This collie, wearying of the delay and the loneliness and the strange quarters, had begun to plunge from one side of the crate to the other in an effort to break out.  A carelessly nailed slat gave away under the impact.  The dog scrambled through the gap and proceeded to gallop homeward through the snow.

Ten seconds later, Lass, drawn by the lights and by the scent of the other dog, came to the crate.  She looked in.  There, made to order for her, was a nice bed.  There, too, were food and drink to appease the ever-present appetite of a puppy.  Lass writhed her way in through the gap as easily as the former occupant had crawled out.

After doing due justice to the broken puppy biscuits in the inset-trough, she curled herself up for a nap.

The clangor and glare of the oncoming express awakened her.  She cowered in one corner of the crate.  Just then two station-hands began to move the express packages out to the edge of the platform.  One of them noticed the displaced board of the crate.  He drove home its loosened nails with two sharp taps from a monkey-wrench, glanced inside to make certain the dog had not gotten out, and presently hoisted the crate aboard the express-car.

Two hours later the crate was unloaded at a waystation.  At seven in the morning an expressman drove two miles with it to a country-home, a mile or so from the village where Lass had been disembarked from the train.

An eager knot of people—­the Mistress, the Master and two gardeners—­crowded expectantly around the crate as it was set down on the lawn in front of The Place’s veranda.  The latch was unfastened, and the crate’s top was lifted back on its hinges.

Out stepped Lass,—­tired, confused, a little frightened, but eagerly willing to make friends with a world which she still insisted on believing was friendly.  It is hard to shake a collie pup’s inborn faith in the friendliness of mankind, but once shaken, it is more than shaken.  It is shattered beyond hope of complete mending.

For an instant she stood thus, looking in timid appeal from one to another of the faces about her.  These faces were blank enough as they returned her gaze.  The glad expectancy was wiped from them as with a sponge.  It was the Master who first found voice.

“And that’s Rothsay Princess!” he snorted indignantly.  “That’s the pup worth two hundred dollars at eight months, ’because she has every single good point of Champion Rothsay Chief and not a flaw from nostril to tail-tip’!  Rothsay wrote those very words about her, you remember.  And he’s supposed to be the most dependable man in the collie business!  Lord!  She’s undersized—­no bigger than a five monther!  And she’s prick-eared and apple-domed; and her head’s as wide as a church door!”

Apparently these humans were not glad to see her.  Lass was grieved at their cold appraisal and a little frightened by the Master’s tone of disgust.  Yet she was eager, as ever, to make a good impression and to lure people into liking her.  Shyly she walked up to the Mistress and laid one white little paw on her knee.