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!"
Whereat, by another miracle, Lad's stiffness and hurts and weariness were gone. He strove to lick the dear face bending so tearfully above him. Then, with an abandon of puppylike joy, he rolled on the ground waving all four soiled little feet in the air and playfully pretending to snap at the loving hands that caressed him.
Which was ridiculous conduct for a stately and full-grown collie. But Lad didn't care, because it made the Mistress stop crying and laugh. And that was what Lad most wanted her to do.