Chap­ter VIII: In Strange Com­pa­ny begins not with excite­ment, but with a peace­ful jour­ney into the qui­et beau­ty of the Ramapo Moun­tains. Lad accom­pa­nies the Mis­tress and Mas­ter on a camp­ing trip, eager and alert, even in his old­er years. The seren­i­ty of the wild does not dull his senses—it sharp­ens them. As the fam­i­ly pre­pares to leave camp, an unin­ten­tion­al over­sight leaves Lad tied near a tree, over­looked amid the bus­tle. He waits calm­ly, trust­ing that they will return, his gaze steady on the trail. Hours pass, and the air grows uneasy with the scent of dan­ger on the wind.

From a dis­tant ridge, smoke curls upward, dark and fast-mov­ing, pushed by dry heat and strong gusts. Animals—silent wit­ness­es to the mountain’s shift—begin to flee past Lad in des­per­ate herds, dri­ven by the fire’s cru­el approach. Squir­rels, deer, and even fox­es stream toward the lake, their pan­ic bare­ly con­tained. Among them appears a black bear, not in pur­suit, but in escape—a crea­ture Lad had encoun­tered before under far dif­fer­ent terms. Now, both bound by sur­vival, they share an unspo­ken truce. Lad, rec­og­niz­ing the threat, chews through his rope, pain and age for­got­ten in his need to move. With deter­mined strides, he fol­lows the path carved by instinct and flame.

Reach­ing the lake’s edge, Lad plunges in, join­ing the wildlife already wad­ing chest-deep in water, their eyes turned toward the burn­ing trees. His usu­al vig­i­lance soft­ens, not out of fear, but acceptance—of the strange com­pa­ny, of the moment, of nature’s uncon­trol­lable force. The bear lingers near­by, and Lad does not growl nor retreat. They are not ene­mies here, just crea­tures sus­pend­ed in a shared cri­sis. The moment holds a strange peace. Sur­vival has stripped away bound­aries, leav­ing only breath, fire, and the calm cool­ness of the lake.

Mean­while, far from the fire­line, the Mis­tress and Mas­ter real­ize Lad is miss­ing. Pan­ic ris­es, not from the loss of a pet, but the absence of a friend. Night falls quick­ly as they return to the camp, met by the smoke and scorched earth left behind. With lantern in hand and voice crack­ing with emo­tion, the Mis­tress whis­tles into the dark, a sound Lad would know any­where. From beyond the black­ened trail, his ears catch the famil­iar note. With a leap through ash and flame-charred debris, Lad bounds for­ward, body aching but spir­it untouched.

He runs not because he must, but because love draws him in a straight, unwa­ver­ing line. Through branch­es scorched at the tips and soil still warm from the blaze, he finds them—his people—crying out for him as the fire’s glow dims in the dis­tance. Their reunion is not loud. It’s in the way the Mis­tress sinks to her knees and wraps him in trem­bling arms. It’s in the Master’s silent touch along Lad’s back, check­ing for burns, find­ing none. Lad wags his tail not for thanks, but for recog­ni­tion. He had found his way home.

What remains after the fire is not just relief, but rev­er­ence. The fam­i­ly has seen their col­lie test­ed by nature itself and found that nothing—not age, not fear, not even flame—could dull the edge of his loy­al­ty. Lad’s place in their lives, already revered, is deep­ened by this tri­al. He did not flee; he endured. He did not bark for help; he act­ed. His instincts car­ried him, but it was love that brought him back.

In this chap­ter, the wilder­ness becomes a stage for courage and con­nec­tion. The bear, once a sym­bol of threat, becomes a com­pan­ion in cri­sis. The for­est, once a place of rest, becomes a tri­al. And Lad, once a noble pet, emerges once again as some­thing more: a guardian, a sur­vivor, and a bridge between the wild and the home. In strange com­pa­ny, Lad remained true to himself—unshaken, unyield­ing, and unfor­get­table.