There was something half-laughable,
half-pathetic, in his air of strained interest.
Only when the Mistress and the Master both chanced to leave the
car at the same time, at market or bank or postoffice, would Lad
cease from this genial and absorbed inspection of everything in
sight. Left alone in the machine, he always realized at once that
he was on guard. Head on paws he would lie, intently scanning
anyone who might chance to pause near the auto; and, with a glint
of curved white fang beneath sharply upcurled lip, warning away
such persons as ventured too close.
Marketing done, today, the trio from the Place started homeward.
Less than a quarter-mile from their own gateway, they heard the
blaring honk of a motor horn behind them.
Within a second thereafter, a runabout roared past, the cut-out
making echoes along the still road; and a poisonously choking
cloud of dust whirling aloft in the speedster's wake.
The warning honk had not given the Mistress time to turn out.
Luckily she was driving well on her own side of the none-too-wide
road. As it was, a sharp little jar gave testimony to the light
touch of mudguards.
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