ought that Fouchette was simply playing truant. The dog did not
bother her calculation, as he would not share the punishment.

Monsieur was certain that the girl had enticed the dog away from home;
though why she had taken her basket and hook if she were not coming
back he could not say.

Le Cochon took a gloomy view of it. He was afraid some accident had
befallen her,--she might have got run over by a fiacre, or have fallen
into the river.

"Nonsense!" protested M. Podvin. "The dog would come home. He wouldn't
get run over too, and you couldn't drown a spaniel."

It was precisely at this moment that the loud barking of Tartar broke
upon their ears, confirming his master's judgment and sending a thrill
through everybody in the room. This sensation, however, was by no
means the same.

The brute master alone rejoiced for pure love of the dog and for the
dog's sake.

Madame Podvin went in search of a certain stout strap used upon
Fouchette on special occasions of ceremonial penological procedure.

Two strange men seated at some distance from each other, and who up to
that moment had ignored each other's existence, exchanged looks of
intelligence and rose as if to leave the place.

Le Cochon alone seemed disconcerted. His beetle brows clouded, and his
right hand involuntarily sought the handle of his knife.

The instincts of the robber were this time unerring. For Tartar had
scarcely licked the dirty hand of his master, when his eyes fell upon
the would-be murderer of his beloved mistress. The sight appeared to
startle the animal at first. But only for a second. Then, with a growl
of rage that began low and ominously, like the first notes of a
thunder-storm, and swelled into a howl, the spaniel sprang upon the
villain and fastened his fangs in his fleshy throat.

CHAPTER III

The onset was so sudden and swift, and the animal had received such a
powerful impetus from his spring, that the burly robber went down with
a tremendous crash.

Man and dog rolled together in the dirt, upsetting tables and chairs
and raising a terrible uproar. The desperate wretch plunged his knife
again and again into the body of the enraged spaniel; the latter only
clinched his teeth tighter and endeavored to tear his enemy by main
brute strength.

Madame Podvin, having been diverted from her original purpose by this
unexpected melee, set up a scream that would have drowned an active
calliope.

"That's our bird!" shouted t