By a miracle of luck and skill he crossed Columbus Circle, and came to a standstill on a sidewalk, beside a low gray stone wall. Behind the wall, his nose taught him, lay miles of meadow and wood and lake--Central Park. But the smell of the Park brought him no scent of the Mistress nor of the Master. And it was they--infinitely more than his beloved countryside--that he craved. He ran up the street, on the sidewalk, for a few rods, hesitant, alert, watching in every direction. Then, perhaps seeing a figure, in the other direction, that looked familiar, he dashed at top speed, eastward, for half a block. Then he made a peril-fraught sortie out into the middle of the traffic-humming street, deceived by the look of a passing car. The car was traveling at twenty miles an hour. But, in less than a block, Lad caught up with it. And this, in spite of the many things he had to dodge, and the greasy slipperiness of the unfamiliar roadway. An upward glance, as he came alongside the car, told him his chase was in vain. And he made his precarious way to the sidewalk once more. There he stood, bewildered, heartsick--lost! Yes, he was lost. And he realized it--realized it as fully as would a city-dweller snatched up by magic and set down amid the trackless Himalayas. He was lost. And Horror bit deep into his soul. The average dog might have continued to waste energy and risk life by galloping aimlessly back and forth, running hopefully up to every stranger he met; then slinking off in scared disappointment and searching afresh. Lad was too wise for that. He was lost. His adored Mistress had somehow left him; as had the Master; in this bedlam place--all alone. He stood there, hopeless, head and tail adroop, his great heart dead within him. Presently he became aware once more that he was still wearing his abominable muzzle. In the stress of the past few minutes Lad had actually forgotten the pain and vexation of the thing. Now, the memory of it came back, to add to his despair. And, as a sick animal will ever creep to the woods and the waste places for solitude, so the soul-sick Lad now turned from the clangor and evil odors of the street to seek the stretch of country-land he had scented. Over the gray wall he sprang, and came earthward with a crash among the leafless shrubs that edged the south boundary of Central Park. Here in the Park there were people and lights and motor-cars, too, but they were few, and they were far off. Around the dog was a grateful darkness and aloneness. He lay down on the dead grass and panted. The time was late February. The weather of the past day or two had been mild. The brown-gray earth and the black trees had a faint odor of slow-coming spring, though no nostrils less acute than a dog's could have noted it.