The footsteps were coming nearer. They were springy and
rhythmic, the footsteps of a powerful man.

Then came a panting voice out of the darkness

"Oh, there you are!" it exclaimed. "He got away. Got away,
clean. I reached the head of the path, not ten feet behind
him. But, in there, it's so black I couldn't see anything
ahead of me. And I had no light, worse luck! So he--"

A deep-throated growl interrupted him,--a growl so fierce and
menacing that Gavin once more halfparted his eyes, in sudden
curiosity.

From beside his feet, Bobby Burns was rising. The collie had
crouched there, evidently, with some idea of guarding Brice
from further harm. He did not seem to have resented the
woman's ministrations. But he was of no mind to let this man
come any closer to his stricken idol.

Brice was sore tempted to reach out his hand and give the
collie a reassuring pat and to thank him for the loyal guard
he had been keeping. Now, through the mists of memory, he
recalled snarls and the bruising contact of a furry body,
during the battle he so, dimly remembered, and that once his
foe had cried, out, as though at the impact of rending teeth.

Yes, Bobby Burns, presumably, had learned a lesson since his
interested but impersonal surveillance of Gavin's bout with