w, carrying a weight of
fifty pounds between his teeth.

Lad's leap did not carry him half the distance he had aimed for. Back
to the floor he fell, Lady with him.

Maddened by pain and by choking and by stark terror, Lady had not the
wit to realize what Lad was attempting. All she knew was that he had
seized her roughly by the neck, and had leaped in air with her; and had
then brought her bangingly down upon the torturing hot boards. And her
panic was augmented by delirious rage.

At Lad's face she flew, snarling murderously. One slash of her curving
eyetooth laid bare his cheek. Then she drove for his throat.

Lad stood stock still. His only move was to interpose his shaggy
shoulder to her ravening jaws. And, deep into the fur and skin and
flesh of his shoulder her furious teeth shore their way.

It would have been child's play for him to have shaken her off and to
have leaped to safety, alone, through the sash-less window.

Yet he stood where he was; his sorrowful eyes looking tenderly down
upon the maddened youngster who was tearing into him so ferociously.

And that was the picture the Master beheld; as he flung open the door
and blinked gaspingly through the smoke for the dog he had locked in.

Brought out of bed, on the jump, by Lad's unearthly wolf howl, he had
smelt the smoke and had run out to investigate. But, not until he
unbarred the tool-house door did he guess that Lady was not the burning
shack's only prisoner.

"It'll be another six months before your wonderful coat grows out
again, Laddie dear," observed the Mistress, next day, as she renewed
the smelly wet cloths on Lad's burned and glass-cut body. "Dr. Hopper
says so. But he says the rest of you will be as well as ever, inside of
a fortnight. And he says Lady will be well, before you will. But,
honestly, you'll never look as beautiful, again, to me, as you do this
very minute. He--he said you look like a scarecrow. But you don't. You
look like a--like a--a-What gorgeously splendid thing DOES he look
like, dear?" she appealed to her husband.

"He looks," replied the Master, after deep thought, "he looks like LAD.
And that's about the highest praise I know how to give him;--or give to
anyone."

CHAPTER V. The Stowaway

There were but three collies on the Place, in those days. Lad; his
dainty gold-and-white mate, Lady; and their fluffy and fiery wisp of a
son, little Wolf.

When Wolf was a spoiled and obstreperous puppy of three mont