'sick.' He was mad. Had rabies. I'd ought to know. I--"

"How and why ought you to know?" demanded the Master, still
battling for perfect calm, and succeeding none too well. "How
ought you to know? Are you a veterinary? Have you ever made a
study of dogs and of their maladies? Have you ever read up,
carefully, on the subject of rabies? Have you read Eberhardt or
Dr. Bennett or Skinner or any of a dozen other authorities on the
disease? Have you consulted such eminent vets as Hopper and
Finch, for instance? If you have, you certainly must know that a
dog, afflicted with genuine rabies, will no more turn out of his
way to bite anyone than a typhoid patient will jump out of bed to
chase a doctor. I'm not saying that the bite of any sick animal
(or of any sick human, for that matter) isn't more or less
dangerous; unless it's carefully washed out and painted with
iodine. But that's no excuse to go around the country, shooting
every dog that some sick mongrel has snapped at. Put such dogs
under observation, if necessary; and then--"

"You talk like a fool!" snorted Wefers, in lofty contempt. "I--"

"But I am going to keep you from acting like a fool," returned
the Master, his hard-held temper beginning to fray. "You say
you've come over here to shoot my dog. If ever anyone shoots Lad,
I'll be the man to do it. And I'll have to have lots better
reason for it than--"

"Go ahead, then!" vouchsafed the constable, fishing out a rusty
service pistol from his coat-tail pocket. "Go ahead and do it
yourself, then; if you'd rather. It's all one to me, so long's