e slowly; stood isolated, obviously troubled. He
drew back stumbling from a menacing gesture; but there was no cringing
visible in his immature, ill-proportioned body; his tail drooped, but from
weariness, discouragement; his head was level; his eyes met the circle of
eyes about him.

Gordon took no part in the baiting; he lit a cigar, snapped the match over
his shoulder, carelessly watched his newest acquisition. A heavy,
wooden-soled shoe shoved the dog forward. And Buckley Simmons, in an
obvious improvement upon that manoeuver, kicked the animal behind the ear.
The forelegs rose with the impact of the blow, and the body struck full
length upon the platform, where it lay dazed. But, finally, the dog got up
insecurely, wabbling; a dark blot spread slowly across the straw-colored
head.

No one, it was evident, was prepared for the sudden knifelike menace of
Gordon Makimmon's voice as he bent over the dog and wiped the blood upon
his sleeve.

"Kick him again, Buck," he said; "kick him again and see how funny it'll
be."

"Why, Gordon," Buckley Simmons protested, "we were all stirring him up a
little; you didn't say anything--"

Makimmon picked the dog up, holding him against his side, the awkward legs
streaming down in an uncomfortable confusion of joints and paws. "I paid
two hundred dollars for this dog," he pronounced, "as a piece of dam'
foolishness, a sort of drunken joke on Greenstream. But it's no joke; the
two hundred was cheap. I've seen a lot of good men--I'm not exactly a
peafowl myself--but this young dog's better'n any man I ever stood up to;
he's got more guts."

He abruptly turned his back upon the gathering, and descended to the road,
carrying the limp, warm body all the way home.

II

It was his own home to which he returned, the original dwelling of the
Makimmons in Greenstream. He could not, he had told Lettice, be
comfortable anywhere else; he could not be content with it closed against
the living sound of the stream, or in strange hands. Some changes had been
made since his marriage--another space had been enclosed beyond the
kitchen, a chamber occupied by Sim Caley and his wife, moved from the
outlying farm where Lettice had spent her weeks of "retreat" throughout
the passing summers. The exterior had been painted leaden-grey, and a shed
transformed into a small, serviceable stable. But the immediate
surroundings were the same: the primitive sweep still rose from the well,
a cow st