Bruce was a collie—physically and in many other ways a super-collie. Twenty-six inches at the shoulder, seventy-five pounds in weight, his great frame had no more hint of coarseness than had his classic head and foreface.

His mighty coat was black-stippled at its edges, like Seedley Stirling’s, giving the dog almost the look of a “tricolour” rather than of a “dark-sable-and-white.” There was an air of majesty, of perfect breeding, about Bruce—an intangible something that lent him the bearing of a monarch. He was, in brief, such a dog as one sees perhaps thrice in a generation.

At the Place, after old Lad’s death, Bruce ruled as king. He was no mere kennel dog—reared and cared for like some prize ox—but was part and parcel of the household, a member of the family, as befitted a dog of his beauty and brain and soul.

124It was when Bruce was less than a year old that he was taken to his first A.K.C. bench show. The Master was eager that the dog-show world should acclaim his grand young dog, and that the puppy—like the youthful knights of old—should have fair chance to prove his mettle against the paladins of his kind. For it is in these shows that a dog’s rating is determined; that he is pitted against the best in dogdom, before judges who are almost always competent and still oftener honest in their decisions.

The goal of the show dog is the championship, whose fifteen points must be annexed under no less than three judges, at three different times; in ratings that range from one point to five points, according to the number of dogs exhibited. To only the show’s best dog of his or her special breed and sex are points awarded.

The Master took Bruce to his first A.K.C. show with much trepidation. He knew how perfect was this splendid young collie of his. But he also knew that the judge might turn out to be some ultra-modernist who preferred daintiness of head and smallness of bone and borzoi fore-face, to Bruce’s wealth of bone and thickness of coat and unwonted size.

Modestly, therefore, he entered his dog only in the puppy and novice classes, and strove to cure his own show-ague by ceaseless grooming and rubbing and dandy-brushing of the youngster, whose burnished coat already stood out like a Circassian beauty’s hair and who was fit in every way to make the showing of his life.

In intervals of polishing the bored puppy’s coat, the Master spent much time in studying covertly the collie judge, who was chatting with a group of friends at the ring’s edge, waiting for his breed’s classes to be called.

125The Master was partly puzzled, partly reassured, by the aspect of the little judge.

Angus McGilead’s Linlithgow birth was still apparent in the very faintest burr of his speech and in the shrewd, pale eyes that peered, terrier-like, above his lean face and huge thatch of grizzling red beard. He was a man whose forebears had known collies as they knew their own children, and who rated a true collie above all mere money price.

From childhood McGilead had made a life study of this, his favourite breed. As a result, he was admittedly the chief collie authority on either side of the grey ocean. This fact, and his granite honesty, made him a judge to be looked up to with a reverent faith which had in it a tinge of fear.

Such was the man who, at this three-point show, was to pass judgment on Bruce.

After an eternity of waiting, the last airedale was led from the judging ring. The first collie class, “Puppies, male,” was chalked on the blackboard. The Master, with one final ministration of the dandy-brush, snapped a ring-leash on Bruce’s collar, and led him down the collie section into the ring.

Four other puppies were already there. McGilead, his shrewd pale eyes half shut, was lounging in one end of the enclosure, apparently listening to something the ring-steward was saying, but with his seemingly careless gaze and his keen mind wholly absorbed in watching the little procession of pups as it filed into the ring. Under the sandy lashes, his eyes caressed or censured all the entrants in turn, boring into their very souls.

Then, as the last of the five walked in and the gate was shut behind them, he came to life. Approaching the huddle of dogs and their handlers, he singled out a shivering 126little puppy whose baby fur had not yet been lost in the rough coat of maturity and whose body was still pudgy and formless.

“How old is this pup?” he asked the woman who was tugging at the boundingly excited baby’s leash.

“Six months, yesterday!” was the garrulous answer. “Isn’t he a little beauty, Judge? Two days younger and he’d have been too young to show. He just comes in the law. It’s lucky he wasn’t born two days later.”

