The Master, sketchily attired, came running down the lawn,
flashlight in hand. Past him, unnoticed, as he sped toward the
ditch, a collie pup limped;--a very unhappy and comfort-seeking
puppy who carried in his mouth a blood-spattered brown bag.

"It doesn't make sense to me!" complained the Master, next day,
as he told the story for the dozenth time, to a new group of
callers. "I heard the shots and I went out to investigate. There
he was lying, half in and half out of the ditch. The fellow was
unconscious. He didn't get his senses back till after the police
came. Then he told some babbling yarn about a creature that had
stolen his bag of loot and that had lured him to the ditch. He
was all unnerved and upset, and almost out of his head with pain.
So the police had little enough trouble in 'sweating' him. He
told everything he knew. And there's a wholesale round-up of the
motor-robbery bunch going on this afternoon as a result of it.
But what I can't understand--"

"It's as clear as day," insisted the Mistress, stroking a silken
head that pressed lovingly against her knee. "As clear as day. I
was standing in the doorway here when Laddie came pattering up to
me and laid a little satchel at my feet. I opened it, and well,
it had everything of value in it that had been in the safe over
there. That and the thief's story make it perfectly plain. Laddie
caught the man as he was climbing out of that window. He got the
bag away from him; and the man chased him, firing as he went. And
he stumbled into the ditch and--"

"Nonsense!" laughed the Master. "I'll grant all you say about
Lad's being the most marvelous puppy on earth. And I'll even