There'll only just be one of him; and there's two of us. I ain't aimin' to lose my slice of that two thousand; without hittin' a single lick to get it. If he--SUFFERIN' PINK SNAKES!"In his sudden dismay, he drove down both feet on the pedals. The indignant car stalled. Through the blackness ahead, the white ray from the lamps had picked up a weird object. And the two brethren stared at it, slack-jawed.
Walking sedately on, in front of the stalled runabout, and in the exact centre of the dusty road, moved an animal. Huge and formless it bulked, as it receded into the fainter glow of light.
It might have been anything from a lion to a bear; in that uncertain glimmer. But, the lamps' rays played strongly enough on one detail of the apparition to identify it, past doubt, to both the dumfounded onlookers. They saw, clearly enough, a white bundle suspended from the monster's jaws;--unquestionably the bundle which had been laid behind the alder.
For perhaps ten seconds the men sat moveless, gaping goggle-eyed.
Then, the driver murmured in a faraway voice:
"Did you--did you--was you fool enough to think you seen anything? Was you, Eitel?""I-I sure seen SUTHIN', Roodie," quavered Eitel. "Suthin' with--with the kid in its mouth. It--"
"That's good enough for me!" announced the heroic Roodie, stamping again on the self-starter.
"If we both seen it, then it was THERE. And I'm goin' after it."In another brace of seconds the lights once, more picked up the dark animal with its white bundle. Eitel shrank back in his seat.
But Roodie put on another notch of gas. And, coming closer, both recognized the strange bundle-carrier as a dark-hued collie dog.
The identification did little to ease their feeling of incredulous mystification. But it banished their superstitious dread. Both of them were used to dogs. And though neither could guess how this particular dog happened to be stealing the twice-stolen baby, yet neither had the remotest fear of tackling the beast and rescuing its human plunder.
Roodie brought the abused runabout to another jerky stop within a few inches of the unconcerned collie. And he and Eitel swarmed earthward from opposite sides of the machine. In a trice, Roodie had struck Lad over the head; while Eitel grabbed at the bundle to drag it away from the dog.
Now, the weight of years was beginning to tell on Laddie. But that weight had not robbed him of the ability to call, at will, upon much of his oldtime strength and bewildering swiftness. Nor had it in any way dampened his hero-spirit or dulled his uncannily wise brain.
He had been plodding peacefully along, bearing home a wonderful gift--a gift oftener confided to the care of storks than of collies--when he had been attacked from two sides in most unprovoked fashion. He had been struck! His blood surged hot.
There was no Law governing such a case. So, as usual in new crises, Lad proceeded to make his own Law and to put it into effect.
A deft turn of the head eluded Eitel's snatching hand. With the lightness of a feather, Lad deposited the bundle in the soft dust of the road. In practically, the same gesture, the dog's curving eye-tooth slashed Eitel's outstretched wrist to the bone.
Then, staggering under a second head-blow from Roodie, the collie wheeled with lightning-swift fury upon this more hostile of his two assailants.
Hurling himself at the man's throat, in silent ferocity, he well-nigh turned the nocturnal battle into a killing. But Roodie's left arm, by instinct, flew up to guard his threatened jugular.
Through coat and shirt and skin and flesh,--as in the case of Lady's slayer,--the great dog's teeth clove their way; their rending snap checked only by the bone of the forearm. The impetus of his eighty-pound body sent the man clean off his balance. And together the two crashed backward to the ground.
Lad was not of the bulldog breed which seeks and gains a hold and then hangs on to it with locked jaws. A collie fights with brain as much as with teeth. By the time he and Roodie struck the earth, Lad tore free from the unloving embrace and whizzed about to face the second of his foes.
Eitel had taken advantage of the moment's respite to seize with his uninjured hand his slashed wrist. Then, on second thought, he released the wounded wrist and bent over the baby; with a view to picking him up and regaining the comparative safety of the car's floor. But his well-devised maneuver was not carried out.
For, as he leaned over the bundle, extending his hands to pick it up, Lad's teeth drove fiercely into the section of Eitel's plump anatomy which chanced to be presented to him by the stooping down of the kidnaper. Deep clove his sharp fangs. Nor did Eitel Schwartz sit down again with any degree of comfort for many a long day, With resounding howls of pain, Eitel thrashed up and down the road; endeavoring to shake off this rear attack. The noise awakened the baby; who added his wails to the din. Roodie got dizzily to his feet; his left forearm useless and anguished from the tearing of its muscles:
"Shut up!" he bellowed. "'you want to bring the whole county down on us? We--"He ceased speaking; and lurched at full speed to the car and to the top of its single seat. For, at sound of his voice, Lad had loosed his grip on the screeching Eitel and whirled about on this earlier adversary.
The man reached the car-seat and slammed the door behind him, perhaps a sixth of a second too soon for Lad to reach him.
