arth and stood confronting the lurid stretch of
ash and ember with, here and there, a bush stump still crackling
merrily. It was not a safe barrier to cross; this twenty-foot-wide
fiery stretch. Nor, for many rods in either direction, was there any
way around it.

"There's one comfort," the Master was saying, as he began to explore
for an opening in the red scarf of coals, "the fire hasn't gotten up to
the camp-site. He--"

"But the smoke has," said the Mistress, who had been peering vainly
through the hazecurtain toward the summit. "And so has the heat. If
only--"

She broke off, with a catch in her sweet voice. And, scarce realizing
what she did, she put the silver whistle to her lips and blew a
piercingly loud blast.

"What's that for?" asked the Master, crankily, worry over his beloved
dog making his nerves raw. "If Lad's alive, he's fastened there. You
say you saw him struggling to get loose, this morning. He can't come,
when he hears that whistle. There's no sense in--How in blue blazes he
ever got fastened there,--if he really was,--is more than I can--"

"Hush!" begged the Mistress, breaking in on his grumbled monologue.
"Listen!"

Out of the darkness, beyond the knoll-top, came the sound of a
bark,--the clear trumpeting welcome-bark which Lad reserved for the
Mistress and the Master, alone; on their return from any absence.

Through the night it echoed, gaily, defiantly; again and again; ringing
out above the obscene hiss and crackle and roar of the forest-fire. And
at every repetition, it was nearer and nearer the dumfounded listeners
at the knoll foot.

"It's--it's Laddie!" cried the Mistress, in wondering rapture. "Oh,
it's LADDIE!"

The Master, hearing the glad racket, did a thoroughly asinine thing.
Drawing in his breath and holding his coat in front of him, he prepared
to make a dash through the wide smear of embers, to the hilltop; where,
presumably, Lad was still tied. But, before he could take the first
step, the Mistress stayed him.

"Look!" she cried, pointing to the hither side of the knoll; lividly
bright in the ember-glow.

Down the steep was galloping at breakneck speed a great, tawny shape.
Barking rapturously,--even as he had barked when first the whistle's
blast had roused him from his lazy repose in the lakeside
shallows,--Lad came whizzing toward the two humans who watched so
incredulously his wild approach.

The Master, belatedly, saw that the collie could not avoid crash