And, nervous at the great collie's approach, the girl
squealed.
It had been a dull morning for Lad. The Mistress was in town for
the day. The Master was shut up in his study, hard at work. And,
for once, he had not remembered to call Lad to a resting place on
the study rug; before closing the door on the outside world.
Alone and bored, the collie had wandered into the woods; in quest
of possible rabbits to chase or squirrels to tree. Finding the
sport tame, he started homeward. Midway down the drive, his
supersensitive nostrils caught the whiff of alien humans on the
Place. At the same time, he heard the raucous gabbling of several
voices. Though his near-sighted eyes did not yet show the
intruders to him, yet scent and sound made it ridiculously easy
for him to trace them.
From early puppyhood, Lad had been the official guardian of the
Place. He knew the limits of its thirty acres; from lake to
highroad; from boundary fence to boundary fence. He knew, too,
that visitors must not be molested as long as they were on the
driveway; but that no stranger might be allowed to cross the
land, by any other route; or to trespass on lawn or oak-grove.
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