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Page 13
Then, of a morning, when Lass was just eleven months old, two
things happened.
The Mistress and the Master went down to her kennel after
breakfast. Lass did not run forth to greet them as usual. She lay
still, wagging her tail in feeble welcome as they drew near. But
she did not get up.
Crowding close to her tawny side was a tiny, shapeless creature
that looked more like a fat blind rat than like anything else. It
was a ten-hour-old collie pup--a male, and yellowish brown of
hue.
"That's the climax!" complained the Master, breaking in on the
Mistress's rhapsodies. "Here we've been planning to start a
kennel of home-bred collies! And see what results we get! One
solitary puppy! Not once in ten times are there less than six in
a collie-litter. Sometimes there are a dozen. And here the dog
you wheedled me into keeping has just one! I expected at least
seven."
"If it's a freak to be the only puppy in a litter," answered the
Mistress, refusing to part with her enthusiasm over the miracle,
"then this one ought to bring us luck. Let's call him 'Bruce.'
You remember, the original Bruce won because of the mystic
number, seven. This Bruce has got to make up to us for the seven
puppies that weren't born. See how proud she is of him! Isn't she
a sweet little mother?"
The second of the morning's events was a visit from the foreman
of the Rothsay Kennels, who motored across to The Place, intent
on clearing up a mystery.
"The Boss found a collie yesterday, tied in the front yard of a
negro cabin a mile or two from our kennels," he told the Master.
"He recognized her right away as Rothsay Princess. The negro
claims to have found her wandering around near the railroad
tracks, one night, six months ago. Now, what's the answer?"
"The answer," said the Master, "is that your boss is mistaken.
I've had Rothsay Princess for the past six months. And she's the
last dog I'll ever get from the Rothsay Kennels. I was stung,
good and plenty, on that deal.
"My wife wanted to keep her, or I'd have made a kick in the
courts for having to pay two hundred dollars for a cheeky,
apple-domed, prick eared--"
"Prick-eared!" exclaimed the foreman, aghast at the volleyed
sacrilege. "Rothsay Princess has the best ears of any pup we've
bred since Champion Rothsay Chief. Not a flaw in that pup. She--"
"Not a flaw, hey!" sniffed the Master. "Come down to the kennel
and take a look at her. She has as many flaws as a street-cur has
fleas."
He led the way to the kennel. At sight of the stranger Lass
growled and showed her teeth. For a collie mother will let nobody
but proven friends come near to her newborn brood.
The foreman stared at the hostile young mother for a half-minute,
whistling bewilderedly between his teeth. Then he laughed aloud.
"That's no more Rothsay Princess than I am!" he declared. "I know
who she IS, though. I'd remember that funny mask among a million.
That's Rothsay Lass! Though how she got HERE--!
"We couldn't have shipped her by mistake, either," he went on,
confused. "For we'd sold her, that same day, to a kid in our
town. I ought to know. Because the kid kept on pestering us every
day for a month afterward, to find if she had come back to us. He
said she ran away in the night. He still comes around, once a
week or so, to ask. A spindly, weak, sick-looking little chap, he
is. I don't get the point of this thing, from any angle. But we
run our kennels on the square. And I can promise the boss'll
either send back your check or send Rothsay Princess to you and
take Lass back."
Two days later, while all The Place was still mulling over the
mystery, a letter came for the Master from Lass's home town. It
was signed "Edw'd Hazen," and it was written on the cheap
stationery of his employer's bottling works. It read:
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