ound. His chest was immensely deep, his fore legs,
haunches, and thighs enormously powerful. And the wrinkled massiveness
of his head, like the breadth of his black saddle, gave him the
appearance of great size, strength, and weight.

As a fact he scaled one hundred and sixty-four pounds on his second
birthday, and that was eight pounds heavier than his sire; a notable
thing in view of the fact that he was in no way gross and carried no
soft fat, thanks to the many miles of downland he covered every day of
his life in hunting with Finn and walking with Betty Murdoch.

Taking him for all in all, Jan was probably as finely conditioned and
developed a hound as any in England when he reached his second birthday,
and it is hardly likely that a stronger hound could have been found in
all the world. It may be that for hardness and toughness and endurance
he might have found his master without much difficulty; for hardship
begets hardihood, and Jan had known no hardship as yet. But at the end
of his second year he was a very splendid specimen of complete canine
development, and, by reason of his breeding, easily to be distinguished
from all other hounds.

And then, two months after that second birthday, Dick Vaughan came home
on short furlough, a privilege which, as Captain Will Arnutt wrote to
Dr. Vaughan, he had very thoroughly earned.

XIX

DISCIPLINE

Dick Vaughan's home-coming was something of an event for the district,
as well as for Dr. Vaughan and the Upcroft household, and for Betty
Murdoch and the Nuthill folk. He was a totally different person from the
careless, casual, rather reckless Dick Vaughan who had left for Canada
eighteen months before. Every one had liked the old Dick Vaughan who had
disappeared; yet nobody now regretted the apparently final loss of him,
and all were agreed in admiring the new Dick with more or less
enthusiasm.

Already he had won promotion in the fine corps to which he belonged, and
his scarlet uniform coat had a stripe on one sleeve. But this was a
small matter--though Dr. Vaughan was prouder of it than of any of his
own long list of learned degrees and other honors--by comparison with
the other and unofficial promotion Dick had won in the scale of manhood.
No uniform was needed to indicate this. One became aware of it the
moment one set eyes upon him. It showed itself in the firm lines of his
thin, tanned face, in the carriage of his shoulders, the swing of his
walk, the d