"Here now, here now, this is county property," said a fat man in shirtsleeves with pink sleeve garters, pushing through the crowd. "What's all this? Take that dog down, somebody!" "Never!" Martha snapped. She put her back against the halyard cleat, unfolded the flag and draped it around herself. A loose strand of gray hair fell across her face. "If you're so big and brave, go bring down the Russian dog," she told the fat man coldly. "Now _listen_, lady," the fat man said. The _Clarion_ press photographer was sprinting across the lawn. * * * * * George Stonery was tall, thin, stooped and anxious in a gray business suit. "I came as soon as I could," he told Sheriff Breen across the scarred, paper-littered wooden desk. "I was away checking one of our warehouses." "You can make bail for her in two minutes, right across the hall," the sheriff said, scratching his jowl. "She wouldn't make it for herself, said we had to lock her in our sputnik." "Where is she now?" "In the sputnik." The desk phone rang and the sheriff growled into it, "Hell you say. State forty-three just past Roy Farm? Right. I s'pose you already heard what we had on the lawn here this morning?" The phone gave forth an excited gobbling. The sheriff's red eyebrows rose in disbelief and his heavy jaw dropped in dismay. He put down the phone. "That was city," he told Stonery. "Complaint about a dog hanging by one leg from a tree just outside city limits. But it's going on all over town too--dogs hanging on trees, out of windows, off clotheslines--every squad car is out. Your old lady sure started something!" "What did she _do_?" Stonery asked in anguish. The sheriff told him. "Kicked a big fat deputy where it hurts, too. Maybe we ought to hold her after all. She says she's president of the United Dogs of something." "United Dames of the Dog," the thin man corrected. "They hold meetings and things. She started it when the Russians put up their second sputnik." "Well, I hope none of them dames lives out in the county," the sheriff said, rising. "You fix up bail, Mr. Stonery. I got to send out a deputy." Walking past the flagpole with her husband, Martha Stonery wore an exalted look. "All over America dogs will cry out in protest against the Russian crime," she said. "I have kindled a flame, George, that will sweep away the Kremlin. I, a weak woman...." She insisted on driving herself home in her new station wagon. * * * * * Sirening police cars passed Stonery three times as he drove home in the evening. Outside the tan stucco ranch-style house on Euclid Avenue, cars blocked the driveway and a crowd milled on the lawn. Stonery parked under the oak tree at the curb and got out.