e larger cities east and west, to get some trace of
the Big Six, if possible, they started for the telephone office.

"But we can't all telephone," said Phil. "Who will look after burying
Scottie? And who will go to Ferndale in the Torpedo and take back the
pick and shovel to the blacksmith? Even if he did say we might have them
as long as we liked, they should be toted home to-day."

Billy and Paul volunteered for the work mentioned. With the cold, stiff
body of poor Scottie covered over with muslin in the tonneau, they
started the stray automobile again toward the lonely South Fork and
Ferndale. Where the dog's burial place should be had been a problem.
Willie Creek suggested a wooded knoll where some evergreens grew, not
far beyond the branching of the road. This place the two boys reached in
due time. It seemed to be quite what they sought.

Overhead the always green branches would sing a gentle requiem in the
breeze the whole year through. The thick, emerald foliage would protect
the little grave below, both from the violence of winter's storms and
the heat of the summer sun.

The solemn task was not a pleasant one. They wrapped the clean, new
muslin around the body that in life had been so lithe, so strong, so
active and so handsome, and gently placed it in the soft, cool ground.
After the beautiful custom of the Grand Army of the Republic they put
bits of evergreen in the grave, in token of unceasing remembrance of
their dead comrade. Slowly they filled in the earth.

"We'll come back some day--some day when we've at last got out of this
awful ocean of bad luck we seem to be in, and we'll put up a little
stone to mark the grave," said Billy. "If ever a dog deserved it,
Scottie does. I only wish we knew to whom he rightly belonged before Mr.
Knight ever saw him. They'd like to hear, I think, that he was a hero,
whether they cast him off or not, or even if he was a runaway."

Going on toward Ferndale, the little town two or three miles beyond
where the Big Six was ditched, Billy and Paul again deeply felt the
lonely influence of the unfrequented road. Even in the bright sunshine
the old mill-pond, the mill, the big, empty icehouse, the weeping
willows near them--all seemed to tell of that dreadful tragedy of many
years ago. The boys both noticed as they passed how the road's bank
sloped down, and their active imaginations plainly pictured the
frightened horses, the overturned carriage and the flood of the grea