Locomotive engineers say a cow on a track is far less perilous to an oncoming train than is a pig. The former can be lifted, by the impact, and flung to one side. A pig, oftener than not, derails the engine. Standing with the bulk of its weight close to the ground, it is well-nigh as bad an obstacle to trains as would be a boulder of the same size. Lad had never met any engineers. But he had identically their opinion of pigs. In all his long life, the great collie had never known fear. At least, he never had yielded to it. Wherefore, in the autumns, he had attacked with gay zest such of Titus Romaine's swine as had found their way through the fence. But, nowadays, there was little enough of gay zest about anything Laddie did. For he was old;--very, very old. He had passed the fourteenth milestone. In other words, he was as old for a dog as is an octogenarian for a man. Almost imperceptibly, but to his indignant annoyance, age had crept upon the big dog; gradually blurring his long clean lines; silvering his muzzle and eyebrows; flecking his burnished mahogany coat with stipples of silver; spreading to greater size the absurdly small white forepaws which were his one gross vanity; dulling a little the preternaturally keen hearing and narrowing the vision. Yes, Lad was old. And he was a bit unwieldy from weight and from age. No longer could he lead Wolf and Bruce in the forest rabbit chases. Wherefore he stayed at home, for the most part and seldom strayed far from the Mistress and the Master whom he worshiped. Moreover, he deputed the bulk of trespass-repelling to his fiery little son, Wolf; and to the graver and sweeter Bruce;--"Bruce, the Beautiful." Which brings us by needfully prosy degrees to a morning, when two marauders came to the Place at the same time, if by different routes. They could not well have come at a more propitious time, for themselves; nor at a worse time for those whose domain they visited. Bruce and Wolf had trotted idly off to the forest, back of the Place, for a desultory ramble in quest of rabbits or squirrels. This they had done because they were bored. For, the Mistress and the Master had driven over for the morning mail; and Lad had gone with them, as usual. Had it been night, instead of morning, neither Wolf nor Bruce would have stirred a step from the grounds. For both were trained watchdogs, But, thus early in the day, neither duty nor companionship held them at home. And the autumn woods promised a half-hour of mild sport. The superintendent and his helpers were in the distant "upper field," working around the roots of some young fruit trees. But for the maids, busy indoors, the Place was deserted of human or canine life. Thus, luck was with the two intruders.