at him
with drooped ears, and pleading eyes that for the first time in their
long relationship did not understand.

Gordon came downstairs with him. He was looking for a telegram calling
him away any hour now, he said. Old Prince would be well taken care of
while he was gone. He had an old groom who was a wizard with dogs. Out
on the porch they shook hands. In the growing darkness Jim trudged,
solitary, home. His problem was solved; Mary's home was saved. But in
front of that kennel Prince would be waiting for him to come back; and
as long as he lived, wherever he went, Prince would still be waiting for
him to come back. It was a faithful friend he had sold, one that would
have died for him. It was blood money that crackled in his pocket. Mary
was cooking supper when he appeared, solitary and gaunt, in the kitchen.
Old Prince was going to see something of the world now, he explained.

"Why, Jim!" she cried. "If you had only told me!"

She came to him and caught him by both shoulders. She looked up
pityingly into his face.

"Poor old Jim--why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, well, there wasn't any use, Mary. Mr. Gordon knows how to treat a
dog like Prince. I didn't mind much."

So he spoke, boldly, in the kitchen. But as he went about his work in
the yard he missed the silent companionship of Prince at his heels. As
he ate supper, his eyes from force of habit wandered over the table for
scraps of food for Prince. While he sat smoking his pipe before the
bedroom fire he tried resolutely not to look at the empty rug in front
of the hearth. And when later he went out to draw water the yard was
desolate, and the moon risen over the fields looked at him in solemn
reproach.

Next day he rode to Greenville with Tom Jennings, a neighbouring farmer,
and bought a mule. They had passed the club before sunrise, sitting side
by side on the wagon seat in the cold morning air. No sound had come
from those white kennels which he could make out dimly in the back yard
like tombstones. Old Prince was not the kind of dog to whine or howl.

But all that morning while he went from one sales stable to another Jim
knew Prince would be pricking his ears at every footstep around the
club, and scanning every approaching face with hopeful, eager eyes. He
had known some bird dogs who were the property of any hunter who chanced
along with a gun, and others that stuck to one man, and one man alone.
Prince was a one man's dog.

He left town in the