her with a mop. It was a pandemonium of
pain, for, their parched throats softened by the water, they were again
able to yelp and cry out loudly all their hurt and woe.

Several were too weak to get to the water, so it was carried to them and
doused and splashed into their mouths. It seemed that they would never
be satisfied. They lay in collapse all about the room, but every little
while one or another would crawl over to the tub and try to drink more.
In the meantime Davis had started a fire and filled a caldron with
potatoes.

"The place stinks like a den of skunks," Mrs. Davis observed, pausing
from dabbing the end of her nose with a powder-puff. "Dearest, we'll
just have to wash them."

"All right, sweetheart," her husband agreed. "And the quicker the
better. We can get through with it while the potatoes are boiling and
cooling. I'll scrub them and you dry them. Remember that pneumonia, and
do it thoroughly."

It was quick, rough bathing. Reaching out for the dogs nearest him, he
flung them in turn into the tub from which they had drunk. When they
were frightened, or when they objected in any way, he rapped them on the
head with the scrubbing brush or the bar of yellow laundry soap with
which he was lathering them. Several minutes sufficed for a dog.

"Drink, damn you, drink--have some more," he would say, as he shoved
their heads down and under the dirty, soapy water.

He seemed to hold them responsible for their horrible condition, to look
upon their filthiness as a personal affront.

Michael yielded to being flung into the tub. He recognized that baths
were necessary and compulsory, although they were administered in much
better fashion at Cedarwild, while Kwaque and Steward had made a sort of
love function of it when they bathed him. So he did his best to endure
the scrubbing, and all might have been well had not Davis soused him
under. Michael jerked his head up with a warning growl. Davis suspended
half-way the blow he was delivering with the heavy brush, and emitted a
low whistle of surprise.

"Hello!" he said. "And look who's here!--Lovey, this is the Irish
terrier I got from Collins. He's no good. Collins said so. Just a fill-
in.--Get out!" he commanded Michael. "That's all you get now, Mr. Fresh
Dog. But take it from me pretty soon you'll be getting it fast enough to
make you dizzy."

While the potatoes were cooling, Mrs. Davis kept the hungry dogs warned
away by sharp crie