Part 23 (2/2)

Then, to his dismay, truck and car had made off down the mountainside; and he had been left alone in his ile unheard bark of protest, Ladhumans Never before had they forsaken him And he had full trust that they would come back in a few minutes and set him free

When the car halted, a half-mile below, Lad felt certain his faith was about to be justified Then, as itto the end of his short rope, and tried to break free and follow

Then ca ulfed the wilderness hilltop

Lad was alone They had gone off and left hioodby or a friendly command to watch ca's first sojourn in camp And his memory was flawless Always, he recalled, the arrival and the loading of the truck and the striking of tents hadhome

Home! The charm and novelty of the wilderness all at once faded Lad was desperately lonely and desperately unhappy And his feelings were cruelly hurt; at the strange treatment accorded him

Yet, it did not occur to him to seek freedom and to follow his Gods to the home he loved He had been tied here, presue And it behooved him to wait until they should come to release him He knew they would come back, soon or late

They were his Gods, his chums, his playmates They would no more desert hiht, so was tedious!

With a tired little sigh, the collie curled up in a round, the shortness of his tetherbut co, that is happy and well, settles hi out on his side;--oftenest the left side; and by dropping off into slu curl up into a ball, to rest Nor is he thoroughly comfortable in such a posture

Lad was not co He retched Nor did he try to snooze Curled in a compact heap, his sorrowful eyes abri the bun of the car's return His breathing was not as splendidly easy as usual For, increasingly, that earlier twinge of acrid s his throat The haze, that had hovered over the farther hilltops and valleys, was thickening; and it was creeping nearer The breath ofinto a steady wind; a wind that blew strong from the west and carried on it the ser save only half-heed to it His on-track whence the car and the truck had vanished into the lowlands And, through the sole it

But, after sunset, the ser

It was not only stinging his throat and lungs, but it washis eyes smart And it had cut off the view of all save the nearersoftly, under his breath Ancestral instinct was fairly shouting to his brain that here was terrible peril

He strained at his thick rope; and looked ion-road

The wind had swelled into soale And, now, to Lad's keen ears cas as the fla advance This sharper sound rose and fell, as a the roar which had been perceptible for hours

Again, Laddie strained at his heavy rope Again, his s trail down the uishable as before Not only by reason of darkness, but because frousts of wind-driven s the trail; checked froranite which zigzagged upward fro sky to south and to ith a steadily brightening lurid glare The Master had been right in his glu and sudden shi+ft of ould carry the conflagration through the tinder-dry undergrowth and dead trees of that side of the hters could hope to check it

The flaht the open spaces below the knoll, with increasing vividness The chill of early evening was counteracted waves of sullen heat, which the wind sent swirling before it

Lad panted; froone all day without water And a collie, , needs plenty of fresh, cool water to drink; at any and all ti his throat His thirst was intolerable

Behind him, not very many yards aas the ice-cold mountain lakelet in which so often he had bathed and drunk The thought of it made him hate the stout rope

But he made no serious effort to free himself He had been tied there,--supposedly by the Master's co, it was his place to stay where he was, until the Master should free his, he sub occurred, to change his viewpoint, in thisthe mountain toward him, had encountered a marshy stretch; where, in norht, there was still enough moisture to stay the advance of the red line until the daetation And, in the ht to spread to either side Stopped at the granite-outcrop to the right, it had rolled faster through the herbage to the left

Thus, by the tih for the fla red fire to the left; which encircled a whole flank of the ht upward

Lad knew nothing of this; nor why the advance of the fire's direct line had been so long checked Nor did he know, presu thein all live things within the fla them on in panic, ahead of its advance Perhaps he did not even note the rowth and bra, very speedily, became apparent to him:--

From out a screen of hazel and witch-elm (almost directly in front of the place where the truck, that ht hideous object By sight and by scent Lad knew the creature for his olden foe, the giant black bear

Growling, squealing, a dozen stinging fiery sparks sizzling through his bushy coat, the bear tore his way froe of thicket and out into the open The fire had roused hi lair and had driven him ahead of it with a myriad hornets of flaht of the formidable monster, Lad realized for the first time the full extent of his own helplessness Tethered to a rope which gave him scarce twenty-five inches of leeway, he was in no fit condition to fend off the giant's assault