it's
better you should be away for a bit. Also, my friend, it's a chance for
you. There are some pretty queer customers pass along that Buck's
Crossing trail these days, making north. Your beat's a long one. You'll
have a good deal of responsibility; and, who knows? You might win a
commission out of it. You won't be forgotten here, you know."

Then the order came that Dick was to take over the Buck's Crossing post
that same week. It was necessary for Dick to ride the whole sixty-odd
miles, but his kit was to be sent thirty-two miles by rail, and there
picked up by wagon for the remainder of the journey. Meantime there were
a number of stitches in Jan's dewlap and shoulders not yet ripe for
removal, and Dick decided that he would not ask the hound to cover over
sixty miles of trail in a day, as he meant to do. Therefore it was
arranged that O'Malley should see to putting Jan on the train when
Dick's kit was sent off, and that Jan should have a place in the wagon
for the thirty-odd miles lying between Buck's Crossing and its nearest
point of rail.

And then, having seen to these arrangements, Dick bade good-by to his
comrades, rubbed Jan's ears and told him to be a good lad till they met
again, in forty-eight hours' time, and rode away, carrying with him the
good wishes of every one in the barracks, with the exception of one who
looked out at him from the windows of the sergeants' quarters, with
grimly nodding head and a singularly baleful light in his eyes.

Sergeant Moore, who had just returned from three days' leave, had
learned from the veterinary surgeon that morning that Sourdough must
always limp a little on his near fore leg, which would be permanently a
little shorter than its fellow, by reason of the slight twist which
surgical care had been unable to prevent. Yet Sergeant Moore, for all
the glow of hatred in his eyes as he watched Dick Vaughan's departure,
nodded his grizzled head with the air of a man quite satisfied.

"So long, Tenderfoot," he growled. "You'll maybe find Sourdough's reach
a longer one than you reckon for, I'm thinking."

It was evident that day, to O'Malley and to all his friends, that Jan
felt the temporary parting with his lord and master a deal more than
Dick had seemed to feel it. And yet Jan could not possibly have known,
any more than Dick knew, as to what the promised forty-eight hours of
separation were to bring forth.

XXV

JAN GOES ON HIS TRAVELS

Jan spent that n