truck the earth, Lad tore free
from the unloving embrace and whizzed about to face the second of his
foes.

Eitel had taken advantage of the moment's respite to seize with his
uninjured hand his slashed wrist. Then, on second thought, he released
the wounded wrist and bent over the baby; with a view to picking him up
and regaining the comparative safety of the car's floor. But his
well-devised maneuver was not carried out.

For, as he leaned over the bundle, extending his hands to pick it up,
Lad's teeth drove fiercely into the section of Eitel's plump anatomy
which chanced to be presented to him by the stooping down of the
kidnaper. Deep clove his sharp fangs. Nor did Eitel Schwartz sit down
again with any degree of comfort for many a long day.

With resounding howls of pain, Eitel thrashed up and down the road;
endeavoring to shake off this rear attack. The noise awakened the baby;
who added his wails to the din. Roodie got dizzily to his feet; his
left forearm useless and anguished from the tearing of its muscles:

"Shut up!" he bellowed. "You want to bring the whole county down on us?
We--"

He ceased speaking; and lurched at full speed to the car and to the top
of its single seat. For, at sound of his voice, Lad had loosed his grip
on the screeching Eitel and whirled about on this earlier adversary.

The man reached the car-seat and slammed the door behind him, perhaps a
sixth of a second too soon for Lad to reach him.

Eitel, warned by his brother's bawled command, made a rush for the
other side of the machine and clambered up. He was a trifle less
fortunate than had been Roodie, in making this ascent. For Lad's
flashing jaws grazed his ankle and carried away in that snap a sample
of Eitel's best town-going trousers.

Thus, on the seat of the car, swaying, and clutching at each other,
crouched the two sore-wounded brethren; while Lad ravened about the
vehicle, springing upward now and, again in futile effort to clear the
top of the closed door.

Far down the road shone the lights of an approaching motor. Eitel
dropped into the driving seat and set the runabout into motion. Once
more, the dread of pursuit and of capture and of prison danced
hideously before his frightened mental vision.

Barely missing the crying baby, as the runabout jerked forward, he made
a fruitless attempt to run down the raging collie. Then he addressed
himself to the business of getting himself and his brother as far out
of the