"You say this happened last night?" interposed the Mistress.
"Yes, it did. Last night an' early in the mornin', too. Schwartz, here——"
"But Lad sleeps in the house, every night," objected the Mistress. "He sleeps under the piano, in the music room. He has slept there every night since he was a puppy. The maid who dusts the downstairs rooms before breakfast lets him out, when she begins work. So he——"
"Bolster it up any way you like!" broke in Romaine. "He was out last night, all right. An' early this morning, too."
"How early?" questioned the Master.
"Five o'clock," volunteered Schwartz, speaking up, from behind his employer. "I know, because that's the time I get up. I went out, first thing, to open the barnyard gate and drive the sheep to the pasture. First thing I saw was that big dog growling over a sheep he'd just killed. He saw me, and he wiggled out through the barnyard bars—same way he had got in. Then I counted the sheep. One was dead,—the one he had just killed—and three were gone. We've been looking for their bodies ever since, and we can't find them."
"I suppose Lad swallowed them," ironically put in The Place's foreman. "That makes about as much sense as the rest of the yarn. The Old Dog would no sooner——"
"Do you really mean to say you saw Lad—saw and recognized him—in Mr. Titus's barnyard, growling over a sheep he had just killed?" demanded the Mistress.
"I sure do," affirmed Schwartz. "And I——"
"An' he's ready to go on th' stand an' take oath to it!" supplemented Titus. "Unless you'll pay me the damages out of court. Them sheep cost me exac'ly $12.10 a head, in the Pat'son market, one week ago. An' sheep on the hoof has gone up a full forty cents more since then. You owe me for them four sheep exac'ly——"