of which dangled enormous, cushion-like paws. He yelped when he beheld
me. Miss Barrison leaned down from the car-platform and took the
animal into her arms, uttering a suppressed exclamation of pity as she
lifted him.

"You have your hands full," she said to me; "I'll take him into the
car for you."

She mounted the steps; I followed with the valises, striving to get a
good view of my acquisition over her shoulder.

"That isn't the kind of dog I wanted!" I repeated again and again,
inspecting the animal as it sprawled on the floor of the car at the
edge of Miss Barrison's skirt. "That dog is all voice and feet and
emotion! What makes it stick up its paws like that? I don't want that
dog and I'm not going to identify myself with it! Where's the
operator--"

I turned towards the car-window; the operator's bald head was visible
on a line with the sill, and I made motions at him. He bowed with
courtly grace, as though I were thanking him.

"I'm not!" I cried, shaking my head. "I wanted a dog with points--not
the kind of points that stick up all over this dog. Take him away!"

The operator's head appeared to be gliding out of my range of vision;
then the windows of the north-bound train slid past, faster and
faster. A melancholy grace-note from the dog, a jolt, and I turned
around, appalled.

"This train is going," I stammered, "and you are on it!"

Miss Barrison sprang up and started towards the door, and I sped after
her.

"I can jump," she said, breathlessly, edging out to the platform;
"please let me! There is time yet--if you only wouldn't hold me--so
tight--"

A few moments later we walked slowly back together through the car and
took seats facing one another.

Between us sat the hound-dog, a prey to melancholy unutterable.

XV

It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted
civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open
boat containing--

One light steel cage,
One rifle and ammunition,
One stenographer,
Three ounces rosium oxide,
One hound-dog,
Two valises.

A playful wave slopped over the bow and I lost count; but the pretty
stenographer made the inventory, while I resumed the oars, and the dog
punctured the primeval silence with staccato yelps.

A few minutes later everything and everybody was accounted for; the
sky was blue and the palms waved, and several species of dicky-birds
tuned up as I pulled with powerful