"Those trousers," answered the Master, "weren't entire strangers to you. You'd seen the missing parts of them--on a tree and on the ground near it, at The Place. Your 'treasure' is the harness thief Lad treed the day you came to see me. So----" "Nonsense!" fumed Glure. "Why, how absurd! He----" "I hadn't stolen nothing!" blubbered the man. "I was coming cross-lots to a stable to ask for work. And the brute went for me. I had to run up a tree and----" "And it didn't occur to you to shout for help?" sweetly urged the Master. "I was within call. So was Mr. Glure. So was at least one of my men. An honest seeker for work needn't have been afraid to halloo. A thief would have been afraid to. In fact, a thief _was!_" "Get out of here, you!" roared Glure, convinced at last. "You measly sneak thief! Get out or I'll have you jailed! You're an imposter! A pan-handler! A----" The thief waited to hear no more. With an apprehensive glance to see that Lad was firmly held, he bolted for the road. "Thanks for telling me," said Glure. "He might have stolen everything at Glure Towers if I hadn't found out. He----" "Yes. He might even have stolen more than the cost of our non-utilitarian Lad's keep," unkindly suggested the Master. "For that matter, if it hadn't been for a non-utilitarian dog, that mad bull's horns, instead of his nostrils, would be red by this time. At least one man would have been killed. Perhaps more. So, after all----" He stopped. The Mistress was tugging surreptitiously at his sleeve. The Master, in obedience to his wife's signal, stepped aside, to light a cigar. "I wouldn't say any more, dear, if I were you," the Mistress was whispering. "You see, if it hadn't been for Lad, the bull would never have broken loose in the first place. By another half-hour that fact may dawn on Mr. Glure, if you keep rubbing it in. Let's go over to the grand stand. Come, Lad!" CHAPTER X THE KILLER One of the jolliest minutes in Lad's daily cross-country tramp with the Mistress and the Master was his dash up Mount Pisgah. This "mount" was little more than a foothill. It was treeless, and covered with short grass and mullein; a slope where no crop but buckwheat could be expected to thrive. It rose out of the adjoining mountain forests in a long and sweeping ascent. Here, with no trees or undergrowth to impede him, Lad, from puppyhood, had ordained a racecourse of his own. As he neared the hill he would always dash forward at top speed; flying up the rise like a tawny whirlwind, at unabated pace, until he stopped, panting and gloriously excited, on the summit; to await his slower-moving human escorts.