"That's one of the speed-idiots who make an automobile an insult to everybody except its owner! The young fool!" stormed the Master, glowering impotently at the other car, already a hundred yards ahead; and at the back of its one occupant, a sportily-clad youth in the early twenties. A high-pitched yelping bark,--partly of dismay, partly of warning,--from Lad, broke in on the Master's fuming remonstrance. The big dog had sprung up from his rear seat cushion and, with forepaws gripping the back of the front seat, he was peering forward; his head and shoulders between the Mistress and the Master. Never before in all his rides had Lad so transgressed the rules of motoring behavior as to thrust himself forward like this. A word of rebuke died on the Master's tongue; as the Mistress, with a gasp of fear, pointed ahead, in the path of the speeding runabout. Lady and Wolf had had a jolly gallop through the summer woodlands. And at last they had turned their faces homeward; for the plunge in the cool lake which was wont to follow a hot weather run. Side by side they jogged along, to the forest edge--and into the sixteen-acre meadow that stretches from forest to highway. A few rods on the far side of the road which separated the meadow from the rest of the Place, Wolf paused to investigate a chipmunk hole. Lady was more interested just then in splashing her hot body in the chill of the lake than in exploring for hypothetical chipmunks. Moreover, her keen ears caught a sound which rapidly swept nearer and nearer. A motor-car with the muffler cut out was approaching, at a most gratifyingly high speed. The noise was as martial music to Lady. The speed promised exhilarating sport. Her trot merged into a headlong run; and she dashed out into the road. The runabout was a bare fifty yards ahead of her, and it was coming on with a speed which shook even Lady's excitement-craving nerves. Here, evidently, was a playmate which it would be safer to chase than to confront head-on. It was at this juncture, by the way, that Lad lurched forward from the rear seat and that the Mistress pointed in terror at the endangered collie. Lady, for once overawed by speed, leaped to one side of the road. Not far, but leaving ample space for the driver to miss her by at least a yard. He had honked loudly, at sight of her. But, he had abated not an atom of his fifty-mile-an-hour pace. Whether the man was rattled by the collie's antics,--whether he acted in sudden rage at her for startling him, whether he belonged to the filthy breed of motorist who recites chucklingly the record of his kills,--he did not hold his midroad course. Instead,--still without checking speed,--he veered his machine slightly to the right; aiming the flying juggernaut directly at the mischievously-poised little collie who danced in imagined safety at the road-edge. The rest was horror.