A stream of people were running down the meadow toward the river. Lad hated crowds. He made a loping detour of the nearest runners and sought to regain the spot where last he had seen the Mistress and Master. Also, if his luck held good, he might have still another bout with the man he had once treed. Which would be an ideal climax to a perfect day.
He found all the objects of his quest together. The groom, hysterical, was swaying on his feet, supported by Glure.
At sight of the advancing collie the bitten man cried aloud in fear and clutched his employer for protection.
"Take him away, sir!" he babbled in mortal terror. "He'll kill me! He hates me, the ugly hairy devil! He hates me. He tried to kill me once before! He——"
"H'm!" mused the Master. "So he tried to kill you once before, eh? Aren't you mistaken?"
"No, I ain't!" wept the man. "I'd know him in a million! That's why he went for me again to-day. He remembered me. I seen he did. That's no dog. It's a devil!"
"Mr. Glure," asked the Master, a light dawning, "when this chap applied to you for work, did he wear grayish tweed trousers? And were they in bad shape?"
"His trousers were in rags," said Glure. "I remember that. He said a savage dog had jumped into the road from a farmhouse somewhere and gone for him. Why?"
"Those trousers," answered the Master, "weren't entire strangers to you. You'd seen the missing parts of them—on a tree and on the ground near it, at The Place. Your 'treasure' is the harness thief Lad treed the day you came to see me. So——"
"Nonsense!" fumed Glure. "Why, how absurd! He——"