in his trained memory the location of windows and of obstructing
furniture and of the primitive small safe in the living room
wall, with its pitifully pickable lock;--the safe wherein the
Place's few bits of valuable jewelry and other compact treasures
reposed at night.

Lad was tempted to follow the creeping body and the fascinatingly
swinging bag indoors. But his one effort to enter the
house,--with muddy paws,--by way of an open window, had been
rebuked by the Lawgivers. He had been led to understand that
really well-bred little dogs come in by way of the door; and then
only on permission.

So he waited, doubtfully, at the veranda edge; in the hope that
his new friend might reappear or that the Master might perhaps
want to show off his pup to the caller, as so often the Master
was wont to do.

Head cocked to one side, tulip ears alert, Laddie stood
listening. To the keenest human ears the thief's soft progress
across the wide living room to the wall-safe would have been all
but inaudible. But Lad could follow every phase of it; the
cautious skirting of each chair; the hesitant pause as a bit of
ancient furniture creaked; the halt in front of the safe; the
queer grinding noise, muffled but persevering, at the lock; then
the faint creak of the swinging iron door, and the deft groping
of fingers.

Soon, the man started back toward the pale oblong of gloom which
marked the window's outlines from the surrounding black. Lad's