"I suppose Lad swallowed them," ironically put in The Place"s foreman. "That makes about as much sense as the rest of the yarn. The Old Dog would no sooner----"
"Do you really mean to say you saw Lad--saw and _recognized_ him--in Mr. t.i.tus"s barnyard, growling over a sheep he had just killed?"
demanded the Mistress.
"I sure do," affirmed Schwartz. "And I----"
"An" he"s ready to go on th" stand an" take oath to it!" supplemented t.i.tus. "Unless you"ll pay me the damages out of court. Them sheep cost me exac"ly $12.10 a head, in the Pat"son market, one week ago. An"
sheep on the hoof has gone up a full forty cents more since then. You owe me for them four sheep exac"ly----"
"I owe you not one red cent!" denied the Master. "I hate law worse than I hate measles. But I"ll fight that idiotic claim all the way up to the Appellate Division before I"ll----"
The Mistress lifted a little silver whistle that hung at her belt and blew it. An instant later Lad came galloping gaily up the lawn from the lake, adrip with water from his morning swim. Straight, at the Mistress" summons, he came, and stood, expectant, in front of her, oblivious of others.
The great dog"s mahogany-and-snow coat shone wetly in the sunshine.
Every line of his splendid body was tense. His eyes looked up into the face of the loved Mistress in eager antic.i.p.ation. For a whistle-call usually involved some matter of more than common interest.
"That"s the dog!" cried Schwartz, his thick voice betraying a shade more of its half-lost German accent, in the excitement of the minute. "That"s the one. He has washed off the blood. But that is the one. I could know him anywhere at all. And I knew him, already. And Mr. Romaine told me to be looking out for him, about the sheep, too.
So I----"
The Master had bent over Lad, examining the dog"s mouth. "Not a trace of blood or of wool!" he announced. "And look how he faces us! If he had anything to be ashamed of----"
"I got a witness to prove he killed my sheep," cut in Romaine. "Since you won"t be honest enough to square the case out of court, then the law"ll take a tuck in your wallet for you. The law will look after a poor man"s int"rest. I don"t wonder there"s folks who want all dogs done "way with. Pesky curs! Here, the papers say we are short on sheep, an" they beg us to raise "em, because mutton is worth double what it used to be, in open market. Then, when I buy sheep, on that sayso, your dog gets four of "em the very first week. Think what them four sheep would "a meant to----"
"I"m sorry you lost them," the Master interrupted. "Mighty sorry. And I"m still sorrier if there is a sheep-killing dog at large anywhere in this region. But Lad never----"
"I tell ye, he _did!_" stormed t.i.tus. "I got proof of it. Proof good enough for any court. An" the court is goin" to see me righted.
It"s goin" to do more. It"s goin" to make you shoot that killer, there, too. I know the law. I looked it up. An" the law says if a sheep-killin" dog----"
"Lad is not a sheep-killing dog!" flashed the Mistress.
"That"s what he is!" snarled Romaine. "An", by law, he"ll be shot as sech. He----"
"Take your case to law, then!" retorted the Master, whose last shred of patience went by the board, at the threat. "And take it and yourself off my Place! Lad doesn"t "run" sheep. But, at the word from me, he"ll ask nothing better than to "run" you and your German every step of the way to your own woodshed. Clear out!"
He and the Mistress watched the two irately mumbling intruders plod out of sight up the drive. Lad, at the Master"s side, viewed the accusers" departure with sharp interest. Schooled in reading the human voice, he had listened alertly to the Master"s speech of dismissal. And, as the dog listened, his teeth had come slowly into view from beneath a menacingly upcurled lip. His eyes, half shut, had been fixed on t.i.tus with an expression that was not pretty.
"Oh, dear!" sighed the Mistress miserably, as she and her husband turned indoors and made their way toward the breakfast room. "You were right about "good old Mr. Trouble dropping in on us." Isn"t it horrible? But it makes my blood boil to think of Laddie being accused of such a thing. It is crazily absurd, of course. But----"
"Absurd?" the Master caught her up. "It"s the most absurd thing I ever heard of. If it was about any other dog than Lad, it would be good for a laugh. I mean, Romaine"s charge of the dog"s doing away with no less than four sheep and not leaving a trace of more than one of them.
That, alone, would get his case laughed out of court. I remember, once in Scotland, I was stopping with some people whose shepherd complained that three of the sheep had fallen victim to a "killer." We all went up to the moor-pasture to look at them. They weren"t a pretty sight, but they were all _there_. A dog doesn"t devour a sheep he kills. He doesn"t even lug it away. Instead, he just----"
"Perhaps you"d rather describe it _after_ breakfast," suggested the Mistress, hurriedly. "This wretched business has taken away all of my appet.i.te that I can comfortably spare."
