Once, during a solitary ramble, before the humans had awakened in the morning, Lad caught an odd scent; and followed it for a quarter mile down the mountainside. It waxed stronger and ranker.
At last, a turn around a high boulder brought him face to face with its source. And he found himself confronting a huge black bear.
The bear was busy looting a bee-tree. It was the season when he and his like are stocking up, with all the fatmaking food they can gorge, in preparation for the winter's "holing-in." Thus, he viewed with sluggish non-interest the advent of the dog. He had scented Lad for as long a time as Lad had scented him. But he had eaten on, unperturbed. For he knew himself to be the match of any four dogs; especially if the dogs were unaccompanied by men. And, a long autumn of food had dulled his temper.
So, he merely checked his honey-gorging long enough to roll a rotted log to one side and to scoop up from under it a pawful of fat white grubs which had decided to winter beneath the decayed trunk. Then, absent-mindedly brushing aside a squadron of indignant bees, he continued his sweet feast.
As Lad rounded the boulder and came to a growling halt, the bear raised his honey-smeared head, showed a yellowing fang from under one upcurled corner of his sticky lips; and glowered evilly at the collie from out of his reddening little eyes. Then he made as though to go on eating.
But Lad would not have it so. Into his rejuvenated heart stole a tinge of the mischief which makes a collie puppy dash harrowingly at a tethered cow. Barking with sheer delight in the excitement of meeting this savage-looking monster, the dog rushed merrily at the bear. His teeth were not bared. His hackles were not bristling. This was no fight; but a jolly game. Lad's dark eyes danced with fun.
Midway of his charge, he checked himself. Not through fear, but from utter astonishment. For his new acquaintance had done a right non-quadrupedal thing. Bruin had reared himself upon his hind legs; and was standing there, like a man, confronting the dog. He towered, thus, ever so high above Lad's head.
His short arms, with their saber-shaped claws, were outstretched toward Lad, as if in humble supplication. But there was nothing supplicating or even civil in the tiny red eyes that squinted ferociously down at the collie. Small wonder that Laddie halted his own galloping advance; and stood doubtful!
The Master, a minute earlier, had turned out of the blankets for his painfully icy morning plunge in the lakelet. The fanfare of barking, a quarter-mile below, changed his intent. A true dogman knows his dog's bark,--and its every shade of meaning,--as well as though it were human speech. From the manner wherewith Lad had given tongue, the Master knew he had cornered or treed something quite out of the common. Catching up his rifle, he made for the direction of the bark; running at top speed.
The bear put an end to the moment of hesitancy. Lunging forward, he raked at the crouching collie, with one of his murderous claws; in a gesture designed to gather the impudent dog into his death-embrace.
Now, even from humans, except only the Mistress and the Master, Lad detested patting or handling of any kind. Whether he thought this maneuver of the bear's an uncouth form of caress or knew it for a menace,--he moved back from it. Yet he did so with a leisurely motion, devoid of fear and expressive of a certain lofty contempt. Perhaps that is why he moved without his native caution.
At all events, the tip of one of the sweeping claws grazed his ear, opening the big vein, and hurting like the very mischief.
On the instant, Lad changed from a mischievous investigator to a deeply offended and angry dog. No longer in doubt as to Bruin's intent, he slithered out of reach of the grasping arms, with all the amazing speed of a wolf-descended collie of the best sort.
And, in practically the same fraction of a second, he had flashed back to the attack.
Diving in under the other's surprisingly agile arms, he slashed the bear's stomach with one of his razorlike eyeteeth; then spun to one side and was out of reach. Down came the bear, on all fours; raging from the slash. Lurching forward, he flung his huge bulk at the dog. Lad flashed out of reach, but with less leeway than he would have expected. For Bruin, for all his awkwardness, could move with bewildering speed.
And, as the bear turned, Lad was at him again, nipping the hairy flank, till his teeth met in its fat; and then diving as before under the lunging body of the foe.
It was at this point the Master hove in sight. He was just in time to see the flank-bite and to see Lad dance out of reach of the furious counter. It was an interesting spectacle, there in the gray dawn and in the primeval forest's depths;--this battle between a gallant dog and a ragingly angry bear. If the dog had been other than his own loved chum, the Master might have stood there and watched its outcome. But he was enough of a woodsman to know there could, in all probability, be but one end to such a fight.
Lad weighed eighty pounds,--an unusually heavy weight for a collie that carries no loose fat,--and he was the most compactly powerful dog of his size the Master had ever seen. Also, when he chose to exert it, Lad had the swiftness of a wildcat and the battling prowess of a tiger.
Yet all this would scarce carry him to victory, or even to a draw, against a black bear several times heavier than himself and with the ability to rend with his claws as well as with his teeth. Once let Lad's foot slip, in charge or in elusive retreat,--once let him misjudge time or distance--and he must be crushed to a pulp or ripped to ribbons.
Wherefore, the Master brought his rifle to his shoulder. His finger curled about the trigger. But it was no easy thing, by that dim light, to aim with any accuracy. Nor was there the slightest assurance that Lad,--dancing in and out and everywhere and nowhere at once,--might not come in line with the bullet.
