On his return tour of the lake edge he saw the skiff again. It had shifted its direction and was now barely ten feet off shore—so near to the bank that one of the oars occasionally grated on the pebbly bottom. The oarsman was looking intently toward the house.
Wolf paused, uncertain. The average watchdog, his attention thus attracted, would have barked. But Wolf knew the lake was public property. Boats were often rowed as close to shore as this without intent to trespass. It was not the skiff that caught Wolf's attention as he paused there on the brink, it was the man's furtive scrutiny of the house.
A pale flare of heat-lightning turned the world, momentarily, from jet black to a dim sulphur-color. The boatman saw Wolf standing, alert and suspicious, among the lakeside grasses, not ten feet away. He started slightly, and a soft, throaty growl from the dog answered him.
The man seemed to take the growl as a challenge, and to accept it. He reached into his pocket and drew something out. When the next faint glow of lightning illumined the shore, the man lifted the thing he had taken from his pocket and hurled it at Wolf.
With all the furtive swiftness bred in his wolf-ancestry, the dog shrank to one side, readily dodging the missile, which struck the lawn just behind him. Teeth bared in a ferocious snarl, Wolf dashed forward through the shallow water toward the skiff.
But the man apparently had had enough of the business. He rowed off with long strokes into deep water, and, once there, he kept on rowing until distance and darkness hid him.
Wolf stood, chest deep in water, listening to the far-off oar-strokes until they died away. He was not fool enough to swim in pursuit; well knowing that a swimming dog is worse than helpless against a boatman.
Moreover, the intruder had been scared away. That was all which concerned Wolf. He turned back to shore. His vigil was ended for another few hours. It was time to take up his nap where he had left off.
Before he had taken two steps, his sensitive nostrils were full of the scent of raw meat. There, on the lawn ahead of him, lay a chunk of beef as big as a fist. This, then, was what the boatman had thrown at him!
Wolf pricked up his ears in appreciation, and his brush began to vibrate. Trespassers had once or twice tried to stone him, but this was the first time any of them had pelted him with delicious raw beef. Evidently, Lad and Bruce were not the only collies on The Place to receive prizes that day.