A collie down is a collie up, in less than a second. But there was still less than a second's space between to overthrown Lady and the car's front wheels. The boy slammed on the emergency brake. Through his mind ran the formless thought of his fate at the hands of his employer when he should return to the store with tidings that he had run over and killed a good customer's costly collie; and on the customer's own grounds. In that single breathless instant, a huge mahogany-and-snow shape flashed forward, into the path of the machine. Lad, following his mate, had tried to shoulder her aside and to herd her too far back from the drive for any possible return to the danger zone, until the car should have passed. More than once, at other times, had he done this. But, today, she had eluded his mighty shoulder and had flung herself back to the assault. As she fell, she rolled over, twice, from her own momentum. The second revolution left her directly in front of the skidding wheels. One of them had actually touched her squirming spine; when white teeth gripped her by the scruff of the neck. Those teeth could crush a mutton-bone as a child cracks a peanut. But, on Lady, today, their power was exerted only to the extent of lifting her, in one swift wrench, clear of the ground and high in air. The mischievous collie flew through space like a lithe mass of golden fluff; and came to earth, in a heap, at the edge of the drive; well clear of the menacing wheels. With Lad, it fared otherwise. The great dog had braced himself, with all his might, for the muscle-wrenching heave. Wherefore, he had no chance to spring clear, in time to avoid the car. This, no doubt, he had realized, when he sprang to his adored mate's rescue. For Lad's brain was uncanny in its cleverness. That same cleverness, more likely than mere chance,--now came to his own aid. The left front wheel struck him and struck him fair. It hit his massive shoulder, dislocating the joint and knocking the eighty-pound dog prone to earth, his ruff within an inch of the wheel. There was no time to gather his feet under him or to coerce the dislocated shoulder into doing its share toward lifting him in a sideways spring that should carry him out of the machine's way. There was but one thing Lad could do. And he did it. His body in a compact bunch, he rolled midway between the wheels; making the single revolution at a speed the eye could scarce follow,--a speed which jerked him from under the impending left wheel which already had smitten him down. Over him slid the wheel-locked car, through the mud of a recent rain; while the boy clung to the emergency brake and yelled. Over him and past him skidded the car. It missed the prostrate dog,--missed him with all four wheels; though the rear axle's housing smeared his snowy ruff with a blur of black grease.