developing into a very promising little
blizzard. And the icy lash of the wind proved the fallacy of the old
theory, "too cold to snow." Even by daylight it would have been no
light task to steer a true course through the whirling and blinding
storm. In the darkness, the man found himself stumbling along with
drunkenly zigzag steps; his buffeted ears strained, through the noise
of the wind for sound of Lad's bark.

But no such sound came to him. And, he realized that snow and adverse
winds can sometimes muffle even the penetrating bark of a collie. The
man grew frightened. Halting, he shouted with all the power of his
lungs. No whimper from Cyril answered the hail. Nor, at his master's
summons, did Lad come bounding back through the drifts. Again and
again, the Master called.

For the first time in his obedient life, Lad did not respond to the
call. And the Master knew his own voice could not carry, for a single
furlong, against wind and snowfall.

"I'll go on for another half-hour," he told himself, as he sought to
discern the dog's all-but obliterated footsteps through the deepening
snow. "And then I'll go back and raise a search party."

He came to a bewildered stop. Fainter and more indistinguishable had
Lad's floundering tracks become. Now,--by dint of distance and
snow,--they ceased to be visible in the welter of drifted whiteness
under the glare of the Master's flashlight.

"This means a search-party," decided the man.

And he turned homeward, to telephone for a posse of neighbors.

Lad, being only a dog, had no such way of sharing his burden. He had
been told to find the child. And his simple code of life and of action
left him no outlet from doing his duty; be that duty irksome or easy.
So he kept on. Far ahead of the Master, his keen ears had not caught
the sound of the shouts. The gale and the snow muffled them and drove
them back into the shouter's throat. Cyril, naturally, had not had the
remotest intent of laboring through the bitter cold and the snow to the
house of any neighbor; there to tell his woeful tale of oppression. The
semblance of martyrdom, without its bothersome actuality, was quite
enough for his purpose. Once before, at home, when his father had
administered a mild and much-needed spanking, Cyril had made a like
threat; and had then gone to hide in a chum's home, for half a day;
returning to find his parents in agonies of remorse and fear, and ready
to load him with peace-offerings.