gain. Perhaps you'll develop a dog
star of the first magnitude for us in your race, boys."

George and Danny looked serious. It was a difficult problem--this
assembling of a racing team, and the responsibility weighed heavily upon
them. Why, it meant the possibility of making a juvenile Record, and
winning a Cup, and naturally required a critical consideration of even
the smallest details.

"If I could only take some o' the Sweepstakes Dogs," mused George
regretfully, "it 'ud be dead easy; but Father says it wouldn't be fair
t' the fellers that hasn't a racin' stable t' pick from. We got t' use
some o' the untried ones. I been thinkin' o' Spot for a leader. He seems
sort o' awkward, 'cause he's raw-boned, an' ain't filled out yet; but
all the other dogs like him, an' he'd ruther run than eat."

"Isn't he pretty young for that position?" hazarded the Woman. "Let me
see, he can't be much more than a year old now."

She remembered when he had been a common little fellow, but a short time
ago, sprawling in every mud-puddle, or wobbling uncertainly after the
many strange alluring things in the streets. Matt, who seemed to have
second sight in regard to the invisible, latent good points in all
horses and dogs, had picked him up in the pound for a mere nothing; and
to him there was granted the vision of a brilliant future for the
vagrant puppy. "Mark my words," he had said decisively when Spot's fate
hung in the balance, "you can't go wrong on him; he'll be a credit to us
all some day." And so Spot was rescued from death, or at least from a
life of poverty and obscurity, and given to George Allan to become his
constant companion.

"You know," she persisted, "if a leader is too young he's apt to become
over-zealous and important the way Irish did the day we loaned him to
Charlie Thompson in the first Moose Handicap. Don't you remember he was
disgusted at the way they were being managed by a rank novice, so he
took his place in front of a rival team that was being well driven, and
led them to victory, with the whole town cheering and yelling? You don't
want that to happen to you, because your leader is inexperienced."

"It ain't the same thing at all," explained George patiently; for it is
ever the man's part to try to be patient with the feminine ignorance of
dogs and baseball and other essential things about which women seem to
have no intuition. "You see, I ain't goin' to drive him loose. A dog
shouldn't ever be a loose