In obedience to the sharp command, Lad loosed his grip and dropped to the floor--where he stood quivering with leashed fury. Through the rage-mists that swirled over his brain, he knew he had broken the Law. He had never merited punishment. He did not fear it. But the Master's tone of fierce disapproval cut the sensitive dog soul more painfully than any scourge could have cut his body. "Lad!" cried the Master again, in rebuking amazement. The dog turned, walked slowly over to the Master and lay down at his feet. The Master, without another word, opened the front door and pointed outward. Lad rose and slunk out. He had been ordered from the house, and in a stranger's presence! "He thinks I'm responsible for his losing Lady," said the vet', looking ruefully at his torn sleeve. "That's why he went for me. I don't blame the dog. Don't lick him." "I'm not going to lick him," growled the Master. "I'd as soon thrash a woman. Besides, I've just punished him worse than if I'd taken an ax-handle to him. Send me a bill for your coat." In late December came a thaw--a freak thaw that changed the white ground to brown mud and rotted the smooth surface of the lake-ice to gray slush. All day and all night the trees and the eaves sent forth a dreary _drip-drip-drip_. It was the traditional January Thaw--set forward a month. On the third and last morning of the thaw Wolf galloped down to the lake as usual. Lad jogged along at his side. As they reached the margin, Lad sniffed and drew back. His weird sixth sense somehow told him--as it tells an elephant--that there was danger ahead. Wolf, however, was at the stage of extreme youth when neither dogs nor humans are bothered by premonitions. Ahead of him stretched the huge sheet of ice whereon he loved to gambol. Straightway he frisked out upon it. A rough growl of warning from Lad made him look back, but the lure of the ice was stronger than the call of duty. The current, at this point of the lake, twisted sharply landward in a half-circle. Thus, for a few yards out, the rotting ice was still thick, but where the current ran, it was thin, and as soggy as wet blotting-paper--as Wolf speedily discovered. He bounded on the thinner ice driving his hind claws into the slushy surface for his second leap. He was dismayed to find that the ice collapsed under the pounding feet. There was a dull, sloppy sound. A ten-foot ice-cake broke off from the main sheet; breaking at once into a dozen smaller cakes; and Wolf disappeared, tail first, into the swift-running water beneath.