Further Adventures of Lad Part 7

This, in the midst of Rice's tirade. Higham stood extremely still. As the others applauded, he began, very fervently, to swear.

"Higham," suggested the Master, "I've no personal objection to your blasphemy. If the women of your party can stand it, I can. But aren't you wasting a good deal of time! These papers have all got to be picked up, you know; and the camp nicely policed. Get busy."

Higham glowered on him in murderous hate; then at the tensely watching dog. Lad's upper lip curled. The man took a tentative step toward the beach. Lad crouched, panther-like; and a low growl parted still further his writhing lips.

Higham was enough of a collie man to foresee the inevitable next move.

He stood stock still. The Master put his hand once more on Lad's ruff; but none too tightly. And he nodded toward the clutter of newspapers and wooden plates. Higham's language soared spoutingly to high heaven.

But he turned back and, with vicious grabs, cleared the lawn of its unsightly litter.

"Take it into the boat with you." said the Master. "That's all.

Goodbye. See you at the Beauville show."

Waiting only for the canoe and its four vociferous occupants to start safely from sh.o.r.e, the Master returned to the house; Lad at his heels; pursued by a quadruple avalanche of abuse from the damp trespa.s.sers.

"There'll be a comeback of some kind to this, Laddie," he told the collie, as they moved on. "I don't know just what it'll be. But those two worthy youths didn't look at all lovingly at us. And there's nothing else in country life so filthily mean as an evicted trespa.s.ser.

Don't let's say anything to the Mistress about it, Lad. It'd only worry her! And--and she'll think I ought to have invited all those panhandlers up to the house to get dry. Perhaps she'd be right, too.

She generally is."

A week later, Lad received a summons that made his heart sink. For he knew precisely what it foretold. He was called to the bathroom; where awaited him a tub half full of warm water.

Now, baths were no novelty to Lad. But when a bath tub contained certain ingredients from boxes on the dog-closet shelf,--ingredients that fluff the coat and burnish it and make all its hairs stand out like a Circa.s.sian Beauty's, that meant but one thing.

It meant a dog-show was at hand.

And Lad loathed dog-shows, as he loathed tramps and castor oil and motorcycles.

After a single experience, he had never been taken to one of those canine ordeals known as "three-or-more-day shows." But the Mistress and the Master rejoiced at his triumphs at such local one-day shows as were within pleasant driving distance of the Place. These exhibitions entailed no great strain or danger. Lad's chief objection to them was that he hated to be chirped to and pawed and stared upon by an army of strangers.

Such a one-day event was the outdoor Charity Dogshow at the Beauville Country Club, forty miles to northeast of the Place; an easy two-hour drive. It was to be a "specialty show"; at which the richness and variety of prizes were expected to atone for the lack of A. K. C.

points involved.

A premium-list of the show had been mailed to the Place; and one of its "specials" had caught the Mistress's quick eye and quicker imagination.

The special was offered by Angus McGilead, an exiled Scot whose life fad was the Collie; and whose chief grievance was that most American breeders did not seem able to produce collies with the unbelievable wealth of outer-and-undercoat displayed by the oversea dogs. This particular special was offered in the following terms:

Embossed Sterling Silver Cup, 9 Inches High (Genuine Antique) For The Best-Coated Collie Shown.

Now, Lad's coat was the pride of the Mistress's heart. By daily brus.h.i.+ngs she kept it in perfect condition and encouraged its luxuriant growth. When she read of McGilead's eccentric offer, she fell to visualizing the "embossed sterling silver cup, 9 inches high (genuine antique)" as it would loom up from the hedge of dog-show prizes already adorning the living room trophy-shelves.

Summer is the zero hour for collies' coats. Yet, this year, Lad had not yet begun to shed his winter raiment; and he was still in full bloom.

This fact decided the Mistress. Not one collie in ten would be in anything like perfect coat. And the prize cup grew clearer and nearer, to her mental vision. Hence the series of special baths and brus.h.i.+ngs.

Hence, too, Laddie's daily-increasing gloom.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the show, the Mistress and the Master, with Lad stretched forlornly on the rear seat of the car, set forth up the Valley on the forty-mile run to Beauville. On the tonneau floor, in front of Lad, rested a battered suitcase, which held his toilet appurtenances;--brushes, comb, talc.u.m, French chalk, show-leash, sponge, crash towel, squeaking rubber doll (this to attract his bored interest in the ring and make him "show") and a box of liver cut in small bits and fried stiff.

Lad blinked down at the suitcase in morose disapproval. He hated that bag. It spelt "dogshow" to him. Even the presence of the delicious fried liver and of the mildly dramatic squeaking doll could not atone for the rest of its contents and for all they implied.

As the car sent the miles slipping behind and as the Mistress and the Master glanced back less and less often for a pat or a cheery word to their sulking chum, Lad's dislike for that pestilential bag grew sharper. True, it held squares of fried liver;--liver whose heavenly odor penetrated through the musty leather smell of the suitcase and to the dog's acute senses. Also, it held a doll which exuded thrilling squeaks when gently bitten. But these things, he knew full well, were designed as show-ring baits; not as free gifts.

No, the bag was his enemy. And, unlike his few other natural foes, Lad had never been bidden to leave it unmolested. This memory came to him, in the midst of his blues. He eyed the loathsome suitcase through quizzical half-shut eyes, as it rocked and careened at his feet with every jounce of the car. And into his brain shot the devil of mischief.

