hap," I answered, pulling the long ears gently till he
smiled. "I prefer it here where I can look over the valley, and from
here I can see where Mary lives--down yonder on the hillside; that's
the house by the clump of oaks, where the smoke is curling up so thick."

The slantwise eyes became grave, and the long tail paused. The second
ponderous paw came crashing on my knee.

"Aren't you coming?" young Colonel seemed to say.

[Illustration: "Aren't you coming?" young Colonel seemed to say.]

I was flattering myself that the puppy was choosing my company to the
hunt, for I always value the approval of a dog. Now I found myself
hoping that with a little coddling the young hound would forget the
great doings down in the hollow and would stay with me on the
ridge-top. But I should have known better. There is an end even to a
dog's patience. The place for the strong-limbed is in the thick of the
chase. You can't interest a puppy in scenery when his fellows are
running a fox.

"Look, Colonel," said I, pointing over the valley, "yonder's where Mary
lives, and I suspect that at this very minute she is looking out of the
window to this very spot, and----"

The call of a hound floated up from the hollow. Old Captain was on a
trail. With a shrill cry young Colonel answered. This was no time to
loaf with a crippled soldier. With a long-drawn yelp, a childish
imitation of his father's bay, he was off through the bushes. Young
Colonel was living. And I was left alone on my log.

But this was my first day of life, too. Some twenty-four years before
I had been born, but those years were simply existence. Now I was
living. I had a secret. I had hinted at it to young Colonel. Had he
stayed, I would have told him more, but like a fool he had gone
jabbering off through the bushes, cutting a ludicrous figure, too, I
thought, for his body had not yet grown up to his feet and ears, and he
carried them off a bit clumsily. Had he stayed I might have told him
all, and there never was a bit of news quite so important as that the
foolish puppy missed; never a story so romantic as that he might have
heard; never in the valley's history an event of such interest. He had
scorned it. Now he was with the dog mob down there in the gulch. I
could hear them giving tongue, and I knew they were on an old trail.
Soon they would be in full cry, but I did not care. It was fine to be
in full cry, of course, but from my post on the r