shut one eye and gazed at him long and earnestly; he ran his
bony fingers down the slender back to the very end of the agitated
tail. One by one he took the heavy paws in his hands and stroked them.
Then Tip smiled. Murphy Kallaberger smiled too, and declared that the
young un took after his pa; clarifying this explanation he pointed his
fat thumb over his shoulder to old Captain, beating around the
underbrush.

It was young Colonel's first day of life. And what a day to live, I
thought, as I stroked his head and wished him luck! He could not get
it into his puppy brain that I was to wait there while the others went
racing down the slope into the wooded basin below, so he lingered, to
sit before me on his haunches, his head cocked to one side, eyeing me
inquisitively. There was a tang in the air. The wind was sweeping
along the ridge-top and the woods were shivering. All about us rattled
Nature's bones, in the stirring leaves, in the falling pig-nuts, in the
crash of the belated birds through the leafless branches. The sun was
over us, and as I looked up to drink with my eyes of the warm light, I
was taking a draught of God's best wine from off yonder in the north,
of the wine that quickens the blood and drives away the brain-clouds.
A day of days this was to race over the ridges while the music of the
hounds rang through them; a day of days to dash from thicket to
thicket, over the hills and through the hollows, leaping logs and
vaulting fences, with every sense keyed to the highest; for the fox is
a clever general. So young Colonel was puzzled, for there I was on a
log, at the crest of the ridge, with my crutches at one side and my gun
at the other, when I should be away after old Captain, the real leader
of the sport, after Arnold and Tip and Betsy. This was the best I
could do, to sit here and listen and hope--listen as the chase went
swinging along the ridges; hope that a kind fate and an unwise Reynard
would bring them where I could add the bark of my rifle to the song of
the hounds. You can't explain everything to a dog. With a puppy it is
still harder. So Colonel was restless. He looked anxiously down the
hill; then he lifted those soft, slantwise eyes to mine very wistfully.

"Go, Colonel," I commanded, pointing to the hollow.

Instead, he came to me and lifted to my knee one of those ponderous
feet of his, and tried to pull me from my log.

"Aren't you coming?" he seemed to say.

"No, old c