"I'll explain it before we start," promised the Master. "All I want, now, is for you to commit yourself to the scheme. If it fails, you won't lose anything, except your sleep. Thanks for saying you'll come." At a little after ten o'clock that night the last light in Titus Romaine's farmhouse went out. A few moments later the Master got up from a rock on Mount Pisgah's summit, on which he and Maclay had been sitting for the past hour. Lad, at their feet, rose expectantly with them. "Come on, old Man," said the Master. "We'll drop down there, now. It probably means a long wait for us. But it's better to be too soon than too late; when I've got so much staked. If we're seen, you can cut and run. Lad and I will cover your retreat and see you aren't recognized. Steady, there, Lad. Keep at heel." Stealthily the trio made their way down the hill to the farmstead at its farther base. Silently they crept along the outer fringe of the home-lot, until they came opposite the black-gabled bulk of the barn. Presently, their slowly cautious progress brought them to the edge of the barnyard, and to the rail fence which surrounds it. There they halted. From within the yard, as the huddle of drowsy sheep caught the scent of the dog, came a slight stirring. But, after a moment, the yard was quiet again. "Get that?" whispered the Master, his mouth close to Maclay's ear. "Those sheep are supposed to have been raided by a killer-dog, for the past two nights. Yet the smell of a dog doesn't even make them bleat. If they had been attacked by _any_ dog, last night, the scent of Lad would throw them into a panic." "I get something else, too," replied Maclay, in the same all-but soundless whisper. "And I'm ashamed I didn't think of it before. Romaine said the dog wriggled into the yard through the bars, and out again the same way. Well, if those bars were wide enough apart for an eighty-pound collie, like Lad, to get through, what would there be to prevent all these sheep from escaping, the same way, any time they wanted to? I'll have a look at those bars before I pass judgment on the case. I begin to be glad you and your wife coerced me into this adventure." "Of course, the sheep could have gotten through the same bars that the dog did," answered the Master. "For, didn't Romaine say the dog not only got through, but dragged three dead sheep through, after him, each night, and hid them somewhere, where they couldn't be found? No man would keep sheep in a pen as open as all that. The entire story is full of air-holes." Lad, at a touch from his Master, had lain softly down at the men's feet, beside the fence. And so, for another full hour, the three waited there. The night was heavily overcast; and, except for the low drone of distant tree-toads and crickets, it was deathly silent. Heat lightning, once in a while, played dimly along the western horizon.