“No,” gently contradicted McGilead, petting the downy little chap. “It’s unlucky. Both for you and for him. The rules admit a pup to the show ring at six months. The rules are harsh, for they make him compete with dogs almost double his age. The puppy limit is from six to twelve months in shows. I don’t want you to feel bad when I refuse to judge this little fellow. It isn’t your fault, nor his, that he hasn’t begun to develop. But it would be like putting a child of five into competitive examination at school with a lad of twenty.”

Motioning her gently to a far corner, he rasped at the others. “Walk your dogs, please!”

The procession started around the ring. Presently, McGilead waved the Master to take Bruce to one side. Then he placed one after another of the remaining dogs on the central block and went over them with infinite care. At the end of the inspection, he beckoned the worried Master to bring Bruce to the block. After running his hands lightly over and under the pup, he turned to the ring-steward, who stood waiting with a ledger and a handful of ribbons.

Writing down four numbers in the book, McGilead took a blue and a red and a yellow and a white ribbon and advanced again toward the waiting exhibitors.

127(And this, by the way, is the Big Moment, to any dog handler—this instant when the judge is approaching with the ribbons. For sheer thrill, it makes roulette and horse-racing seem puerile.)

To the Master, the little judge handed the blue ribbon. Then he awarded the red “second” and the yellow “third” and the white “reserve” to three others.

The recipient of the reserve snorted loudly.

“Say!” he complained. “Better judges than you have said this pup of mine is the finest collie of his age in America. What do you mean by giving him a measly reserve? What’s the matter with him?”

"Compared with what’s the matter with you," drawled McGilead, unruffled, “there’s nothing at all the matter with him. Didn’t anybody ever tell you how unsportsmanlike it is to argue a judge’s decision in the ring? It’s against the A.K.C. rules, too. I’m always glad, later, to explain my rulings to any one who asks me civilly. Since you want to know what’s the matter with your dog, I’ll tell you. He has spaniel ears. Fault number one. He is cow-hocked. Fault number two. He is apple-domed, and he’s cheeky and he has a snipe-nose. Faults three, four and five. He’s long-bodied and swaybacked and over-shot and his undercoat is as thin as your own sportsmanship. He carries his tail high over his back, too. And his outer coat is almost curly. Those are all the faults I can see about him just now. He’ll never win anything in any A.K.C. show. It’s only fair to tell you that; to save you further money and to save you from another such dirty breach of sportsmanship. That’s all.”

The Master, covertly petting Bruce and telling him in a whisper what a grand dog he was, waited at an end of the ring for the next class—"the novice"—to be called.

128Here the competition was somewhat keener. Yet the result was the same. And Bruce found himself with another dark blue ribbon in token of his second victory.

Then, when the winning dogs of every class were brought into the ring for "Winners"—to decide on the best male collie,—Bruce received the winner’s rosette, and found himself advanced three points on his fifteen-point journey toward the championship.

When the collie judging was over and the Master sat on the bench edge, petting his victorious dog, Angus McGilead strolled over to where the winner lay and stood staring down on him.

“How old?” he asked, curtly.

“Twelve months, next Tuesday,” returned the Master.

“If he keeps on,” pursued the dryly rasping voice, “you can say you own the greatest collie Angus McGilead has seen in ten years. It’s a privilege to look at such a dog. A privilege. I’m not speaking, mind you, as the collie judge of this show, but as a man who has spent some fifty-odd years in studying the breed. I’ve not seen his like in many a day. I’ll keep my eye on him.”

And he was as good as his word. At every succeeding show to which the Master took Bruce, he was certain to run into McGilead, there as a spectator, standing with head on one side, brooding over the physical perfections of Bruce. Always the little judge was chary of his conversation with the Master. But always, he gazed upon Bruce as might an inspired artist on some still more inspired painting.

McGilead had been right in his prophecy as to the collie’s future. Not only did Bruce “keep on,” but the passing months added new wealth and lustre to his huge coat and new grace and shapeliness to his massive body, 129and a clearer and cleaner set of lines to his classic head.

