Nose to ground, Lad set off to trace the smell to its source. Strong as it was, it grew stronger and fresher at every step. Even a mongrel puppy could have followed it. Oblivious to all else, Lad broke into a canter; nose still close to earth; pleasurably excited and keenly inquisitive. He ran along the private road for perhaps a hundred yards. Then, he wheeled in at another paved walk and ran up a low flight of veranda steps. The front door of a house stood invitingly open to the cool air of the morning. In through the doorway went Lad; unheeding the gobbling call of a maid-servant who was sweeping the far end of the veranda. Lad did not know he was committing trespass. To him an open door had always meant permission to enter. And the enticingly rank scent was tenfold stronger indoors than out. Across a hallway he trotted, still sniffing; and up a flight of stairs leading to the second story of the house. At the stairhead, a room door stood wide. And into this room led the odor. Lad went in. He was in a large and sunlit room; but in the most disorderly room he had ever set eyes on. The room needed airing, too. For all its four windows were closed, except one which was open for perhaps six inches from the top. Lad circled the room, twice; from door to windows, and thence to center table and around the walls; pausing at one window sill and again at the threshold; picking his way daintily over heaps of litter on the floor. Yes, the room was full of the scent. But, whence the scent emanated, Lad could not, for the life of him, tell. The room gave him no clew. And, after a few minutes of futile investigation, he turned to depart. At the stairhead, he came upon the same servant he had seen sweeping the veranda. She cried: "Shoo!" at him and brandished her broom. Lad, in offended dignity, stalked past her and out of the house. His quest having proven vain, he betook himself to the Harmons', arriving there as the Mistress and the Master emerged upon the veranda in company with their hosts. In wild delight, Lad scampered up to the Mistress; his whole stately body wriggling in eager welcome, his tiny white forepaws patting at her feet, his muzzle thrusting itself into her cupped hand. "Why, Lad!" she cried. "Laddie! We were so worried about you. They just phoned from the kennels that you had gotten away. I might have known you'd find your way to us. We--" She got no further. Up the walk, from the road, came running an apoplectically red and puffing man of late middle age;--a man whose face bore traces of lather; and who was swathed in a purple bathrobe. Flapping slippers ill-covered his sockless feet. The Master recognized the fast-advancing newcomer. He recognized him from many pictures in newspapers and magazines.