But, the
moment the crate door was opened the delusion was wrecked by Lad
himself.
Out on to the porch he walked. The ramshackle crate behind him
had a ridiculous air of a chrysalis from which some bright thing
had departed. For a shaft of sunlight was shimmering athwart the
veranda floor. And into the middle of the warm bar of radiance
Laddie stepped,--and stood.
His fluffy puppy-coat of wavy mahogany-and-white caught a million
sunbeams, reflecting them back in tawny-orange glints and in a
dazzle as of snow. His forepaws were absurdly small, even for a
puppy's. Above them the ridging of the stocky leg-bones gave as
clear promise of mighty size and strength as did the amazingly
deep little chest and square shoulders.
Here one day would stand a giant among dogs, powerful as a
timber-wolf, lithe as a cat, as dangerous to foes as an angry
tiger; a dog without fear or treachery; a dog of uncanny brain
and great lovingly loyal heart and, withal, a dancing sense of
fun. A dog with a soul.
All this, any canine physiologist might have read from the
compact frame, the proud head-carriage, the smolder in the
deep-set sorrowful dark eyes.
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