, handing it out with
a yawn. Then he removed his hat and fanned his head, which was
perfectly bald.

I opened the yellow envelope. "Get me a good dog with points," was the
laconic message; and it irritated me to receive such idiotic
instructions at such a time and in such a place. A good dog? Where the
mischief could I find a dog in a town consisting of ten houses and a
water-tank? I said as much to the bald-headed operator, who smiled
wearily and replaced his hat: "Dawg? They's moh houn'-dawgs in Citron
City than they's wood-ticks to keep them busy. I reckon a dollah 'll
do a heap foh you, suh."

"Could you get me a dog for a dollar?" I asked;--"one with points?"

"Points? I sholy can, suh;--plenty of points. What kind of dawg do yoh
requiah, suh?--live dawg? daid dawg? houn'-dawg? raid-dawg? hawg-dawg?
coon-dawg?--"

The locomotive emitted a long, lazy, softly modulated and thoroughly
Southern toot. I handed the operator a silver dollar, and he presently
emerged from his office and slouched off up the street, while I walked
with Miss Barrison to the station platform, where I resumed the
discussion of her future movements.

"You are very young to take such a risk," I said, gravely. "Had I not
better buy your ticket back to New York? The north-bound train meets
this one. I suppose we are waiting for it now--" I stopped, conscious
of her impatience.

Her face flushed brightly: "Yes; I think it best. I have embarrassed
you too long already--"

"Don't say that!" I muttered. "I--I--shall be deadly bored without
you."

"I am not an entertainer, only a stenographer," she said, curtly.
"Please get me my ticket, Mr. Gilland."

She gazed at me from the car-platform; the locomotive tooted two
drawling toots.

"It is for your sake," I said, avoiding her gaze as the far-off
whistle of the north-bound express came floating out of the blue
distance.

She did not answer; I fished out my watch, regarding it in silence,
listening to the hum of the approaching train, which ought presently
to bear her away into the North, where nothing could menace her except
the brilliant pitfalls of a Christian civilization. But I stood
there, temporizing, unable to utter a word as her train shot by us
with a rush, slower, slower, and finally stopped, with a long-drawn
sigh from the air-brakes.

At that instant the telegraph-operator appeared, carrying a dog by the
scruff of the neck--a sad-eyed, ewe-necked dog, from the four corners