on ahead, then pulled
out. A light glistened down wet rails into his hungry eyes and blinded
him. Rows of silent dripping box cars hid the man crossing the track at
the street. Frank almost ran into him. Both stopped. The man was
buttoned up to his neck in an overcoat and carried a satchel.

"Hello!" he said.

Frank started to slink back under a box car.

"Come here!" He stooped down and looked into the dog's eyes. "Where did
you drop from?" he said. "You come with me! Let's talk it over."

In a warm, firelit cottage room a young woman ran to meet the man--then
for the first time she saw the dog.

"Why, John!" she cried. "Where did you get him?"

"He got me," laughed the man, "on the way home from the station. He's
starving. Get him something to eat. Then I'll tell you about it."

She glanced at a cradle, whose covers were being suddenly and violently
agitated.

"I'll answer for this old fellow," assured the man. "He's seen better
days. I think I've seen him before."

Out in the bright little kitchen, where they scraped together all the
scraps they could find, he went on:

"Of course I may be mistaken. But at a little station where I sell goods
sometimes, I used to see a big red Irish setter following a tall man and
a little boy. I think they lived out in the country from there. The
kind of folks and the kind of dog you don't forget. If it wasn't so
far--hang it, I believe it's the dog, anyhow! Well, we'll take good care
of him, and next week when I go through I'll find out."

The young woman in a raincoat came out in the back yard and held the
streaming lantern while the man arranged some sacks underneath the porch
and closed and bolted the back gate. He heard them go up the back steps,
heard them moving about in the house. Like a decent old fellow he licked
the rain from his silken coat, smoothed out the matted strands, then
curled up comfortably in his dry bed and slept deep and long.

He stayed with them a week, while strength returned to his muscles, fire
to his eyes, courage to his heart. But as he lay before their hearth at
night he saw always in his mind that other fire--the fire of home. The
stars were still shining that morning when he scrambled over the high
back fence and was gone.

But it was with new life and confidence that he continued his journey.
He slunk no more on the outskirts of towns; he passed boldly through.
Fortune favoured him now; on the second day after he left them he ran
in