CHAPTER V.The Stowaway.
There were but three collies on the Place, in those days.

Lad; his dainty gold-and-white mate, Lady; and their fluffy and fiery wisp of a son, little Wolf.
When Wolf was a spoiled and obstreperous puppy of three months or so, Lady was stricken with distemper and was taken to a veterinary hospital.

There, for something more than three months she was nursed through the scourging malady and through the chorea and pneumonia which are so prone to follow in distemper's dread wake.
Science amuses itself by cutting up and otherwise torturing helpless dogs in the unholy name of vivisection.

But Science has not yet troubled itself to discover one certain cure or preventive for the distemper which yearly robs thousands of homes of their loved canine pets and guards.

Apparently it is pleasanter for scientists to watch a screaming dog writhe under the knife in a research laboratory than to trouble about finding a way to abolish distemper; and thus of ridding the dog world of its worst scourge.
This is a digression from our story.