Part 12 (1/2)

”It's a shame, Laddie!” declared the Mistress, at one such time ”It's a SHAME! Why, you are worth a s! You're a million times wiser and beautifuller and more lovable Why do you bother with them? Master and I are ever so much better coht here, and forget the of one word in ten of the advice But he understood and loved the Mistress's sweet voice and the caress of her cool little hand; and the sympathy in her tone It all hty head against her knee; happy in the colint was ever lurking in his deep-set eyes, nowadays And his gayly tru out less often and less jubilantly than of old He took toAnd he spent more time than before in his beloved ”cave,” under theand solitude are no s than to hu the splendid collie back to his olden spirits

Luck, or fate, took the matter out of his hands

The Mistress and the Master were invited to spend a ith some friends whose house stood in an ultra-restricted residential park, high up in the Catskills By leaving the Place at sunrise, they could reach the Park, by motor, in tiht to the door Its tonneau was piled with luggage; and all was ready for a start as soon as the unappetizingly early breakfast could be sed

Wolf and Lady, after following the car fro wait; and set forth at a hand-gallop for the woods There, at dawning, the deould lie heavy And wet ground ever holds scent better than does dry It would be easy to pick up and follow rabbit trails, through the dah to follow them He ran out of the house and half-way up the drive in pursuit of their flashi+ng gold-and-white flight

Neither turned a head at sound of his following steps Neither slackened pace to include hi collie noted this aloofness And he came to an irresolute halt For arunaways; his pluroundless expectation of an invitingly glance or yelp from Lady Then, tail and crest adroop, he turned slowly back toward the house

From puppyhood, an odd trait of Lad's had caused amusement at the Place Whenever he was unhappy or considered hi ith he ht co for some petty misdeed would send hi ball In later years, the car had taken the place of these babyhood co than for any other aarage and curled hiht take pity on his unhappiness and give hi back, rebuffed, froarage, either; but at the front door; where its presence could h spring, Lad had cleared the ground and was over the closed tonneau door and as The rear seat was filled by a steahtly in place there And the bottos and other gear

Still, by the si hih space on the floor to per down; albeit in a very compact bunch

He settled himself into place on the floor with a satisfied jounce which loosened a car-rug draped over the trunk Down slithered the rug; and fell athwart the dog's shaggy back and one of the bags It was not heavy enough to annoy Lad or hurt his feelings And its draped folds served as the top of a sort of cave for hi's descent It er and war Patiently, Lad lay there; waiting for the car to start

He did not have long to wait In another minute or two, the Mistress and the Master caot into the front seat

Then the car was breasting the winding slope of the drive, in first speed; the faint jar of the engine sending undulations over theAnd, in a hway, headed for the distant Catskills

Now, Lad had not the remotest notion he was a stoay On the few times when it had not been convenient to take him on drives, the Master had always bidden hi chanced already to be its the car, he had been ordered back to earth

There, was no way for Lad to know, this , that neither of the car's other occupants had seen him as he lay curled up on the floor, three-quarters hidden under the fallen rug The luggage had been arranged in the tonneau, before breakfast And nobody had given a second glance at it since then

The sun was rising over a new- with bird-songs The air, later in the day, would be war Theover the earth The hard white road stretched out, like a winding river, between banks of dew-glea with the touch of the sun In the deeper valleys floated a shi+hway; slowing down only as it spun through half-awakened villages; or checked its pace to allow a sleepy boy to drive a straggling bunch of cows across the road to pasturage

For an hour orin contented laziness Then the recumbent posture tired him; and he sat up As a rule, one or the other of his deities ont to turn around, at intervals, and speak to hihtest attention Still, the ride was a joy And the surrounding country was new and interesting So Lad had a good tilect After another hour or so, he curled up again, a

A six-hour run, over good roads, brought the car to Kingston, at the gateway to the Catskills Here, at a hotel entrance, the ot out, and turned to help the Mistress to alight It was the place they had decided on for luncheon Another three hours, at ro boy, loafing aiun to whistle industriously to himself as the car slowed down And he had wakened into active motion Apparently, he remembered all at once an important mission on the other side of the street For he set off at a swinging pace

His course took him so near the back of the car that he had to turn out, a step or so, to avoid collision with it He acco-out maneuver by another which was less ostentatious, buthis steps, so as to pass by the rear of the car just as the Master was busy helping his wife to descend, the youth thrust an ar snake

His hand closed on the handle of a traveling bag, aro gave a fierce yank at his plunder, to hoist it over the closed door

In that tourist-ridden city, bag-stealing offered much profit In the rare chance of detection when he was at work, the boy had only to plead over-zeal in trying to earn an honest die to the sidewalk