"And then I'll go back and raise a search party." He came to a bewildered stop.

Fainter and more indistinguishable had Lad's floundering tracks become.

Now,--by dint of distance and snow,--they ceased to be visible in the welter of drifted whiteness under the glare of the Master's flashlight.
"This means a search-party," decided the man.
And he turned homeward, to telephone for a posse of neighbors.
Lad, being only a dog, had no such way of sharing his burden.

He had been told to find the child.

And his simple code of life and of action left him no outlet from doing his duty; be that duty irksome or easy.
So he kept on.