ergy. Seizing the hempen strands, he ground his
teeth deeply and with scientific skill, into their fraying recesses.
Thus does a dog, addicted to cutting his leash, attack the bonds which
hold him.

It was Lad's first experience of the kind. But instinct served him
well. The fact that the rope had been left out of doors, in all
weathers, for several years, served him far better. Not only did it
sever the more easily; but it soon lost the cohesion needed for
resisting any strong pull.

The bear, lurching half-blindly, had reeled out into the open, below
the knoll. There, panting and grunting, he turned to blink at the
oncoming fire and to get his direction. For perhaps a half-minute he
stood thus; or made little futile rushes from side to side. And this
breathing space was taken up by Lad in the gnawing of the rope.

Then, while the collie was still toiling over the hempen mouthfuls, the
bear seemed to recover his own wonted cleverness; and to realize his
whereabouts. Straight up the hillock he charged, toward the lean-to;
his splay feet dislodging innumerable surface stones from the rocky
steep; and sending them behind him in a series of tiny avalanches.

Lad, one eye ever on his foe, saw the onrush. Fiercely he redoubled his
efforts to bite through the rope, before the bear should be upon him.
But the task was not one to be achieved in a handful of seconds.

Moving with a swiftness amazing for an animal of his clumsy bulk, the
bear swarmed up the hillock. He gained the summit; not three yards from
where Laddie struggled. And the collie knew the rope was not more than
half gnawed through. There was no further time for biting at it. The
enemy was upon him.

Fear did not enter the big dog's soul. Yet he grieved that the
death-battle should find him so pitifully ill-prepared. And, abandoning
the work of self-release, he flung himself ragingly at the advancing
bear.

Then, two things happened. Two things, on neither of which the dog
could have counted. The bear was within a hand's breadth of him; and
was still charging, headlong. But he looked neither to right nor to
left. Seemingly ignorant of Lad's presence, the huge brute tore past
him, almost grazing the collie in his insane rush; and sped straight on
toward the lake beyond.

That was one of the two unforeseen happenings. The other was the
snapping of the rotted rope, under the wrench of Lad's furious leap.

Free, and with the severed rope's loop still dangli