than if he had been human, that
she loved him. Eagerly licking her hands and wagging his tail, he told her
as plainly as a dog can talk that henceforth he would be one of her best
and most faithful of friends.

If petting and praise and devoted attention could spoil a dog, Hero's head
would certainly have been turned that day, for friends and strangers alike
made much of him. A photographer came to take his picture for the leading
daily paper. Before nightfall his story was repeated in every home in
Geneva. No servant in the hotel but took a personal pride in him or
watched his chance to give him a sly sweetmeat or a caress. But being a
dog instead of a human, the attention only made him the more lovable, for
it made him feel that it was a kind world he lived in and everybody was
his friend.

It was after lunch that the Little Colonel came up-stairs carrying the
diary, now half-filled with the record of their journeying.

"Put it all down in the book, Papa Jack," she demanded. "I'll nevah forget
to my dyin' day, but I want it written down heah in black and white that
Hero saved me!"

CHAPTER IV.

HERO'S STORY

Late that afternoon the Major sat out in the shady courtyard of the hotel,
where vines, potted plants, and a fountain made a cool green garden spot.
He was thinking of his little daughter, who had been dead many long years.
The American child, whom his dog had rescued from the runaway in the
morning, was wonderfully like her. She had the same fair hair, he thought,
that had been his little Christine's great beauty; the same delicate,
wild-rose pink in her cheeks, the same mischievous smile dimpling her
laughing face. But Christine's eyes had not been a starry hazel like the
Little Colonel's. They were blue as the flax-flowers she used to
gather--thirty, was it? No, forty years ago.

As he counted the years, the thought came to him like a pain that he was
an old, old man now, all alone in the world, save for a dog, and a niece
whom he scarcely knew and seldom saw.

As he sat there with his head bowed down, dreaming over his past, the
Little Colonel came out into the courtyard. She had dressed early and gone
down to the reading-room to wait until her mother was ready for dinner,
but catching sight of the Major through the long glass doors, she laid
down her book. The lonely expression of his furrowed face, the bowed head,
and the empty sleeve appealed to her strongly.

"I believe I'll go out and t