folk who pay taxes for the
scenery and for the fine roads which make motoring so pleasant;--and on
the reward so many motorists bestow upon these rural hosts of theirs by
wanton or heedless murder of pet animals. For the first time, he could
understand how and why farmers are tempted to strew glass or tacks in
the road to revenge the slaying of a beloved dog.

For the next few days, until his shoulder was again in condition to
bear his eighty-pound weight on it, Lad was kept indoors or on the
veranda. As soon as he was allowed to go out alone, the big collie went
straight to the spot where last he had seen Lady's body. Thence, he a
made a careful detour of the Place,--seeking for--something. It was two
days before he found what he sought.

In the meantime,--as ever, since his mate's killing,--he ate
practically nothing; and went about in a daze.

"He'll get over it presently," prophesied the Master, to soothe his
wife's worry.

"Perhaps so," returned the Mistress. "Or perhaps not. Remember he's a
collie, and not just a human."

On the third day, Lad's systematic quartering of the Place brought him
to the tiny new mound, far beyond the stables. Twice, he circled it.
Then he lay down, very close beside it; his mighty head athwart the
ridge of upflung sod.

There,--having seen him from a distance,--the Master came across to
speak to him. But at sight of the man, the collie got up from his
resting place and moved furtively away.

Time after time, during the next week, the Master or the Mistress found
him lying there. And always, at their approach, he would get up and
depart. Nor did he go direct to the mound, on these pilgrimages; but by
devious paths; as though trying to shake off possible pursuit. No
longer did he spend the nights, as from puppyhood, in his beloved
"cave" under the piano in the music room. On one pretext or another, he
would manage to slip out of the house, during the evening. Twice, in
gray dawn, the Master found him crouched beside the mound, where,
sleepless, he had lain all night.

The Mistress and the Master grew seriously troubled over their collie
chum's continued grief. They thought, more than once, of sending him
away to boarding kennels or to some friend, for a month or two; to
remove him from the surroundings which made him so wretched. Oddly
enough, his heartbreak struck neither of them as absurd.

They had made a long study of collie nature in all its million queer
and half-human