Chapter XI. Wolf
There were but three collies on The Place in those days. There was a long shelf in the Master’s study whereupon shimmered and glinted a rank of silver cups of varying sizes and shapes. Two of The Place’s dogs had won them all.
Above the shelf hung two huge picture-frames. In the center of each was the small photograph of a collie. Beneath each likeness was a certified pedigree, a-bristle with the red-letter names of champions. Surrounding the pictures and pedigrees, the whole remaining space in both frames was filled with blue ribbons—the very meanest bit of silk in either was a semi-occasional “Reserve Winners”—while, strung along the tops of the frames from side to side, ran a line of medals.
Cups, medals, and ribbons alike had been won by The Place’s two great collies, Lad and Bruce. (Those were their “kennel names.” Their official titles on the A. K. C. registry list were high-sounding and needlessly long.)
Lad was growing old. His reign on The Place was drawing toward a benignant close. His muzzle was almost snow-white and his once graceful lines were beginning to show the oncoming heaviness of age. No longer could he hope to hold his own, in form and carriage, with younger collies at the local dog-shows where once he had carried all before him.
Bruce—“Sunnybank Goldsmith”—was six years Lad’s junior. He was tawny of coat, kingly of bearing; a dog without a fault of body or of disposition; stately as the boar-hounds that the painters of old used to love to depict in their portraits of monarchs.
The Place’s third collie was Lad’s son, Wolf. But neither cup nor ribbon did Wolf have to show as an excuse for his presence on earth, nor would he have won recognition in the smallest and least exclusive collie-show.
For Wolf was a collie only by courtesy. His breeding was as pure as was any champion’s, but he was one of those luckless types to be found in nearly every litter—a throwback to some forgotten ancestor whose points were all defective. Not even the glorious pedigree of Lad, his father, could make Wolf look like anything more than he was—a dog without a single physical trait that followed the best collie standards.
In spite of all this he was beautiful. His gold-and-white coat was almost as bright and luxuriant as any prize-winner’s. He had, in a general way, the collie head and brush. But an expert, at the most casual glance, would have noted a shortness of nose and breadth of jaw and a shape of ear and shoulder that told dead against him.
The collie is supposed to be descended direct from the wolf, and Wolf looked far more like his original ancestors than like a thoroughbred collie. From puppyhood he had been the living image, except in color, of a timber-wolf, and it was from this queer throw-back trait that he had won his name.
Lad was the Mistress’ dog. Bruce was the Master’s. Wolf belonged to the Boy, having been born on the latter’s birthday.
For the first six months of his life Wolf lived at The Place on sufferance. Nobody except the Boy took any special interest in him. He was kept only because his better-formed brothers had died in early puppyhood and because the Boy, from the outset, had loved him.
At six months it was discovered that he was a natural watch-dog. Also that he never barked except to give an alarm. A collie is, perhaps, the most excitable of all large dogs. The veriest trifle will set him off into a thunderous paroxysm of barking. But Wolf, the Boy noted, never barked without strong cause.
He had the rare genius for guarding that so few of his breed possess. For not one dog in ten merits the title of watch-dog. The duties that should go with that office are far more than the mere clamorous announcement of a stranger’s approach, or even the attacking of such a stranger.
The born watch-dog patrols his beat once in so often during the night. At all times he must sleep with one ear and one eye alert. By day or by night he must discriminate between the visitor whose presence is permitted and the trespasser whose presence is not. He must know what class of undesirable to scare off with a growl and what class needs stronger measures. He must also know to the inch the boundaries of his own master’s land.
Few of these things can be taught; all of them must be instinctive. Wolf had been born with them. Most dogs are not.