"Because I know his language as well as he knows mine," retorted the Master. He set off in the wake of the excited dog. The guest followed in more leisurely fashion complaining: "Of all the idiocy! To let a measly dog drag you out of the shade on a red-hot day like this just to look at some dead chipmunk he's found!" "Perhaps," stiffly agreed the Master, not slackening his pace. "But if Lad behaves like that, unless it's pretty well worth while, he's changed a lot in the past hour. A man can do worse sometimes than follow a tip his dog gives him." "Have it your own way," grinned the guest. "Perhaps he may lead us to a treasure cave or to a damsel in distress. I'm with you." "Guy me if it amuses you," said the Master. "It does," his guest informed him. "It amuses me to see any grown man think so much of a dog as you people think of Lad. It's maudlin." "My house is the only one within a mile on this side of the lake that has never been robbed," was the Master's reply. "My stable is the only one in the same radius that hasn't been rifled by harness-and-tire thieves. Thieves who seem to do their work in broad daylight, too, when the stables won't be locked. I have Lad to thank for all that. He----" The dog had darted far ahead. Now he was standing beneath a low-forked hickory tree staring up into it. "He's treed a cat!" guffawed the guest, his laugh as irritating as a kick. "Extra! Come out and get a nice sunstroke, folks! Come and see the cat Lad has treed!" The Master did not answer. There was no cat in the tree. There was nothing visible in the tree. Lad's aspect shrank from hope to depression. He looked apologetically at the Master. Then he began to sniff once more at a scrap of cloth on the ground. The Master picked up the cloth and presently walked over to the tree. From a jut of bark dangled a shred of the same cloth. The Master's hand went to Lad's head in approving caress. "It was not a cat," he said. "It was a man. See the rags of----" "Oh, piffle!" snorted the guest. "Next you'll be reconstructing the man's middle name and favorite perfume from the color of the bark on the tree. You people are always telling about wonderful stunts of Lad's. And that's all the evidence there generally is to it." "No, Mr. Glure," denied the Master, taking a strangle hold on his temper. "No. That's not quite all the evidence that we have for our brag about Lad. For instance, we had the evidence of your own eyes when he herded that flock of stampeded prize sheep for you last spring, and of your own eyes again when he won the 'Gold Hat' cup at the Labor Day Dog Show. No, there's plenty of evidence that Lad is worth his salt. Let it go at that. Shall we get back to the house? It's fairly cool on the veranda. By the way, what was it you wanted me to call Lad for? You asked to see him. And----"