The noise seemed to their excited ears louder than the crash of artillery.  Nels threw a piece of snow crust.  The dog ran back a few steps, but his barking did not diminish.

“Here, hold the lines.  I’ll try to catch ’im.”  Charlie jumped from the wagon and approached the dog with coaxing words:  “Come, doggie, good doggie, nice boy, come!”

His manoeuvre, however, merely served to increase the animal’s frenzy.  As Charlie approached the dog retired slowly toward the house, his head thrown back, and his rapid barking increased to a long-drawn howl.

“Good boy, come!  Bother the brute!  He’ll wake up the whole household!  Nice doggie!  Phe-e—­”

The noise, however, had no apparent effect upon the occupants of the house.  All remained as dark and silent as ever.

“Sharlie, Sharlie, let him go!” cried Nels, in a voice smothered with laughter.  “Ay go in dose parn; maype ha’ll chase me.”

His hope was well founded.  The dog, observing this treacherous occupation by the enemy of his last harbour of refuge, gave pursuit and disappeared within the door, which Charlie, hard behind him, closed with a bang.  There was the sound of a hurried scuffle within.  The dog’s barking gave place to terrified whinings, which in turn were suddenly quenched to a choking murmur.

“Gome in, Sharlie, kvick!”

“You got him?” queried Charlie, opening the door cautiously.  “Did he bite you?”

“Na, yust ma mitten.  Gat a sack or someding da die him oop in.”

A sack was procured from somewhere, into which the dog, now silenced from sheer exhaustion and fright, was unceremoniously thrust, after which the sack was tied and flung into the wagon.  This formidable obstacle overcome and the Roneys still slumbering peacefully, the rest was easy.  The granary door was pried open and the wheat shovelled hurriedly in upon the empty floor.  Charlie then crept up to the house and slipped his note under the door.

The sack was lifted from the now empty wagon and opened before the barn, whereupon its occupant slipped meekly out and retreated at once to a far corner, seemingly too much incensed at his discourteous treatment even to fling a volley of farewell barks at his departing captors.

“Vell,” remarked Nels, with a sigh of relief as they gained the road, “Ay tank dose Roneys pelieve en Santa Claus now.  Dose peen funny vay fer Santa Claus to coom.”

Charlie’s laugh was good to hear.  “He didn’t exactly come down the chimney, that’s a fact, but it’ll do at a pinch.  We ought to have told them to get a present for the dog—­collar and chain.  I reckon he wouldn’t hardly be thankful for it, though, eh?”

“Ay gass not.  Ha liges ta haf hes nights ta hemself.”

“Well, we had our fun, anyway.  Sort of puts me in mind of old Wisconsin, somehow.”