s, she had a mania for rushing at any motor
vehicle, and for whizzing along beside it, perilously close to its
fast-moving wheels, barking and screaming hysterically and bounding
upward at its polished sides.

Nor had punishment and scolding cured her of the trait. She was an
addict at car-chasing. She was wholly incurable. There are such dogs.
Soon or late, many of them pay high for the habit.

In early days, Lad also had dashed after motors. But a single sharp
lecture from the Master had taught him that this was one of the direst
breaches of the Place's simple Law. And, thenceforth,--though he might
tremble with eagerness,--he stood statue-still when an automobile spun
temptingly past him.

More,--he had cured pup after pup, at the Place, of car-chasing. But
Lady he could not cure; though he never gave up the useless attempt.

Down the drive came a delivery truck; driven fast and with none too
great skill. Before it had covered half the distance between gate and
house, Lady was alongside. A wheel grazed her shoulder fur as, deftly,
she slipped from in front of the vehicle and sprang up at its tonneau.
With a ceaseless fanfare of barks,--delirious in her excitement,--she
circled the car; springing, dodging, wheeling.

The delivery boy checked speed and shouted futile warnings to the
insane collie. As he slowed down a bit on the steep grade, Lady hurled
herself in front of the machine, as though taunting it for cowardice in
abating its hot pace on her account.

Again and again had she run, head on, at advancing cars. It seemed to
delight her when such cars slackened speed or swerved, in order not to
kill her.

Now, as she whizzed backward, her vibrant muzzle a bare six inches from
the shiny buffer, one of her flying feet slipped in a mud rut. Her
balance gone, she tumbled.

A collie down is a collie up, in less than a second. But there was
still less than a second's space between to overthrown Lady and the
car's front wheels.

The boy slammed on the emergency brake. Through his mind ran the
formless thought of his fate at the hands of his employer when he
should return to the store with tidings that he had run over and killed
a good customer's costly collie; and on the customer's own grounds.

In that single breathless instant, a huge mahogany-and-snow shape
flashed forward, into the path of the machine.

Lad, following his mate, had tried to shoulder her aside and to herd
her too far back from the drive f