huntsmen who missed frequent
shots--old Squire Kirby and John Davis, neighbours; sportsmen from afar,
drawn to Breton Junction by the field trials held every year. How his
master towered above them! How well he knew the crack of his master's
gun! How well he knew there was a bird to retrieve when it spoke. He
welcomed competition with man and dog. His nose like his master's gun
was peerless in the field.

But hunting did not fill his life--there were idle days when he
sauntered about at will. There was his sunny spot near the big rock
chimney on the southern side of the house. There was his box underneath
the back porch, filled always with clean straw, into which he could
crawl on bleak days and listen to the rain spouting from the gutters and
to the wind mourning around the corners.

Every shrub in the yard, every ancient oak, the wide-halled barn, the
cribs filled with corn, the woodshed boarded up on the west, the
blacksmith shop where Earle repaired the tools, all took on the intimate
kindliness of home. He grew to be a privileged character with the very
animals on the place. He took his privileges as his due, even treating
with amused condescension the fat black woman in the kitchen, who fussed
and spluttered like her frying pans when he entered, but who never drove
him out.

No living creature, however, not even a well-used bird dog, knows
perfect peace. With the close of the hunting season, Tommy Earle, whom
he had found in the woods, took him boisterously in hand. It was a
season when a hard-worked bird dog stretches himself out to the lazy
warmth of the sun, and pads with flesh his uncomfortably lean, hard
muscles.

The persecution began a little timidly, for even Tommy could not be
insensible to the latent power of those muscles and fangs. But when no
punishment followed, it increased until there was no rest in the yard
for the dog. He had never been accustomed to children. It galled him to
be straddled as if he were a hobby horse; it reflected on his dignity to
be yanked about by the ears and turned round by the tail. He realized
that viciousness played no part in the annoyances, the demand was simply
that he metamorphose himself into a boon companion. This he steadfastly
refused to do.

Many times--his nose was on a level with Tommy's frowsy head--he looked
sternly, even menacingly, into those irresponsibly bright blue eyes, but
with no effect whatever. There were other times when the red Irish
flared