At about mid-morning of the next day, the Master was summoned to the telephone.
"This is Maclay," said the voice at the far end.
"Why, h.e.l.lo, Mac!" responded the Master, mildly wondering why his old fishing-crony, the village"s local Peace Justice, should be calling him up at such an hour. "If you"re going to tell me this is a good day for small-mouth ba.s.s to bite I"m going to tell you it isn"t. It isn"t because I"m up to my neck in work. Besides, it"s too late for the morning fishing, and too early for the ba.s.s to get up their afternoon appet.i.tes. So don"t try to tempt me into----"
"Hold on!" broke in Maclay. "I"m not calling you up for that. I"m calling up on business; rotten unpleasant business, too."
"What"s wrong?" asked the Master.
"I"m hoping t.i.tus Romaine is," said the Justice. "He"s just been here--with his North Prussian hired man as witness--to make a complaint about your dog, Lad. Yes, and to get a court order to have the old fellow shot, too."
"What!" sputtered the Master. "He hasn"t actually----"
"That"s just what he"s done," said Maclay. "He claims Lad killed four of his new sheep night before last, and four more of them this morning or last night. Schwartz swears he caught Lad at the last of the killed sheep both times. It"s hard luck, old man, and I feel as bad about it as if it were my own dog. You know how strong I am for Lad. He"s the greatest collie I"ve known, but the law is clear in such----"
"You speak as if you thought Lad was guilty!" flamed the Master. "You ought to know better than that. He----"
"Schwartz tells a straight story," answered Maclay, sadly, "and he tells it under oath. He swears he recognized Lad first time. He says he volunteered to watch in the barnyard last night. He had had a hard day"s work and he fell asleep while he was on watch. He says he woke up in gray dawn to find the whole flock in a turmoil, and Lad pinning one of the sheep to the ground. He had already killed three. Schwartz drove him away. Three of the sheep were missing. One Lad had just downed was dying. Romaine swears he saw Lad "running" his sheep last week. It----"
"What did you do about the case?" asked the dazed Master.
"I told them to be at the courtroom at three this afternoon with the bodies of the two dead sheep that aren"t missing, and that I"d notify you to be there, too."
"Oh, I"ll be there!" snapped the Master. "Don"t worry. And it was decent of you to make them wait. The whole thing is ridiculous!
It----"
"Of course," went on Maclay, "either side can easily appeal from any decision I make. That is as regards damages. But, by the township"s new sheep-laws, I"m sorry to say there isn"t any appeal from the local Justice"s decree that a sheep-killing dog must be shot at once. The law leaves me no option if I consider a dog guilty of sheep-killing.
I have to order such a dog put to death at once. That"s what"s making me so blue. I"d rather lose a year"s pay than have to order old Lad killed."
"You won"t have to," declared the Master, stoutly; albeit he was beginning to feel a nasty sinking in the vicinity of his stomach.
"We"ll manage to prove him innocent. I"ll stake anything you like on that."
"Talk the case over with d.i.c.k Colfax or any other good lawyer before three o"clock," suggested Maclay. "There may be a legal loophole out of the muddle. I hope to the Lord there is."
"We"re not going to crawl out through any "loopholes," Lad and I,"
returned the Master. "We"re going to come through, _clean_. See if we don"t!"
Leaving the telephone, he went in search of the Mistress, and more and more disheartened told her the story.
"The worst of it is," he finished, "Romaine and Schwartz seem to have made Maclay believe their fool yarn."
"That is because they believe it, themselves," said the Mistress, "and because, just as soon as even the most sensible man is made a Judge, he seems to lose all his common sense and intuition and become nothing but a walking statute-book. But you--you think for a moment, do you, that they can persuade Judge Maclay to have Lad shot?"
She spoke with a little quiver in her sweet voice that roused all the Master"s fighting spirit.
"This Place is going to be in a state of siege against the entire law and militia of New Jersey," he announced, "before one bullet goes into Lad. You can put your mind to rest on that. But that isn"t enough. I want to _clear_ him. In these days of "conservation" and scarcity, it is a grave offense to destroy any meat-animal. And the loss of eight sheep in two days--in a district where there has been such an effort made to revive sheep raising----"
"Didn"t you say they claim the second lot of sheep were killed in the night and at dawn, just as they said the first were?" interposed the Mistress.
"Why, yes. But----"
"Then," said the Mistress, much more comfortably, "we can prove Lad"s alibi just as I said yesterday we could. Marie always lets him out in the morning when she comes downstairs to dust these lower rooms. She"s never down before six o"clock; and the sun, nowadays, rises long before that. Schwartz says he saw Lad both times in the early dawn. We can prove, by Marie, that Lad was safe here in the house till long after sunrise."