By this time the ugly brute was trying to get at the man, growling, and
snarling savagely. Crosby complacently looked on from his place of
safety for a moment, and was on the point of turning away when his
attention was caught by a new move on the part of the dog. The animal
ceased his violent efforts to get through the gate, turned about
deliberately, and raced from view behind the horse stalls. Crosby
brought himself up with a jerk.

"Thunder," he ejaculated; "the brute knows a way to get at me, and he
won't be long about it, either. What the dickens shall I--by George,
this looks serious! He'll head me off at the door if I try to get out
and--Ah, the fire-escape! We'll fool you, you brute! What a cursed idiot
I was not to go to the house instead of coming--" He was shinning up a
ladder with little regard for grace as he mumbled this self-condemnatory
remark. There was little dignity in his manner of flight, and there was
certainly no glory in the position in which he found himself a moment
later. But there was a vast amount of satisfaction.

The ladder rested against a beam that crossed the carriage shed near the
middle. The beam was a large one, hewn from a monster tree, and was free
on all sides. The ladder had evidently been left there by men who had
used it recently and had neglected to return it to the hooks on which it
properly hung.

When the dog rushed violently through the door and into the carriage
room, he found a vast and inexplicable solitude. He was, to all
appearances, alone with the vehicles under which he was permitted to
trot when his master felt inclined to grant the privilege.