Bending down his shapely head, he took the handle of the case between his teeth. Then, bracing his little white forepaws on the slippery leather seat, he heaved with all the mighty strength of his back and shoulders. Under such urgence, the light suitcase swung high in air. A sideways toss of the muscular throat, and the suitcase whirled clear of the car door and of the running-board beneath. Then Lad let go; and settled himself back smugly in the seat. The luckless suitcase smote the road dust and rolled into a gra.s.sy ditch. The car sped on. Lad, for the moment, was nearly happy. If he were not able to dodge the show itself, at least he had gotten rid of the odious thing which held so much he detested and which was always an inseparable part of the ordeals he was taken to.

Arrived at the country club whose grounds had been fitted for the charity show, Lad was benched in the shade. And there, all the rest of the morning, he remained. For Loder, judge of the collies and Old English Sheepdogs and of two other breeds, had missed a train from Canada; and had not yet arrived. His various cla.s.ses were held up, pending his advent.

"Loder's a lucky man, at that," commented the Toy Breeds judge, with whom the Master chanced to be talking. "And he'll be still luckier if he misses the whole show. You 'small exhibitors' have no notion of the rotten deal handed to a dog-show judge;--though lots of you do more than your share toward making his life a burden. Before the judging begins, some of the exhibitors act as if they wanted to kiss him.

Nothing's too good for him. He wades chin-deep through flattery and loving attentions. Then, after the judging is over, he is about as popular with those same exhibitors as a typhoid germ. No one can say bad enough things about him. He's 'incompetent,' he's 'a grafter,--'he's 'afraid of the big kennels,'--he's 'drunk.' He's any of these things; or all of them put together. n.o.body's satisfied.

Everybody has had a raw deal. Everybody's hammer is out for the poor slob of a judge. Well, not everybody's, of course. There are some real sportsmen left crawling on the surface of the earth. But the big majority pan him, all the way home; and then some of them roast him in print. The Income Tax man is a popular favorite, compared with a dog-show judge."

"But--"

"Then, again," pursued the Toy Breeds man, "he's got to leave his heart at home, if he doesn't want it to ache when he has to 'gate' the second-rate mutts shown by outsiders who never exhibited before and who think their pet dog ought to get every prize because he's so cunning and friendly. I hate to--"

The Mistress came hurrying up from a careful inspection of the line of collies. Drawing her husband aside, she whispered, excitedly:

"There's only one other collie here, whose coat can anywhere near equal Laddie's. The rest are all in shabby summer coat. Come across and let me show him to you. I'm--I'm afraid he has a gorgeous coat. Not that _I_ think it's half as good as Lad's," she added, loyally, as she piloted the Master between the double lines of clamorous dogs.

"But--oh, I'm so afraid the judge may think it is! You see, he doesn't know Laddie as we do."

She stopped before a bench whereon lay a pale golden sable collie; almost corn-colored; who boasted a wealth and magnificence of coat that made the Master open his eyes wide.

The dog was smaller and slighter of frame than was Lad. Nor, in head and expression, was he Lad's equal. But his coat was every bit as luxuriant. Indeed, there was perhaps a shade more of it than Lad carried.

A collie's coat, as a rule, takes about seven months to grow. Thus, each year, it comes into full bloom a little later than on the year before. And, in course of time, it is p.r.o.ne to reach its climax of excellence in summer. This was the lot of both Lad and the paler-hued dog.

"Lochaber King," read the Master, from his catalog. "H'm! That's Colonel Osbourne's greatest pup. Remember, we saw him at Westminster?

It's nip-and-tuck, between him and Lad; with a little in this dog's favor. Tough luck!"

"Oh, this has been just one of those days n.o.body wants!" mourned the Mistress. "First, our forgetting to bring along Laddie's suitcase, though I could have sworn I saw you lift it aboard,--and then the judge not being here; and now this horrid collie with his wonderful coat!

What next, I wonder?"

Like a well-staged bit of mechanism, the reply to her rhetorical question came down to her from heaven. It came in the shape of a thunder-roll that began far off and reverberated from mountain to mountain; then muttered itself into silence in the more distant hills.

The Mistress, like everyone else, looked skyward.

The hazy blue of the summer noon was paling to dirty gray and black. Up from the Hudson, a fast-mounting array of dun and flame-shot clouds were b.u.t.ting their bullying way. No weather-prophet was needed to tell these hillcountry folk that they were in for a thunderstorm;--and for what one kennel-man described as "a reg'lar ol' he-one," at that.

Now, under right conditions, an open-air dogshow is a thing of beauty and of joy. At such places as Tuxedo and one or two others it is a sight to be remembered. But in rainy weather,--especially in a tumultuous thunderstorm, it has not one redeeming feature.

The Beauville Show Committee,--like all experts in such matters, had taken this chance into account. Down the aisles of benches and through the questioning and scared groups of exhibitors ran attendants and officials; shouting that the Country Club polo stables and the wide s.p.a.ces under the clubhouse verandas had been fitted up for emergency quarters, where the dogs might be housed, dry and safe, until the pa.s.sing of the storm.

Up to the Master hurried a club page-boy.

"This way, sir!" he panted. "I saved a special box stall, in the first stable, for your collie."

"YOU saved it?" queried the puzzled Master, while the Mistress began to unfasten Lad's leash. "How did you happen to do that?"

"I was told to, sir," answered the boy. "A--a gentleman told me to, just now. One of the of'cers of the club. I don't know his name. He showed me the stall; and he told me to take your dog there."

"That's mighty, decent; whoever did it," said the Master, whistling the freed dog to him and setting forth in the boy's wake, toward the welcoming stables. "I wish you knew his name. I'd like to thank him."