That was all Lad knew or cared.

They had come back for him.

His horrible vigil and loneliness and his deadly peril were ended.
Too insanely happy to note where he was treading, he sprang into the very center of the belt of smoldering coals.

His tiny white forefeet--drenched with icy water--did not remain among them long enough to feel pain.

In two more bounds he had cleared the barrier and was dancing in crazy excitement around the Mistress and the Master; patting at them with his scorched feet; licking their eagerly caressing hands; "talking" in a dozen different keys of rapture, his whimpers and growls and gurgles running the entire gamut of long-pent-up emotions.
His coat and his feet had, for hours, been immersed in the cold water of the lake.