loons. See how gentle he is!" and the little
woman pulled off her glove to pat the pretty white head. As the grateful
creature licked her hand she felt a thrill of new pity and tenderness.
By this time they were at the City Hall. "What do you have to pay for a
license?" she asked.

"Two good solid dollars," said the man. "I never seen a dog yet that was
worth that money, did you?" And dog and persecutor disappeared together
within a sinister-looking basement door.

Mrs. Nancy Tarbell stood for a moment irresolute, and then she slowly
wended her way along the sidewalk, pondering the thing she had seen. Two
dollars! That was a large sum of money in these hard times. Could she
possibly spare it? She did not know yet what her tax bill would be, but
for some unexplained reason it turned out to be larger every year. She
supposed it was owing to the improvements they were making in the town,
and she had too much self-respect to protest. But it was really getting
to be a serious matter.

In her perplexity and absorption the little lady had turned eastward,
and presently she found herself close upon a railroad track over which a
freight train was slowly passing. It was the Atchison road, and she
watched with interest the long, slow train.

"They appear to be doing a good business," she said to herself. "Seems
as though they might make out to pay something or other."

When the train had passed she stepped across the track, looking with
interest at the well-laid rails and the solid ties. "Queer, isn't it?"
she thought. "Now I own six thousand dollars worth of that track, and
yet I can't squeeze out of it enough to pay a poor little dog's
license."

She never could think without a feeling of awe of the magnitude of the
sum left her by her thrifty husband, the bulk of which sum was
represented by those unfruitful certificates. She stooped and felt the
rails, looking cautiously up and down the road to be sure no train was
coming. After all, it was consoling to think that that good honest steel
and timber was partly her property. It was not her first visit to the
spot.

"Queer, isn't it," she reflected, as she had often done before, "that
there isn't any way that I can think of to make my own road take me
home? Anyhow I'll buy that license _just to spite 'em_," she exclaimed,
with sudden decision; and shaking the dust of Atchison from her feet,
and the far more bewildering dust of financial perplexities from her
mind, she wal