ly treated as long
as they behave decently. This was contrary to all tradition, but
Pichou insisted upon it. If a strange dog wanted to fight he should be
accommodated with an antagonist of his own size. If he did not want to
fight he should be politely smelled and allowed to pass through.

This Law originated on a day when a miserable, long-legged, black cur,
a cross between a greyhound and a water-spaniel, strayed into Seven
Islands from heaven knows where--weary, desolate, and bedraggled. All
the dogs in the place attacked the homeless beggar. There was a howling
fracas on the beach; and when Pichou arrived, the trembling cur was
standing up to the neck in the water, facing a semicircle of snarling,
snapping bullies who dared not venture out any farther. Pichou had no
fear of the water. He swam out to the stranger, paid the smelling
salute as well as possible under the circumstances, encouraged the poor
creature to come ashore, warned off the other dogs, and trotted by the
wanderer's side for miles down the beach until they disappeared around
the point. What reward Pichou got for this polite escort, I do not know.
But I saw him do the gallant deed; and I suppose this was the origin
of the well-known and much-resisted Law of Strangers' Rights in Seven
Islands.

The most recalcitrant subjects with whom Pichou had to deal in all these
matters were the team of Ovide Boulianne. There were five of them, and
up to this time they had been the best team in the village. They had one
virtue: under the whip they could whirl a sledge over the snow farther
and faster than a horse could trot in a day. But they had innumerable
vices. Their leader, Carcajou, had a fleece like a merino ram. But under
this coat of innocence he carried a heart so black that he would bite
while he was wagging his tail. This smooth devil, and his four followers
like unto himself, had sworn relentless hatred to Pichou, and they made
his life difficult.

But his great and sufficient consolation for all toils and troubles was
the friendship with his master. In the long summer evenings, when Dan
Scott was making up his accounts in the store, or studying his pocket
cyclopaedia of medicine in the living-room of the Post, with its
low beams and mysterious green-painted cupboards, Pichou would lie
contentedly at his feet. In the frosty autumnal mornings, when the brant
were flocking in the marshes at the head of the bay, they would go out
hunting together in a