True, it was instinctive with him to bark when People came down
the drive, or appeared at the gates without warning. But more
than once the Master had bidden him be silent when a rackety
Puppy salvo of barking had broken in on the arrival of some
guest. And Lad was still in perplexed doubt as to whether barking
was something forbidden or merely limited.
One night,--a solemn, black, breathless August night, when
half-visible heat lightning turned the murk of the western
horizon to pulses of dirty sulphur, Lad awoke from a fitful dream
of chasing squirrels which had never learned to climb.
He sat up on his rug, blinking around through the gloom in the
half hope that some of those non-climbing squirrels might still
be in sight. As they were not, he sighed unhappily and prepared
to lay his classic young head back again on the rug for another
spell of night-shortening sleep.
But, before his head could touch the rug, he reared it and half
of his small body from the floor and focused his nearsighted eyes
on the driveway. At the same time, his tail began to wag a
thumping welcome.
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