"Say, old man," began Harmon, with visible discomfort, "please don't misunderstand me or anything. But I'm a little bothered about just what to do. This is the idea: There was a mad dog scare here in Daylight Park, last month, when a Pom puppy snapped at some kids that were teasing it. Then, a day or so later, a Persian cat had fits and chased old Mrs. Cratchitt across a lawn and gave her a spell of palpitation of the heart. And the next day an Angora goat that the Varian children had as a pet got loose and chewed up several hundred dollars' worth of lingerie off a line. Then the Clives' spaniel took to barking under Rutherford Garretse's study window. And ---""You needn't be afraid of Lad's doing any of those fool things,"bragged the Master. "He behaves as well as any human. Better than most of them. He--""That isn't the point," said his host, with growing uneasiness.
"You see, Daylight Park is run as a club. Home government and all that sort of thing. Well, these livestock fracases raised such a row that the club's Board of Governors has passed an ordinance, forbidding the keeping of any pet animals in the whole park.
Nothing bigger than a canary bird can be harbored here. It's a hard-and-fast rule. It seemed the only way to save our whole summer colony from disruption. You know a livestock squabble can cause more ructions in a small community than--""I see," mused the Master, staring glumly after Lad who was just vanishing into the house in the wake of the Mistress and the unhappy Mrs. Harmon. "I see. H'm!"He pondered for an instant, while his host shifted from foot to foot and looked apologetic. Then the Master spoke again.
"The only way out, that I see," he hazarded, "is for me to drive back home with Lad; and leave him there and come on here, tomorrow. I can--""Nothing of the sort!" protested Harmon, "There's an easier way than that. Wittsville is only a mile or so from the Park gates.
They've got a fine boarding kennel there. Several of the Park's dogs were exiled to it, when our ordinance went into effect. Jump into the car, and we'll take your collie there in ten minutes.
He'll be well treated. And you and your wife can go to see him, every day you're here. Come along. I--I hate to seem inhospitable about this thing. But you see for yourself how it is. We--""Certainly," assented the Master. "I'll go in and get him and explain to my wife. Don't let it make you feel uncomfortable. We both understand."Which accounts for the fact that Lad, within the next half hour, was preparing to spend his first night away from home and from the two people who were his gods. He was not at all happy. It had been an interesting day. But its conclusion did not please Laddie, in any manner.
And, when things did not please Lad, he had a very determined fashion of trying to avoid them;--unless perchance the Mistress or the Master had decreed otherwise.
The Master had brought him to this obnoxious strange place. But he had not bidden Lad stay there. And the collie merely waited his chance to get out. At ten o'clock, one of the kennelmen made the night rounds. He swung open the door of the little stall in which Lad had been locked for the night. At least, he swung the door halfway open. Lad swung it the rest of the way.
With a plunge, the collie charged out through the opening portal, ducked between the kennelman's legs, reached the open gate of the enclosure in two more springs; and vanished down the road into the darkness.
As soon as he felt the highway under his feet, Lad's nose drooped earthward; and he sniffed with all his might. Instantly, he caught the scent he was seeking;--a scent as familiar to him as that of his own piano cave; the scent of the Place's car-tires.
It had taken Harmon and the Master the best part of ten minutes to drive through the park and to the boarding kennels. It took Lad less than half that time to reach the veranda of the Harmon house. Circling the house and finding all doors shut, he lay down on the mat; and settled himself to sleep there in what comfort he might, until the Mistress and the Master should come down in the morning and find him.
But the Harmons were late risers. And the sun had been up for some hours before any of the household were astir.
If Lad had been the professionally Faithful Hound, of storybooks, he would doubtless have waited on the mat until someone should come to let him in. But, after lying there until broad daylight, he was moved to explore this new section of the world. The more so, since house after house within range of his short vision showed signs of life and activity.
Several people passed and repassed along the private roadway in front of the Harmons' door; and nearly all of these paused to peer at Lad, in what seemed to the collie a most flattering show of interest.
At last, the dog got to his feet, stretched himself fore-and-aft, in true collie fashion; and trotted down the paved walk to the road. There for a moment, he stood hesitant. As he stood, he was surveying the scene;--not only with his eyes, but with those far stronger sense organs, his ears and his nostrils. His ears told him nothing of interest. His nose told him much. Indeed, before he had fairly reached the road, these nostrils had telegraphed to his brain an odor that not only was highly interesting, but totally new to him. Lad's experience with scents was far-reaching. But this smell lay totally outside all his knowledge or memory.
It was a rank and queer smell;--not strong enough, out there in the open, to register in a human-brain; but almost stingingly acute to the highly sensitized dog. It was an alluring scent; the sort of odor that roused all his curiosity and seemed to call for prompt investigation.
Nose to ground, Lad set off to trace the smell to its source.
Strong as it was, it grew stronger and fresher at every step.
Even a mongrel puppy could have followed it. Oblivious to all else, Lad broke into a canter; nose still close to earth;pleasurably excited and keenly inquisitive.
