It was good to sleep. He had just undergone more vehement exertion and excitement than had been his for many a long month. And he had earned his rest. It was sweet to doze like this--petted and sung to.
It was not well to exercise body and emotions as he had just done. Lad realized that, now;--now that it was all over and he could rest. Rest!
Yes, it was good to rest,--to be smoothed and crooned at. It was thus the Mistress had stroked and crooned to him, so many thousand times.
And always Lad had loved it.
It was well to be at home and to be sinking so pleasantly to sleep; here at the Place he had guarded since before he could remember--the Place where he and the Mistress and the Master had had such splendid times; where he and his long-dead mate, Lady, had romped; where he had played with and trained his fiery little son, Wolf; and where every inch of the dear land was alive with wonderful memories to him.
He had had a full, happy, rich life. And now, in its twilight, rest was as grateful as action once had been.
The morning air was warm and it was heavy with flower and field, scents; and with the breath of the forests where so often Lad had led the tearing run of the collie pack and in whose snowy depths he once had fought for his life against Wolf and the huge crossbreed, Rex. That was ever so long ago.
The Mistress and the Master were coming home. Lad knew that. He could not have told how he knew it. In earlier years, he had known their car was bringing them home to him, while it was still a mile or more distant from the Place;--had known and had cantered forth to meet it.
He was too tired, just now, to do that. At least, until he had slept for a moment or two. Always, until now, the Mistress and the Master had been first, with Lad. Now, for some odd reason, sleep was first.
And he slept;--deeply, wearily.
Presently, as he slept, he sighed and then quivered a little. After that, he lay still. The great heart, very quietly, had stopped beating.
Into the driveway, from the main road, a furlong above, rolled the homecoming car. At sight of it, Sonya started up. She was not certain how the car"s occupants would take her preempting of the veranda in their absence. Letting Lad"s head gently down to the floor, she slipped away.
To the barn she went, ignorant that her father had not returned to the orchard. She wanted to get herself into a more courageous frame of mind before meeting Ruloff. By experience she judged he would make her pay, and pay dear, for the fright the collie had given him.
Into the barn she ran, shutting fast its side door behind her. Then, midway across the dusky hay-strewn s.p.a.ce, she came to a gasping stop.
Ruloff had risen from a box on the corner, had set down his lunch pail, moved between her and the door and yanked off his bra.s.s-buckled belt.
The child was trapped. Here there was no earthly chance for escape.
Here, too, thanks to the closed door, Laddie could not come to her aid.
In palsied dread, she stood shaking and sobbing; as the man walked silently toward her.
Ruloff"s flat face widened in a grin of antic.i.p.ation. He had a big score to pay. And he was there to pay it. The fear of the dog was still upon him; and the shame that this child, the cause of all his humiliation, should have seen him run yelling up a tree. It would take a mighty good flogging to square that.
Sonya cried out, in mortal terror, at his first step. Then--probably only in her hysterical imagination, though afterward she vowed it had actually happened--came rescue.
Distinctly, against her quivering side, she felt the pressure of a warm furry bulk. Into her paralyzed hand a rea.s.suring cold muzzle was thrust. And, over her, came a sense of wonderful safety from all harm.
Facing her father with a high-pitched loud laugh of genuine courage, she shrilled:
"You don"t dare touch me! You don"t dare lay one finger on me!"
And she meant it. Her look and every inflection of the defiant high voice proved she meant it; proved it to the dumfounded Ruloff, in a way that sent funny little shivers down his spine.
The man came to a shambling halt; aghast at the transfigured little wisp of humanity who confronted him in such gay fearlessness.
"Why don"t I dare?" he bl.u.s.tered, lifting the bra.s.s-buckled weapon again.
"You don"t dare to!" she laughed, wildly. "You don"t dare, because you know he"ll kill you, This time he won"t just knock you down. He"ll KILL you! He"ll never let you hit me again. I know it. He"s HERE! You don"t dare touch me! You won"t ever dare touch me! He--"
She choked, in her shout of weird exultation. The man, ridden by his racial superst.i.tion, stared open-mouthed at the tiny demon who screeched defiance at him.
And, there, in the dim shadows of the barn, his overwrought fancy seemed to make out a grim formless Thing, close at the child"s side; crouching in silent menace.
The heat of the day--the shock of seeing Lad appear from nowhere and stand thus, by the veranda, a few minutes earlier--these and the once-timid Sonya"s confident belief in Lad"s presence,--all wrought on the stupid, easily-thrilled mind of the Slav.
"The werewolf!" he babbled; throwing down the belt, and bolting out into the friendly sunlight.
"The werewolf! I--I saw it! I--at least--G.o.d of Russia, what DID I see?
What did SHE see?"
Over a magnificent lifeless body on the veranda bent the two who had loved Lad best and whom he had served so worshipfully for sixteen years. The Mistress"s face was wet with tears she did not try to check.
In the Master"s throat was a lump that made speech painful. For the tenth time he leaned down and laid his fingers above the still heart of the dog; seeking vainly for sign of fluttering.
"No use!" he said, thickly, harking back by instinct to a half-remembered phrase. "The engine has broken down."
"No," quoted the sobbing Mistress, wiser than he. ""The engineer has left it.""
THE END