No human, at that distance, could have heard the steps. No dog could have helped hearing them. Had the other dogs been at home instead of at the boarding-kennels, The Place would by this time have been re-echoing with barks. Both scent and sound would have given them ample warning of the stranger's presence. To Lad, on the lower floor of the house, where every window was shut, the aid of scent was denied. Yet his sense of hearing was enough. Plainly, he heard the softly advancing steps--heard and read them. He read them for an intruder's--read them for the steps of a man who was afraid to be heard or seen, and who was employing all the caution in his power. A booming, trumpeting bark of warning sprang into Lad's throat--and died there. The sharp command "_Quiet!_" was still in force. Even in his madness, that day, he had uttered no sound. He strangled back the tumultuous bark and listened in silence. He had risen to his feet and had come out from under the piano. In the middle of the living-room he stood, head lowered, ears pricked. His ruff was abristle. A ridge of hair rose grotesquely from the shaggy mass of coat along his spine. His lips had slipped back from his teeth. And so he stood and waited. The shuffling, soft steps were nearer now. Down through the trees they came, and then onto the springy grass of the lawn. Now they crunched lightly on the gravel of the drive. Lad moved forward a little and again stood at attention. The man was climbing to the veranda. The vines rustled ever so slightly as he brushed past them. His footfall sounded lightly on the veranda itself. Next there was a faint clicking noise at the old-fashioned lock of one of the bay windows. Presently, by half inches, the window began to rise. Before it had risen an inch, Lad knew the trespasser was a negro. Also that it was no one with whose scent he was familiar. Another pause, followed by the very faintest scratching, as the negro ran a knife-blade along the crack of the inner wooden blinds in search of the catch. The blinds parted slowly. Over the window-sill the man threw a leg. Then he stepped down, noiselessly into the room. He stood there a second, evidently listening. And, before he could stir or breathe, something in the darkness hurled itself upon him. Without so much as a growl of warning, eighty pounds of muscular, hairy energy smote the negro full in the chest. A set of hot-breathing jaws flashed for his jugular vein, missed it by a half-inch, and the graze left a red-hot searing pain along the negro's throat. In the merest fraction of a moment, the murderously snapping jaws sank into the thief's shoulder. It is collie custom to fight with a running accompaniment of snarling growls. But Lad did not give voice. In total silence he made his onslaught. In silence, he sought and gained his hold.