girl had paused in her dainty labor of helping to
spread out the lunch; in order to peep inquisitively up the slope
toward the tree-framed house above. It might be fun, after eating, to
stroll up there and squint in through the veranda windows; or,--if no
one was at home, to gather an armful of the roses that clambered over
one end of the porch.

During that brief exploratory glance, her eye had been caught by
something moving through the woods beyond.

Behind the house, these woods ran up to the highroad, a furlong above.
A driveway led twistingly down from the gate-lodge, to the house. Along
this drive, was pacing a dog.

As the girl caught sight of him, the dog halted in his lazy stroll and
stood eagerly erect, his nose upraised, his tulip ears pricked. Sound
or scent, or both, had been arrested by some unusual presence. And he
paused to verify the warning.

As he stood there, an instant, in the shade-flecked driveway, the girl
saw he was a collie; massive, graceful, majestic; in the full strength
of his early prime; his shaggy coat of burnished mahogany-and-snow
glinting back the showers of sun-rays that filtered down through the
leaves.

Before the watching girl could take further note of him, the dog's
aspect of tense listening merged into certainty. With no further shadow
of doubt as to direction, he set off at a sweeping run past the house
and toward the point.

He ran with head down; and with tawny ruff abristle. There was
something in his lithe gallop that was as ominous as it was beautiful.
And, nervous at the great collie's approach, the girl squealed.

It had been a dull morning for Lad. The Mistress was in town for the
day. The Master was shut up in his study, hard at work. And, for once,
he had not remembered to call Lad to a resting place on the study rug;
before closing the door on the outside world. Alone and bored, the
collie had wandered into the woods; in quest of possible rabbits to
chase or squirrels to tree. Finding the sport tame, he started
homeward. Midway down the drive, his supersensitive nostrils caught the
whiff of alien humans on the Place. At the same time, he heard the
raucous gabbling of several voices. Though his near-sighted eyes did
not yet show the intruders to him, yet scent and sound made it
ridiculously easy for him to trace them.

From early puppyhood, Lad had been the official guardian of the Place.
He knew the limits of its thirty acres; from lake to highroad; from