perplexed.

The Mistress was keener of eye and of perception. She understood. She
saw the Lad's inhalingly seeking muzzle was steady above a faint mark
in the road-dust;--the mark of a buckskin shoe's print. Long and
carefully the dog sniffed. Then, with heavy deliberation he moved on to
the next footprint and the next. The runabout's driver had taken less
than a half dozen steps in all; during his short descent to the ground.
But Lad did not stop until he had found and identified each and every
step.

"He knows!" marveled the Mistress. "He saw the brute jump down from his
car. And he has found his footsteps. He'll remember them, too."

"Little good it will do the poor chap!" commented the Master. "He can't
track him, that way. Get aboard, won't you?" he went on. "I'll make Lad
go back into the tonneau again, too. Drive down to the house; and take
Lad indoors with you. Better telephone to the vet to come over and have
another look at his shoulder. He's wrenched it badly, in all that run.
Anyway, please keep him indoors till--"

He finished his sentence by a glance at Lady. At the Master's order,
Lad with sore reluctance left the body of his mate; whither he had
returned after his useless finding of the footmarks. He had just curled
up, in the ditch, pressing close to her side; and again that unnatural
sobbing sound was in his throat. On the Master's bidding, Lad crossed
to the car and suffered himself to be lifted aboard. The Mistress
started down the drive. As they went, Lad ever looked back, with
suffering despair in his dark eyes, at that huddle of golden fur at the
wayside.

The Master carried the pitifully light armful to a secluded spot far
beyond the stables; and there he buried it. Then, satisfied that Lad
could not find his mate's grave, he returned to the house.

His heart was heavy with helpless wrath. Again and again, in the course
of their drives, he and the Mistress had sickened at sight of mutely
eloquent little bodies left in mid-road or tossed in some
ditch,--testimony to the carelessness and callous hoggishness of
autoists. Some few of these run-over dogs,--like poor Lady,--had of
course tempted fate; spurred on by that strange craving which goaded
them to fly at cars. But the bulk of them had been strolling peacefully
along the highways or crossing to or from their own dooryards, when the
juggernauts smashed them into torture or into instant death.

The Master reflected on the friendly country