n before day. The rising sun found the car
toiling upward into the echoing depths of the mountains. Just around the
last bend in the road followed old Frank.

Sometimes he trotted, sometimes he broke into a gallop. Sometimes he
stopped to drink at streams that came slipping down green walls of rock,
crossed the road like snakes, and dived into the foliage below. His
tongue hung out; he was gaunt, dust-covered, weary-eyed. The few
mountaineers he passed looked at him with narrow suspicion, then back up
the winding road where that curtained car had disappeared. With just a
glance up into their faces, he galloped by.

But when another car, long, black, shining, like the one at home, swung
suddenly around the bed just ahead, he stopped short. The weariness left
his eyes, the stiffness went out of his muscles, his heart gave a great
bound. Four sportsmen, such as he and his master associated with, bobbed
comfortably up and down in the capacious seats of that approaching car.
Their fishing rods were strapped to the side. He saw the shine of the
sun on their ruddy faces, the twinkle in their eyes as they stopped.

"What's up, old man?" they asked.

Maybe he got a bit rattled. Anyway, he failed. He ran up the road in the
direction of that other car, wheeled, and ran back. He jumped up on the
step with his front paws, he looked up with pleading eyes from one face
to another.

"Those folks left him behind," they said.

They assured him that it was a shame to treat a good old scout that way,
but he could catch up if he kept plugging. They said if the road were
not too narrow they would turn round, give him a lift and his people a
piece of their minds. They threw him something to eat, they wished him
good luck, and left him standing in the road, looking after them with
disconsolate eyes.

After he had eaten the food and taken up his solitary pursuit, he heard
in the road far below the sound of their car. Even their voices floated
up to him between the narrow walls of the echoing gorge.

"I tell you," said one, "it was an S O S! We ought to have followed him.
Something queer about that car."

But they were gone for all that, like the friends who, whether we be man
or woman or dog, daily pass us by, willing to help if they only
understood.

It was dusk when he caught up. The car had reached the flattened top of
the lofty range it had been climbing all day. From behind a bush he
watched it turn out of the road. Like some