s practically every shade
of color except black or gray or white.

Link was ashamed of his own delight in finding he need not give up his
pet--even for seventy-five dollars. He tried to recall his father's
invectives against dogs, and to remind himself that another mouth to
feed on the farm must mean still sharper poverty and skimping. But
logic could not strangle joy, and life took on a new zest for the
lonely man.

By the time Chum could limp around on the fasthealing foreleg, he and
Link had established a friendship that was a boon to both and a stark
astonishment to Ferris.

Link had always loved animals. He had an inborn "way" with them. Yet
his own intelligence had long since taught him that his "farm critters"
responded but dully to his attempts at a more perfect understanding.

He knew, for example, that the horse he had bred and reared and had
taught to come at his call, would doubtless suffer the first passing
stranger to mount him and ride him away, despite any call from his
lifelong master. He knew that his presence, to the cattle and sheep,
meant only food or a shift of quarters; and that an outsider could
drive or tend them as readily as could he on whose farm they had been
born. Their possible affection for him was a hazy thing, based solely
on what he fed them and on their occasional mild interest in being
petted.

But with Chum it was all different. The dog learned quickly his new
master's moods and met them in kind. The few simple tricks Link sought
to teach him were grasped with bewildering ease. There was a human
quality of sympathy and companionship which radiated almost visibly
from Chum. His keen collie brain was forever amazing Ferris by its
flashes of perception. The dog was a revelation and an endless source
of pleasure to the hermit-farmer.

When Chum was whole of his hurt and when the injured leg had knit so
firmly that the last trace of lameness was gone, Link fell to recalling
his father's preachments as to the havoc wrought by dogs upon sheep. He
could not afford to lose the leanest and toughest of his little sheep
flock--even as price for the happiness of owning a comrade. Link
puzzled sorely over this.

Then one morning it occurred to him to put the matter up to Chum
himself. Hitherto he had kept the dog around the house, except on their
daily walks; and he had always tied him when driving the sheep to or
from pasture. This morning he took the collie along when he went out to
r