me to the crate. She looked in. There, made to order for
her, was a nice bed. There, too, were food and drink to appease the
ever-present appetite of a puppy. Lass writhed her way in through the
gap as easily as the former occupant had crawled out.

After doing due justice to the broken puppy biscuits in the
inset-trough, she curled herself up for a nap.

The clangor and glare of the oncoming express awakened her. She cowered
in one corner of the crate. Just then two station-hands began to move
the express packages out to the edge of the platform. One of them
noticed the displaced board of the crate. He drove home its loosened
nails with two sharp taps from a monkey-wrench, glanced inside to make
certain the dog had not gotten out, and presently hoisted the crate
aboard the express-car.

Two hours later the crate was unloaded at a waystation. At seven in the
morning an expressman drove two miles with it to a country-home, a mile
or so from the village where Lass had been disembarked from the train.

An eager knot of people--the Mistress, the Master and two
gardeners--crowded expectantly around the crate as it was set down on
the lawn in front of The Place's veranda. The latch was unfastened, and
the crate's top was lifted back on its hinges.

Out stepped Lass,--tired, confused, a little frightened, but eagerly
willing to make friends with a world which she still insisted on
believing was friendly. It is hard to shake a collie pup's inborn faith
in the friendliness of mankind, but once shaken, it is more than
shaken. It is shattered beyond hope of complete mending.

For an instant she stood thus, looking in timid appeal from one to
another of the faces about her. These faces were blank enough as they
returned her gaze. The glad expectancy was wiped from them as with a
sponge. It was the Master who first found voice.

"And THAT'S Rothsay Princess!" he snorted indignantly. "That's the pup
worth two hundred dollars at eight months, 'because she has every
single good point of Champion Rothsay Chief and not a flaw from nostril
to tail-tip'! Rothsay wrote those very words about her, you remember.
And he's supposed to be the most dependable man in the collie business!
Lord! She's undersized--no bigger than a five monther! And she's
prick-eared and apple-domed; and her head's as wide as a church door!"

Apparently these humans were not glad to see her. Lass was grieved at
their cold appraisal and a little frightened by t