er, "I've no personal objection to your
blasphemy. If the women of your party can stand it, I can. But aren't
you wasting a good deal of time! These papers have all got to be picked
up, you know; and the camp nicely policed. Get busy."

Higham glowered on him in murderous hate; then at the tensely watching
dog. Lad's upper lip curled. The man took a tentative step toward the
beach. Lad crouched, panther-like; and a low growl parted still further
his writhing lips.

Higham was enough of a collie man to foresee the inevitable next move.
He stood stock still. The Master put his hand once more on Lad's ruff;
but none too tightly. And he nodded toward the clutter of newspapers
and wooden plates. Higham's language soared spoutingly to high heaven.
But he turned back and, with vicious grabs, cleared the lawn of its
unsightly litter.

"Take it into the boat with you." said the Master. "That's all.
Goodbye. See you at the Beauville show."

Waiting only for the canoe and its four vociferous occupants to start
safely from shore, the Master returned to the house; Lad at his heels;
pursued by a quadruple avalanche of abuse from the damp trespassers.

"There'll be a comeback of some kind to this, Laddie," he told the
collie, as they moved on. "I don't know just what it'll be. But those
two worthy youths didn't look at all lovingly at us. And there's
nothing else in country life so filthily mean as an evicted trespasser.
Don't let's say anything to the Mistress about it, Lad. It'd only worry
her! And--and she'll think I ought to have invited all those
panhandlers up to the house to get dry. Perhaps she'd be right, too.
She generally is."

A week later, Lad received a summons that made his heart sink. For he
knew precisely what it foretold. He was called to the bathroom; where
awaited him a tub half full of warm water.

Now, baths were no novelty to Lad. But when a bath tub contained
certain ingredients from boxes on the dog-closet shelf,--ingredients
that fluff the coat and burnish it and make all its hairs stand out
like a Circassian Beauty's, that meant but one thing.

It meant a dog-show was at hand.

And Lad loathed dog-shows, as he loathed tramps and castor oil and
motorcycles.

After a single experience, he had never been taken to one of those
canine ordeals known as "three-or-more-day shows." But the Mistress and
the Master rejoiced at his triumphs at such local one-day shows as were
within pleasant driving distanc