No longer able to avoid the rushes, he met some of them with pathetically useless jaws; going down under others and rising with ever greater slowness and difficulty. The sow's ravening teeth found a goal, more than once, in the burnished mahogany coat which the Mistress brushed every day with such loving care.
The pronged hoofs had twice more cut him as he strove to roll aside from their onslaught after one of his heavy tumbles.
The end of the fight seemed very near. Yet Lad fought on. To the attack, after each upset or wound, he crawled with deathless courage.
The Mistress, at Lad's first charge, had stepped back. But, at once she had caught up again the stick and belabored the sow with all her frail muscular might. She might as well have been beating the side of a concrete wall. Heedless of the flailing, the sow ignored her; and continued her maddened assault on Lad. The maids, attracted by the noise, crowded the front doorway;clinging together and jabbering. To them the Mistress called now for the Master's shotgun, from the study wall, and for a handful of shells.
She kept her head; though she saw she was powerless to save the dog she loved. And her soul was sick within her at his peril which her puny efforts could not avert.
Running across the lawn, toward the house, she met half way the maid who came trembling forth with the gun and two shells.
Without stopping to glance at the cartridges,--nor to realize that they were filled with Number Eight shot, for quails,--she thrust two of them into the breech and, turning, fired pointblank at the sow.
Lad was down again; and the sow,--no longer in a squealing rush, but with a new cold deadliness,--was gauging the distance to his exposed throat. The first shot peppered her shoulder; the tiny pellets scarce scratching the tough hide.
The Mistress had, halted, to fire. Now, she ran forward: With the muzzle not three feet from the sow's head, she pulled trigger again.
The pig's huge jaws road opened with deliberate width. One forefoot was pinning the helplessly battling dog to earth, while she made ready to tear out his throat.
The second shot whizzed about her head and face. Two or three of the pellets entered the open mouth.
With a sound that was neither grunt nor howl, yet which savored of both, the sow lurched back from the flash and roar and the anguishing pain in her tender mouth. The Mistress whirled aloft the empty and useless gun and brought it crashing down on the pig's skull. The carved mahogany stock broke in two. The jar of impact knocked the weapon from its wielder's numbed fingers.
The sow seemed scarce to notice the blow. She continued backing away; and champed her jaws as if to locate the cause of the agony in her mouth. Her eyes were inflamed and dazed by the flash of the gun.
The Mistress took advantage of the moment's breathing space to bend over the staggeringly rising Lad; and, catching him by the ruff, to urge him toward the house. For once, the big collie refused to obey. He knew pig nature better than did she. And he knew the sow was not yet finished with the battle. He strove to break free from the loved grasp and to stagger back to his adversary.
The Mistress, by main strength, drew him, snarling and protesting, toward the safety of the house. Panting, bleeding, reeling, pitiably weak, yet he resisted the tender urging; and kept twisting his bloody head back for a glimpse of his foe. Nor was the precaution useless. For, before the Mistress and her wounded dog were half-way across the remaining strip of lawn, the sow recovered enough of her deflected wits and fury to lower her head and gallop down after them.
At her first step, Lad, by a stupendous effort, wrenched free from the Mistress's clasp; and flung himself between her and the charging mass of pork. But, as he did so, he found breath for a trumpet-bark that sounded more like a rallying cry.
For, dulled as were his ears, they were still keener than any human's. And they had caught the sound of eight flying paws amid the dead leaves of the drive. Wolf and Bruce, coming home at a leisurely trot, from their ramble in the forest, had heard the two reports of the shotgun; and had broken into a run. They read the meaning in Lad's exhausted bark, as clearly as humans might read a printed word. And it lent wings to their feet.
Around the corner of the house tore the two returning collies. In a single glance, they seemed to take in the whole grisly scene.
They, too, had had their bouts with marauding swine; and they were still young enough to enjoy such clashes and to partake of them without danger.
The sow, too blind with pain and rage to know reinforcements were coming to the aid of the half-dead hero, tore forward. The Mistress, with both hands, sought to drag Lad behind her. The maids screeched in plangent chorus.
