ys, by the way, this cave was his
chosen resting place. Nor, in his lifetime, did any other dog set foot
therein.

So much for "all day and every day." But the nights were different.

Lad hated the nights. In the first place, everybody went to bed and
left him alone. In the second, his hard-hearted owners made him sleep
on a fluffy rug in a corner of the veranda instead of in his delectable
piano-cave. Moreover, there was no food at night. And there was nobody
to play with or to go for walks with or to listen to. There was nothing
but gloom and silence and dullness. When a puppy takes fifty cat-naps
in the course of the day, he cannot always be expected to sleep the
night through. It is too much to ask. And Lad's waking hours at night
were times of desolation and of utter boredom. True, he might have
consoled himself, as does many a lesser pup, with voicing his woes in a
series of melancholy howls. That, in time, would have drawn plenty of
human attention to the lonely youngster; even if the attention were not
wholly flattering.

But Lad did not belong to the howling type. When he was unhappy, he
waxed silent. And his sorrowful eyes took on a deeper woe. By the way,
if there is anything more sorrowful than the eyes of a collie pup that
has never known sorrow, I have yet to see it.

No, Lad could not howl. And he could not hunt for squirrels. For these
enemies of his were not content with the unsportsmanliness of climbing
out of his reach in the daytime, when he chased them; but they added to
their sins by joining the rest of the world,--except Lad,--in sleeping
all night. Even the lake that was so friendly by day was a chilly and
forbidding playfellow on the cool North Jersey nights.

There was nothing for a poor lonely pup to do but stretch out on his
rug and stare in unhappy silence up the driveway, in the impossible
hope that someone might happen along through the darkness to play with
him.

At such an hour and in such lonesomeness, Lad would gladly have tossed
aside all prejudices of caste,--and all his natural dislikes, and would
have frolicked in mad joy with the veriest stranger. Anything was
better than this drear solitude throughout the million hours before the
first of the maids should be stirring or the first of the farmhands
report for work. Yes, night was a disgusting time; and it had not one
single redeeming trait for the puppy.

Lad was not even consoled by the knowledge that he was guarding the