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“They may have more nerve than I,” he soliloquized, “and I don’t say they have not; but they can have all the credit and rewards they want, and I’ll be satisfied to stay just where I am.”

At seven he saw the four riders coming back dejectedly, and without the dog. As they passed his room he heard one of the men ask if Van Bibber had got back yet, and another say yes, he had, as he had left the cart in the stable, but that one of the servants had said that he had started out again on foot.

“He has, has he?” said the voice. “Well, he’s got sporting blood, and he’ll need to keep it at fever heat if he expects to live. I’m frozen so that I can’t bend my fingers.”

Van Bibber smiled, and moved comfortably in the big chair; he had dozed a little, and was feeling very contented. At half-past seven he began to dress, and at five minutes to eight he was ready for dinner and stood looking out of the window at the moonlight on the white lawn below. The snow had stopped falling, and everything lay quiet and still as though it were cut in marble. And then suddenly across the lawn, came a black, bedraggled object on four legs, limping painfully, and lifting its feet as though there were lead on them.

“Great heavens!” cried Van Bibber, “it’s the dog!” He was out of the room in a moment and down into the hall. He heard the murmur of voices in the drawing-room, and the sympathetic tones of the women who were pitying the men. Van Bibber pulled on his overshoes and a great-coat that covered him from his ears to his ankles, and dashed out into the snow. The dog had just enough spirit left to try and dodge him, and with a leap to one side went off again across the lawn. It was, as Van Bibber knew, but three minutes to eight o’clock, and have the dog he must and would. The collie sprang first to one side and then to the other, and snarled and snapped; but Van Bibber was keen with the excitement of the chase, so he plunged forward recklessly and tackled the dog around the body, and they both rolled over and over together. Then Van Bibber scrambled to his feet and dashed up the steps and into the drawing-room just as the people were in line for dinner, and while the minute-hand stood at a minute to eight o’clock.

“How is this?” shouted Van Bibber, holding up one hand and clasping the dog under his other arm.

Miss Arnett flew at the collie and embraced it, wet as it was, and ruined her gown, and all the men glanced instinctively at the clock and said:

“You’ve won, Van.”

“But you must be frozen to death,” said Miss Arnett, looking up at him with gratitude in her eyes.

“Yes, yes,” said Van Bibber, beginning to shiver. “I’ve had a terrible long walk, and I had to carry him all the way. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go change my things.”

He reappeared again in a suspiciously short time for one who had to change outright, and the men admired his endurance and paid up the bet.

“Where did you find him, Van?” one of them asked.

“Oh, yes,” they all chorused. “Where was he?”

“That,” said Mr. Van Bibber, “is a thing known to only two beings, Duncan and myself. Duncan can’t tell, and I won’t. If I did, you’d say I was trying to make myself out clever, and I never boast about the things I do.”