sloppily overdressed Venus rising from the sea. "Well! I MUST say! Nice neighborly, hospitable way to treat poor unfortunate--!"
"Trespa.s.sers?" suggested the Master, as she groped for a climax word.
"You"re right. It is no way to treat a woman who has fallen into the lake; trespa.s.ser or not. If you and this other young lady care to go up to the kitchen, the maids will see that your clothes are dried; and they"ll lend you other clothes to go home in. Lad won"t hurt you. And in this hot weather you"re in no danger of catching cold. While you"re gone, Higham and Rice can get hold of the canoe and right it and bail it out. And, by the way, I want one of you two men to clear that litter of food and greasy paper off my lawn. Then--"
"Into the kitchen!" snorted the wet maid. "Into the KITCHEN? I"m a lady! I don"t go into kitchens. I--"
"No?" queried the Master, trying once more not to laugh. "Well, my wife does. So does my mother. I spoke of the kitchen because it"s the only room with a fire in it, in this weather. If you"d prefer the barn or--"
"I won"t step one foot in your house!" declaimed the girl. "Nor yet I didn"t come here to be insulted. You"ve gone and spoiled our whole day, you big brute! Boys, go get that canoe! We won"t lower ourselves by staying another minute on his rotten land. Afterward, our lawyer"ll see what"s the penalty for treating us like this! Hurry up!"
Rice had clumped along sh.o.r.e until he found a dead branch washed up in a recent rainstorm. Wading back into deeper water he was just able to reach the gunwale of the drifting canoe with the forked end of the bough and, by careful jockeying, to haul it within hand-grasp.
Aided by Higham, he drew the overturned craft to the beach and righted it. All the time, both men maintained a half-coherent diatribe, whose language waxed hotter and hotter and whose thunderbolts centered about the Master and his dog;--particularly about Lad;--and about the dire legal penalties which were to be inflicted on them.
The Master, still holding Lad"s ruff, stood to one side during the work of salvaging the canoe; and while Rice replaced the paddles and cushions in it. Only when the two women were helped sputteringly aboard did he interfere.
"One minute!" he said. "I think you"ve forgotten your lunch. That and the ream or two of newspapers you"ve strewn around: and a few wooden dishes. I--"
"I picked up all the lunch that was worth saving," grunted Rice. "Your mangy collie trampled the rest of it, when he ran down here at us. I wisht it"d had strychnia in it and he"d et it! We"ll go eat our dinner over to the village. And, before we go, I got this much more to say to YOU:--If--"
"Before you go," interrupted the Master, shifting himself and Lad between Higham and the canoe, "before you go, let me remind you that you"ve left a lot of litter on my clean lawn; and that I asked you to clean it up."
"Go clean it up, yourself!" snapped Rice, from the boat. "This upstage talk about "trespa.s.sing" makes me sick! As soon as a guy has a three-dollar patch of b.u.m land (with a mortgage eating it up, most likely), he always blats about "trespa.s.sing" whenever decent folks happens to walk on it. Go clean up the papers, yourself! We ain"t your slaves. You"re due to hear a lot from us, later, too. Clean it, yourself!"
The ladies applauded these stirring proletariat sentiments right vigorously. But Higham did not applaud. Rice and the women were in the canoe. Higham had gone back to the picnic site for an overlooked cushion. On returning toward the beach, he had found the Master and Lad standing in his way. Loftily, he made as though to skirt them and reach the canoe.
"WATCH him, Laddie!" whispered the Master, loosing his hold on the dog"s ruff.