the boy limped off; his hand clinched in the fur of Lad's
ruff. The dog, ordinarily, would have resented such familiarity. But,
still seeking to comfort the victim's manifest unhappiness, he suffered
himself to be led along. Which was Lad's way. The sight of sorrow or of
pain always made him ridiculously gentle and sympathetic.

The boy's bruises hurt cruelly. The distance to the truck was a full
hundred yards. The distance to the lean-to (a permanent shed, back of
the camp-site) was about the same, and in almost the opposite
direction. The prospect of the double journey was not alluring. The
youth hit on a scheme to shorten it. First glancing back to see that
his father was not looking, he climbed the bare stony hillock, toward
the lean-to; Lad pacing courteously along beside him.

Arrived at the shed, he took from a nail a rope-length; tied it around
Lad's neck; fastened the dog to one of the uprights; shouldered the
cooking-utensil bag; and started back toward the car.

He had saved himself, thus, a longer walk; and had obeyed his father's
orders to take Lad away. He was certain the Master, or one of the
others, missing the dog, would see him standing forlornly there, just
outside the lean-to's corner; or that another errand would bring some
of the party to the shed to release him. At best, the boy was sore of
heart and of body, at his own rough treatment. And he had scant
interest anything else.

Twenty minutes later, the truck chugged bumpily off, upon its trip down
the hazardous mountain track. The guide's boy rode in triumph on the
seat beside the truckman;--a position of honor and of excitement.

"Where's Lad?" asked the Mistress, a minute afterward, as she and the
Master and the guide made ready to get into the car and follow.

"Aboard the truck," responded Barret, in entire good faith. "Him and my
boy got a-skylarkin' here. So I sent Bud over to the truck with him."

"That's queer!" mused the Mistress. "Why, Laddie never condescends to
play,--or 'skylark,' as you call it,--with anyone except my husband or
myself! He--"

"Never mind!" put in the Master. "We'll catch up with the truck before
it's gone a mile. And we can take Laddie aboard here, then. But I
wonder he consented to go ahead, without us. That isn't like Lad.
Holiday-spirits, I suppose. This trip has made a puppy of him. A
stately old gentleman like Laddie would never think of rounding up
bears and skunks, if he was at home." As he talked,