It was this undercurrent of sound which put wings on the tired feet of Maclay and the Master, as they dashed up the knoll and into the path leading east from it. It spoke of unpleasant--not to say gruesome--happenings. So did the swift change of the victim's yells from wrath to mortal terror. "Back Lad!" called the Master, pantingly, as he ran. "Back! Let him _alone!_" And as he cried the command he rounded a turn in the wooded path. Prone on the ground, writhing like a cut snake and frantically seeking to guard his throat with his slashed forearm, sprawled Schwartz. Crouching above him--right unwillingly obeying the Master's belated call--was Lad. The dog's great coat was a-bristle. His bared teeth glinted white and blood-flecked in the electric flare. His soft eyes were blazing. "Back!" repeated the Master. "Back here!" Absolute obedience was the first and foremost of The Place's few simple dog-rules. Lad had learned it from earliest puppyhood. The collie, still shaking all over with the effort of repressing his fury, turned slowly and came over to his Master. There he stood stonily awaiting further orders. Maclay was on his knees beside the hysterically moaning German roughly telling him that the dog would do him no more damage, and at the same time making a quick inspection of the injuries wrought by the slashing white fangs in the shielding arm and its shoulder. "Get up!" he now ordered. "You're not too badly hurt to stand. Another minute and he'd have gotten through to your throat, but your clothes saved you from anything worse than a few ugly flesh-cuts. Get up! Stop that yowling and get up!" Schwartz gradually lessened his dolorous plaints under the stern authority of Maclay's exhortations. Presently he sat up nursing his lacerated forearm and staring about him. At sight of Lad he shuddered. And recognizing Maclay he broke into violent and fatly-accented speech. "Take witness, Judge!" he exclaimed. "I watched the barnyard to-night and I saw that schweinhund steal another sheep. I followed him and when he got here he dropped the sheep and went for me. He----" "Very bad, Schwartz!" disgustedly reproved Maclay. "Very bad, indeed. You should have waited a minute longer and thought up a better one. But since this is the yarn you choose to tell, we'll look about and try to verify it. The sheep, for instance--the one you say Lad carried all the way here and then dropped to attack you. I seem to have heard a sheep bleating a few moments ago. Several sheep in fact. We'll see if we can't find the one Lad stole." Schwartz jumped nervously to his feet. "Stay where you are!" Maclay bade him. "We won't bother a tired and injured man to help in our search." Turning to the Master, he added: "I suppose one of us will have to stand guard over him while the other one hunts up the sheep. Shall I----" "Neither of us need do that," said the Master. "Lad!" The collie started eagerly forward, and Schwartz started still more eagerly backward.