the tool-house. Its sill was a full five feet above ground. Its
four small panes were separated by a wide old-fashioned
cross-piece of hardwood and putty. The putty, from age, was as
solid as cement. The whole window was a bare sixteen by twenty
inches.

Lad ran back, once more, a few feet; his gaze fixed appraisingly
on the window and measuring his distance with the sureness of a
sharpshooter.

The big collie had made up his mind. His plan was formed. And as
he was all-wise, with the eerie wisdom of the highest type of
collie, there can be scant doubt he knew just what that plan
entailed.

It was suicide. But, oh, it was a glorious suicide! Compared to
it the love-sacrifices of a host of Antonys and Abelards and
Romeos are but petty things. Indeed, its nearest approach in real
life was perhaps Moore's idiotically beautiful boast

Through the fiery furnace your steps I'll pursue;
To find you and save you:--or perish there, too!

The great dog gathered himself for the insane hero-deed. His
shaggy body whizzed across the scarlet pattern of embers; then
shot into the air. Straight as a flung spear he flew; hurtling
through the flame-fringed billows of smoke.

Against the shut window he crashed, with the speed of a catapult.
Against it he crashed; and clean through it, into the hell of