Part 19 (2/2)

Within a second thereafter, a runabout roared past, the cut-outcloud of dust whirling aloft in the speedster's wake

The warning honk had not given the Mistress ti well on her own side of the none-too-wide road As it was, a sharp little jar gave testiuards

And the runabout whizzed on

”That's one of the speed-idiots who make an auto fool!” stor impotently at the other car, already a hundred yards ahead; and at the back of its one occupant, a sportily-clad youth in the early twenties

A high-pitched yelping bark,--partly of dis,--fro dog had sprung up fro the back of the front seat, he was peering forward; his head and shoulders between the Mistress and the Master

Never before in all his rides had Lad so transgressed the rules ofbehavior as to thrust himself forward like this A word of rebuke died on the Master's tongue; as the Mistress, with a gasp of fear, pointed ahead, in the path of the speeding runabout

Lady and Wolf had had a jolly gallop through the summer woodlands And at last they had turned their faces hoe in the cool lake which ont to follow a hot weather run Side by side they jogged along, to the forest edge--and into the sixteen-acre hway

A few rods on the far side of the road which separated the ate a chip her hot body in the chill of the lake than in exploring for hypothetical chipht a sound which rapidly swept nearer and nearer A , at a h speed

The noise was assport Her trotrun; and she dashed out into the road

The runabout was a bare fifty yards ahead of her, and it was co on with a speed which shook even Lady's excite nerves Here, evidently, was a playmate which it would be safer to chase than to confront head-on

It was at this juncture, by the way, that Lad lurched forward from the rear seat and that the Mistress pointed in terror at the endangered collie

Lady, for once overawed by speed, leaped to one side of the road Not far, but leaving ample space for the driver to ht of her But, he had abated not an atom of his fifty-mile-an-hour pace

Whether the man was rattled by the collie's antics,--whether he acted in sudden rage at her for startling hied to the filthy breed of ly the record of his kills,--he did not hold hisspeed,--he veered his ernaut directly at the ined safety at the road-edge

The rest was horror

Merciful in its ht front wheel solden head with a force that left no terrible instant of fear or of agony More lucky by far than the s that are left daily to screa le stroke

The fluffy golden body was hurled far in front of its slayer; and the wheels struck it a second time The force of the impact caused the runabout to skid, perilously; and the youthful driver brought it to a jarring and belated halt Springing to the ground, he rolled the dead collie's i body into the shalloayside ditch, clear of his wheels Then, scraain, he ja leap over the door of the Master's car He struck ground with a force which cruht shoulder under him Heedless of the pain, he hurled hiht for the runabout His great head low, his forleam beneath drawn-back lips, his soft eyes a-sed

But, for all his burst of speed, he was too late to avenge; even as he had been too late to save By the time he could reach the spot where Lady lay cruathered full speed and was disappearing down the bend of the highway

After it flew Lad, silent, terrible,--not stopping to realize that the fleetest dog,--even with all four of his legs in commission,--cannot hope to overhaul a motor-car driven at fifty miles an hour

But, at the end of a furious quarter-eance-craving heart He halted, snarled hideously after the vanished car, and liedy

There, he found the Mistress sitting in the roadside dust, Lady's head in her lap She was s hard not to cry over the inert warold-and-white fluffiness which, two hbred collie, vibrant with life and fun and lovableness

The Master had risen fro down the road, he yearned to kick hiernaut's number

Head and tail a-droop, Lad toiled back to where Lady was lying A queer low sound, strangely like a huy throat, as he bent down and touched his deadclose beside her, he reverted all at once to a trait of his ancestors, a thousand generations back