nd of the garden, and
what the gardener had said about them before the wire-netting came could
not be printed. Jane watched the rabbits, and conversed about them in
the hoarse whisper enjoined by her son, but she was thinking principally
about Zero.

Then Dick went to bed, and his father came back from the city. He went
up at least one day a week, and came back full of aggressive virtue and
likely to refer to himself as a man who earned his own living, thank
Heaven.

At dinner Richard said: "By the way, I'd been meaning to speak of
it--what's the matter with Zero?"

"Why?"

"He won't leave the gate. He was there when I drove in. I called him in,
but he went back almost directly. I saw him through the window as I was
dressing, and he was still there--lying quite still, with his eyes glued
on the road."

And then Jane recounted the experience of Dick and herself.

"You may laugh, Richard, but something is going to happen, and Zero
knows what it will be."

"Well," said Richard, "if anybody is proposing to burglarise us
to-night, I don't envy him the preliminaries with Zero. But, of course,
it may be nothing. All the same I've always said there ought to be a
lodge at that gate."

But to this Jane was most firmly opposed. A new semi-artistic red-brick
lodge would be out of keeping with Midway altogether. "And what are you
going to do about Zero?"

"Oh, anything you like. What do you propose?"

"I don't know what to say. Whatever is going to happen, apparently Zero
thinks he can tackle it by himself. Still, you might have your revolver
somewhere handy to-night."

"I will," said Richard.

Zero remained at his post until the dawn, and then came a black speck on
the white road. Zero stood up and growled. The skin on his back moved.

Down the road came the lean, black retriever, snapping aimlessly, foam
dropping from his jaws. Zero sprang at him and was thrown down and
bitten. At his second spring he got hold and kept it. The two dogs
rolled off the road, and into the ditch.

At breakfast, next morning, Richard was innocuously humorous on the
subject of revolvers, burglars, and clairvoyant bulldogs. He was
interrupted by a servant, who announced that Mr Hammond wished to speak
to him for a moment.

"Right," said Richard. "Where is he?"

"He is just outside, sir," said the man. "Mr Hammond would not come in."

Hammond was a neighbour of Richard's, a robust and heavily built man. As
a rule he was a cheerful