Three more shows, two of them three-point exhibitions and one a single-pointer, brought him seven more points toward the championship. Then, on the day of the “Collie Club of the union’s” annual show, came the crowning triumph.

Thirty-two dogs were on hand, precisely the number, under the new rulings, to make it a five-point show. And Angus McGilead was the judge.

When McGilead gave Bruce the winner’s rosette, which marked also his winning of the championship, the pale and shrewd old eyes were misted ever so little, and the hard and thin mouth was set like a gash.

It was as proud a moment in the little judge’s life as in the Master’s. America once more had a champion collie—a young dog at that—at which McGilead could point with inordinate pride, when collie-folk fell to bewailing the decadence of the breed in the Linlithgow man’s adopted country.

“I gave him his first winners!” he bragged that night to a coterie of fellow countrymen, in a rare fit of expansiveness. “I gave him his first winners, first time ever he was showed. I said to myself when he swung into the ring that day—under twelve months old, mind you—I said: ‘Angus, lad, yon’s a dog!’ I said. ‘Watch him, Angus!’ I said. ‘For he’s going far, is yon tike,’ I said. And what’s he done? Won his championship in five shows. In less’n a year. And I’m the man who gave him the ‘winners’ that got him his championship. Watch him! He’s due to last for years longer and to clean up wherever he goes. Remember I said so, when you see him going through every bunch he’s shown against. He’s the grandest dog in America to-day, is Brucie.”

Again was the Scotchman’s forecast justified. At such 130few shows, during the next six years, as the Master found time to take him to, Bruce won prize after prize. Age did not seem to lessen his physical perfection. And the years added to the regal dignity that shone about him like an almost visible atmosphere.

Watching from the ring-side, or presiding in the ring Angus McGilead thrilled to the dog’s every victory as to the triumph of some loved friend. There was an odd bond between the great dog and the little judge. Except for the Mistress and the Master, the collie felt scant interest in humanity at large. A one-man dog, he received the pettings of outsiders and the handling of judges with lofty coldness.

But, at sight of McGilead, the plumed tail was at once awag. The deepset eyes would soften and brighten, and the long nose would wrinkle into a most engaging smile. Bruce loved to be talked to and petted by Angus. He carried his affection for the inordinately tickled judge to the point of trying to shake hands with him or romp with him in the ring; to the outward scandal and inward delight of the sombre Scot.

“Can’t you keep the beast from acting like he belonged to me, when I’m judging him?” grumpily complained McGilead, once to the Master. “A fine impression it makes, don’t it, on strangers, when they see him come wagging and grinning up to me and wanting to shake hands, or to roll over for me to play with him? One fool asked me, was it my own dog I gave the prize to. He said no outsider’s dog would be making such a fuss over a judge. Try to keep him in better order in the ring, or I’ll prove he isn’t mine, by ‘giving him the gate,’ one of these days. See if I don’t.”

But he never did. And the Master knew well that he never would. So it was that Bruce’s career as a winner 131continued unbrokenly, while other champions came and went.

With dogs, as with horses, youth will be served. By the time a horse is six, his racing days are past; and he has something like twenty years of cart or carriage mediocrity ahead of him. His glory as a track king has fled forever.

And with dogs—whose average life of activity runs little beyond ten years—ring honours usually come in youth or not at all. Yes, and they depart with youth. The dog remains handsome and useful for years thereafter. But his head has coarsened. His figure has lost its perfection. His gait stiffens. In a score of ways he drops back from the standard required of winners. Younger dogs are put above him. Which is life—whether in kennel, or in stable, or in office, or in the courts of love. Youth wins.

Yet the passing years seemed to take no perceptible toll of Bruce. His classic head lost none of its fineness. His body remained limber and graceful and shapely. His coat was mightier than ever. Even McGilead’s apprehensive and super-piercing glance could find no flaw, no sign of oncoming age.

The years had, hitherto, been well-nigh as kind to Angus, himself. Dry and wiry and small,............