oped
to teach her later to like and appreciate them. But apparently she must
be taught at once that Chum could not be sold and that the collie must
remain an honored member of the Ferris household. Marshaling his facts
and his words, he said:

"I never told you about the time I was coming back home one night from
the tavern here at Hampton, after I'd just cashed my pay check from the
Pat'son market. I've never blabbed much about it, because I was drunk.
Yes, it was back in them days. Just after I'd got Chum. A couple of
fellers had got me drunk. And they set on me in a lonesome patch of the
road by the lake; and they had me down and was taking the money away
from me, when Chum sailed into them and druv them off. He had follered
me, without me knowing. In the scrimmage I got tumbled headfirst into
the lake. I was too drunk to get out, and my head was stuck in the mud,
'way under water. I'd 'a' drowned if Chum hadn't of pulled me out with
his teeth in the shoulder of my coat. And that's the dog you're wanting
me to sell?"

"You aren't likely to need such help again, I hope," countered the girl
loftily, "now that you have stopped drinking and made a man of
yourself. So Chum won't be needed for--"

"I stopped drinking," answered Link, "because I got to seeing how much
more of a beast I was than the fine clean dog that was living with me.
He made me feel 'shamed of myself. And he was such good comp'ny round
the house that I didn't get lonesome enough to sneak down to the tavern
all the time. It wasn't me that 'made a man of myself.' It was Chum
made a man of me. Maybe that sounds foolish to you. But--"

"It does," said Dorcas serenely. "Very foolish indeed. You don't seem
to realize that a dog is only an animal. If you can get a nice home for
the collie--such as John Iglehart will give him--"

"Iglehart!" raged Link, momentarily losing hold over himself. "If that
mangy, wall-eyed slob comes slinking round my farm again, making
friends with Chum, I'll sick the dog onto him; and have him run
Iglehart all the way to his own shack! He's--! There! I didn't mean to
cut loose like that!" he broke off at Dorcas's shudder of dismay. "Only
it riles me something terrible to have him trying to get Chum away from
me."

"There is no occasion to go losing your temper and shouting," reproved
the girl. "Nothing is to be gained that way. Besides, that isn't the
point. The point is this, since you force me to say it: You must get
rid o