as able to have ready
one action always in anticipation of Michael's next action. This was the
training he had received from Harris Collins, who, withal he was a
sentimental and doting husband and father, was the arch-devil when it
came to animals other than human ones, and who reigned in an animal hell
which he had created and made lucrative.

* * * * *

Michael went ashore in Seattle all eagerness, straining at his leash
until he choked and coughed and was coldly cursed by Del Mar. For
Michael was mastered by his expectation that he would meet Steward, and
he looked for him around the first corner, and around all corners with
undiminished zeal. But amongst the multitudes of men there was no
Steward. Instead, down in the basement of the New Washington Hotel,
where electric lights burned always, under the care of the baggage
porter, he was tied securely by the neck in the midst of Alpine ranges of
trunks which were for ever being heaped up, sought over, taken down,
carried away, or added to.

Three days of this dolorous existence he passed. The porters made
friends with him and offered him prodigious quantities of cooked meats
from the leavings of the dining-room. Michael was too disappointed and
grief-stricken over Steward to overeat himself, while Del Mar,
accompanied by the manager of the hotel, raised a great row with the
porters for violating the feeding instructions.

"That guy's no good," said the head porter to assistant, when Del Mar had
departed. "He's greasy. I never liked greasy brunettes anyway. My
wife's a brunette, but thank the Lord she ain't greasy."

"Sure," agreed the assistant. "I know his kind. Why, if you'd stick a
knife into him he wouldn't bleed blood. It'd be straight liquid lard."

Whereupon the pair of them immediately presented Michael with vaster
quantities of meat which he could not eat because the desire for Steward
was too much with him.

In the meantime Del Mar sent off two telegrams to New York, the first to
Harris Collins' animal training school, where his troupe of dogs was
boarding through his vacation:

"_Sell my dogs. You know what they can do and what they are worth. Am
done with them. Deduct the board and hold the balance for me until I
see you. I have the limit here of a dog. Every turn I ever pulled is
put in the shade by this one. He's a ten strike. Wait till you see
him_."

The second, to his booking agent:

"_Get busy. Book