f the movements of game, of live
food, over desiccated twigs and leaves, in bush untrodden by human feet.

Yes, Finn tasted to the full that night the nostalgia of the wilderness.
But if it stirred him deeply, it by no means made him unhappy. Across
the Downs' shoulder there was Desdemona; and he was free, save for the
ties of affection--stronger these than any dog-chain--which bound him to
the Nuthill folk. And as for Desdemona; owing to what many fanciers
would have regarded as the reprehensible eccentricity of the owner of
Shaws, Desdemona was almost as free as Finn.

V

DESDEMONA'S WANDERINGS

A week later, even easy-going Colonel Forde was a little perturbed by
the news that Lady Desdemona had been away all night and that nobody
knew of her whereabouts. However, the bitch strolled into the house
during the forenoon, looking none the worse for her night out, and, much
to his kennelman's annoyance, the Colonel refused to have her confined
to the kennels. He did not know that Finn was schooling this blood-royal
princess in the ways of the wild; but he could see that she looked fit
as a fiddle and was obviously very much enjoying her life. And so he
turned a deaf ear to his kennelman, even when the good fellow said,
protestingly:

"You don't see such a bitch once in twenty years, sir. She's just on her
eighteenth month and she's worth taking care of."

"She certainly is, Bates," replied the Colonel, "and you must keep a
sharp lookout. Look to her each day. But, upon my word, I think she's
also worth giving a good time to. Give her her head, and I don't think
she will ever disappoint us. Thank goodness, there are no traps or
poison about here, or none that I ever heard of."

"No, it's not that, sir," persisted the kennelman; "but Desdemona she's
good enough to win in the best company, and to mother winners, too. And
you know, sir, if a dog's to do hisself justice on the bench, you can't
let him go skirmishing around the country like a gipsy's lurcher. It
sorter roughs 'em somehow. The judges don't like it, and the Fancy
don't, neither, sir. Look at the chalk an' that on her coat this
morning, sir."

"Ah well," said the Colonel, with a little laugh, "we never have bred
for the judges, Bates; nor yet for the Fancy, either; and if they can't
recognize the merits of a bitch like that because she's been living a
natural, happy sort of life, instead of a cage-life--why, then, that's
their loss, not ours, and