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With a snarl and a whirl the owner of the tail faced her in the low mouth of a cave, his pointed ears flat to his head, his feet spread wide apart, his back dropped, his jaws apart and ready, and round his outstretched neck there stood up in quivering defiance, the broad white ruff of a pure-bred Collie dog!

The girl stared at him with open-mouthed amazement—and at the more astonishing thing which lay along the pebbled earth beneath him—for this was the thin little leg and foot of a small child.

In utter silence and stillness she stood so, her hands on the rock’s top, and for all the length of time that she watched there was not a tremor of the little leg, nor a movement of the dog’s crouching body. The only motion in the tense picture was the ripple of the stream, the quiver of the lips drawn back from the gleaming fangs.

When the tension became unbearable Nance spoke softly.

“Come, boy,” she said, “come—boy—come.”

She ventured a hand across the rock, but the quivering lips drew back a trifle more, the big body crouched a bit lower—and the little bare leg draw out of sight behind the edge of the cave.