the world that even the cleverest
collie could not make head or tail of! And most of these things were
sad.

That night, when the house was shut, Lad crept as usual into his cave
under the piano. And he lay down with a sigh, his great head between
his two absurdly small white forepaws. As a rule, before going to sleep
for the night, Lad used to spend much time in licking those same snowy
forepaws into shining cleanliness. The paws were his one gross vanity;
and he wasted more than an hour a day in keeping them spotlessly white.
But tonight he was too depressed to think of anything but the
whimpering little dog imprisoned down in the tool-house.

After a while, he fell asleep.

A true watchdog sleeps with all his senses or the very edge of
wakefulness. And when he wakens, he does not waken as do we
humans;--yawningly, dazedly, drunk with slumber. At one moment he is
sound asleep. At the next he is broad awake; with every faculty alert.

So ever it was, with Lad. So it was with him, this night. An hour
before dawn, he woke with sharp suddenness; and at once he was on his
feet; tense, on guard. He did not know what had roused him. Yet, now
that he was awake, two of his senses recorded something which banished
from him all thought of further sleep.

To his ears came a far-off muffled wail;--a wail which held more than
unhappiness;--a wail which vibrated with real terror. And he knew the
voice for Lady's.

To his sensitive nostrils, through the intervening distance and the
obstructing walls and windows, drifted a faint reek of smoke.

Now, the smoke-smell, by itself, meant nothing whatever to Lad. All
evening a trace of it had hung in the air; from the brush fire. And, in
any case, this whiff was too slight to have emanated from the house or
from any spot near the house. Yet, taken together with Lady's cry of
fear--

Lad crossed to the front door, and scratched imperiously at it. The
locked door did not yield to his push. Too sensible to keep on at a
portal he could not open, he ran upstairs, to the closed door of the
Master's room. There, again he scratched; this time harder and more
loudly. Twice and thrice he scratched; whining under his breath.

At last the deep-slumbering Master heard him. Rousing himself, and
still three-quarters asleep, he heard not only the scratching and the
whimper but, in the distance, Lady's wail of fear. And, sleep-drugged,
he mumbled:

"Shut up, Laddie!--I hear her.--Let her howl.