r the bag. As it was not
where he thought he had left it, he swung his groping hand forward in a
half-circle, his fingers sweeping the floor.

Make that enticing motion, directly in front of a playful collie pup;
specially if he has something he doesn't want you to take from
him;--and watch the effect.

Instantly, Lad was athrill with the spirit of the game. In one
scurrying backward jump, he was off the veranda and on the lawn, tail
vibrating, eyes dancing; satchel held tantalizingly towards its
would-be possessor.

The light sound of his body touching ground reached the man. Reasoning
that the sweep of his own arm had somehow knocked the bag off the
porch, he ventured off the edge of the veranda and flashed a swathed
ray of his pocket light along the ground in search of it.

The flashlight's lens was cleverly muffled; in a way to give forth but
a single subdued finger of illumination. That one brief glimmer was
enough to show the thief a right impossible sight. The glow struck
answering lights from the polished sides of the brown bag. The bag was
hanging in air, some six inches above the grass and perhaps five feet
away from him. Then he saw it swig frivolously to one side and vanish
in the night.

The astonished man had seen more. Feeble was the flashlight's shrouded
ray, too feeble to outline against the night the small dark body behind
the shining brown bag. But that same ray caught and reflected back to
the incredulous beholder two splashes of pale fire;--glints from a pair
of deep-set collie-eyes.

As the bag disappeared, the eerie fire-points were gone. The thief all
but dropped his flashlight. He gaped in nervous dread; and sought
vainly to account for the witch-work he had witnessed. He had plenty of
nerve. He had plenty of experience along his chosen line of endeavor.
But, while a crook may control his nerve, he cannot make it phlegmatic
or steady. Always, he must be conscious of holding it in check, as a
clever driver checks and steadies and keeps in subjection a plunging
horse. Let the vigilance slacken, and there is a runaway.

Now this particular marauder had long ago keyed his nerve to the chance
of interruption from some gun-brandishing householder; and to the
possible pursuit of police; and to the need of fighting or of fleeing.
But all his preparations had not taken into account this newest
emergency. He had not steeled himself to watch unmoved the gliding away
of a treasure-satchel, apparen