Of a sudden, the mongrel growled in savage triumph. The strap was bitten through! Clinging to the broken end of the leather the victor gave one final tug. The pull drove the steel bars excruciatingly deep into Lad's bruised nose for a moment. Then, by magic, the torture-implement was no longer on his head but was dangling by one strap between the muzzled mongrel's jaws. With a motion so swift that the eye could not follow it, Lad was on his feet and plunging deliriously into the fray. Through a miracle, his jaws were free; his torment was over. The joy of deliverance sent a glow of Berserk vigor sweeping through him. The mongrel dropped the muzzle and came eagerly to the battle. To his dismay he found himself fighting not a helpless dog, but a maniac wolf. Lad sought no permanent hold. With dizzying quickness his head and body moved--and kept moving, and every motion meant a deep slash or a ragged tear in his enemy's short-coated hide. With ridiculous ease the collie eluded the mongrel's awkward counter-attacks, and ever kept boring in. To the quivering bone his short front teeth sank. Deep and bloodily his curved tusks slashed--as the wolf and the collie alone can slash. The mongrel, swept off his feet, rolled howling into the road; and Lad tore grimly at the exposed under-body. Up went a window in the hovel. A man's voice shouted. A woman in a house across the way screamed. Lad glanced up to note this new diversion. The stricken mongrel yelping in terror and agony seized the second respite to scamper back to the doorstep, howling at every jump. Lad did not pursue him, but jogged along on his journey without one backward look. At a rivulet, a mile beyond, he stopped to drink. And he drank for ten minutes. Then he went on. Unmuzzled and with his thirst slaked, he forgot his pain, his fatigue, his muddy and blood-caked and abraded coat, and the memory of his nightmare day. He was going home! At gray dawn the Mistress and the Master turned in at the gateway of The Place. All night they had sought Lad; from one end of Manhattan Island to the other--from Police Headquarters to dog pound--they had driven. And now the Master was bringing his tired and heartsore wife home to rest, while he himself should return to town and to the search. The car chugged dispiritedly down the driveway to the house, but before it had traversed half the distance the dawn-hush was shattered by a thundrous bark of challenge to the invaders. Lad, from his post of guard on the veranda, ran stiffly forward to bar the way. Then as he ran his eyes and nose suddenly told him these mysterious newcomers were his gods. The Mistress, with a gasp of rapturous unbelief, was jumping down from the car before it came to a halt. On her knees, she caught Lad's muddy and bloody head tight in her arms. "Oh, Lad;" she sobbed incoherently. "Laddie! _Laddie!_"