ot they would stand, braced, and glare at the oncoming collie from out
their evil little red-rimmed eyes; the snouts above the hideous masked
tushes quivering avidly. That meant Lad must circle them, at whirlwind
speed; barking a thunderous fanfare to confuse them; and watching his
chance to flash in and nip ear or flank; or otherwise get the brutes to
running.

And, even on the run, they had an ugly way of wheeling, at close
quarters, to face the pursuer. The razor tushes and the pronged
forefeet were always ready, at such times, to wreak death on the dog,
unless he should have the wit and the skill and the speed to change, in
a breath, the direction of his dash. No, pigs were not pleasant
trespassers. There was no fun in routing them. And there was real
danger.

Except by dint of swiftness and of brain; an eighty-pound collie has no
chance against a six-hundred-pound pig. The pig's hide, for one thing,
is too thick to pierce with an average slash or nip: And the pig is too
close to earth and too well-balanced by build and weight, to be
overturned: And the tushes and forefeet can move with deceptive
quickness. Also, back of the red-rimmed little eyes flickers the redder
spirit of murder.

Locomotive engineers say a cow on a track is far less perilous to an
oncoming train than is a pig. The former can be lifted, by the impact,
and flung to one side. A pig, oftener than not, derails the engine.
Standing with the bulk of its weight close to the ground, it is
well-nigh as bad an obstacle to trains as would be a boulder of the
same size. Lad had never met any engineers. But he had identically
their opinion of pigs.

In all his long life, the great collie had never known fear. At least,
he never had yielded to it. Wherefore, in the autumns, he had attacked
with gay zest such of Titus Romaine's swine as had found their way
through the fence.

But, nowadays, there was little enough of gay zest about anything
Laddie did. For he was old;--very, very old. He had passed the
fourteenth milestone. In other words, he was as old for a dog as is an
octogenarian for a man.

Almost imperceptibly, but to his indignant annoyance, age had crept
upon the big dog; gradually blurring his long clean lines; silvering
his muzzle and eyebrows; flecking his burnished mahogany coat with
stipples of silver; spreading to greater size the absurdly small white
forepaws which were his one gross vanity; dulling a little the
preternaturally keen h