was tied up for a week and made love to by the man and woman. But it
was very circumspect love-making. Remote and alien as a traveller from
another planet, he snarled down their soft-spoken love-words. He never
barked. In all the time they had him he was never known to bark.

To win him became a problem. Irvine liked problems. He had a metal
plate made, on which was stamped: RETURN TO WALT IRVINE, GLEN ELLEN,
SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. This was riveted to a collar and strapped
about the dog's neck. Then he was turned loose, and promptly he
disappeared. A day later came a telegram from Mendocino County. In
twenty hours he had made over a hundred miles to the north, and was still
going when captured.

He came back by Wells Fargo Express, was tied up three days, and was
loosed on the fourth and lost. This time he gained southern Oregon
before he was caught and returned. Always, as soon as he received his
liberty, he fled away, and always he fled north. He was possessed of an
obsession that drove him north. The homing instinct, Irvine called it,
after he had expended the selling price of a sonnet in getting the animal
back from northern Oregon.

Another time the brown wanderer succeeded in traversing half the length
of California, all of Oregon, and most of Washington, before he was
picked up and returned "Collect." A remarkable thing was the speed with
which he travelled. Fed up and rested, as soon as he was loosed he
devoted all his energy to getting over the ground. On the first day's
run he was known to cover as high as a hundred and fifty miles, and after
that he would average a hundred miles a day until caught. He always
arrived back lean and hungry and savage, and always departed fresh and
vigorous, cleaving his way northward in response to some prompting of his
being that no one could understand.

But at last, after a futile year of flight, he accepted the inevitable
and elected to remain at the cottage where first he had killed the rabbit
and slept by the spring. Even after that, a long time elapsed before the
man and woman succeeded in patting him. It was a great victory, for they
alone were allowed to put hands on him. He was fastidiously exclusive,
and no guest at the cottage ever succeeded in making up to him. A low
growl greeted such approach; if any one had the hardihood to come nearer,
the lips lifted, the naked fangs appeared, and the growl became a snarl--a
snarl so terrible and m