Unheeding, he hung on. The sow braced
herself, solid, on outspread legs; and shook her head and forequarters
with all her muscular might.

Lad was hurled free, his weakened jaws failing to withstand such a
yank. Over and over he rolled, to one side; the sow charging after him.
She had lost all interest in attacking the Mistress. Her flaming little
brain now held no thought except to kill and mangle the dog that had
hurt her snout so cruelly. And she rushed at him, the tushes glinting
from under her upcurled and bleeding lips.

But, the collie, for all his years and unwieldiness, was still a
collie. And, by the time he stopped rolling, he was scrambling to his
feet. Shrinking quickly to one side, as the sow bore down upon him, he
eluded her rush, by the fraction of an inch; and made a wolflike slash
for her underbody, as she hurtled by.

The blunted eyetooth made but a superficial furrow; which served only
to madden its victim still further. Wheeling, she returned to the
attack. Again, with a ghost of his old elusive speed; Laddie avoided
her rush, by the narrowest of margins; and, snapping furiously, caught
her by the ear.

Now, more than once, in other frays, Lad had subdued and scared
trespassing pigs by this hold. But, in those days, his teeth had been
keen and his jaw strong enough to crack a beef bone. Moreover, the pigs
on which he had used it to such effect were not drunk with the lust of
killing.

The sow squealed, afresh, with pain; and once more braced herself and
shook her head with all her might: Again, Lad was flung aside by that
shake; this time with a fragment of torn ear between his teeth.

As she drove slaveringly at him once more, Lad swerved and darted in;
diving for her forelegs. With the collie, as with his ancestor, the
wolf, this dive for the leg of an enemy is a favorite and tremendously
effective trick in battle. Lad found his hold, just above the right
pastern. And he exerted every atom of his power to break the bone or to
sever the tendon.

In all the Bible's myriad tragic lines there is perhaps none other so
infinitely sad,--less for its actual significance than for what it
implies to every man or woman or animal, soon or late,--than that which
describes the shorn Samson going forth in jaunty confidence to meet the
Philistines he so often and so easily had conquered:

"He wist not that the Lord was departed from him!"

To all of us, to whom the doubtful blessing of old age is gra