as no dog for him to carry with
Sergeant Vaughan's kit. But he was not a man given to speculation. He
just grunted, expectorated, and said, shortly:

"Well, I guess that's right, then. Muster made some other arrangement;
an' it's just as well, for I'm late an' I've got to have my near front
wheel off an' doctor it a bit, so I won't make the Crossin' till midday
to-morrow, I reckon. I'll be campin' at Lloyd's to-night."

Overalls just nodded as he took the wagoner's signature for Sergeant
Vaughan's kit; and without another thought both men dismissed from their
rather vacant minds (as was perfectly natural, no doubt) all further
thought of a matter which did not concern them, despite its
life-and-death importance to the son of Finn and Desdemona.

After perhaps an hour and a half, the buckboard was pulled up in a
fenced yard beside a small homestead. Here Jan parted with the man in
the fur cap and never set eyes upon him again. His chain was now taken
by a different sort of man; a very lean, spare, hard-bitten little man,
with bright dark eyes and a leather-colored face. He thanked the
fur-capped man for having kindly brought Jan along. Fur-cap deprecated
thanks, but accepted a dollar. And then the leather-faced man led Jan
away. They walked for perhaps a couple of miles, and then they were
joined by another man, who called the first man Jean, so that Jan looked
up quickly, thinking he had been addressed.

"Hees name Jan," explained the first man, casually, pointing to Jan's
collar.

"H'm! That so? Better get rid o' that collar, Jean, eh?"

From a bag in the buggy in which they had found the second man,
wire-cutters were produced, and Jan's collar cut in sunder and removed,
after a leather collar had been buckled on in its place and the chain
attached to that. Jan had a vague feeling of uneasiness about this
operation; but only a vague feeling. Like all other animal-folk, he had
long ago arrived at the conclusion that men-folk frequently did quite
unaccountable things; that a dog would have no rest in life if he set
himself to puzzle out a reason for everything he saw the sovereign
people do. Captain Arnutt had locked that collar about his neck, and a
very silly, stiff, and awkward contraption he had thought it. Now
another man, equally without apparent rhyme or reason, took it off and
substituted a leathern collar with a queer, fishy, gamy sort of smell.
Well, it would make little odds to Jan; if only these people