freedom? Do I go on as before, Bel?"

The Harvester paused and waited the answer, with anxiety in his eyes
as he searched the beast face. He had talked to that dog, as most
men commune with their souls, for so long and played the game in such
intense earnest that he felt the results final with him. The animal was
immovable now, lost again, his anxious eyes watching the face of the
master, his eager ears waiting for words he recognized. After a long
time the man continued slowly and hesitantly, as if fearing the outcome.
He did not realize that there was sufficient anxiety in his voice to
change its tones.

"Or do I go courting this year? Do I rig up in uncomfortable
store-clothes, and parade before the country and city girls and try to
persuade the one I can get, probably----not the one I would want----to
marry me, and come here and spoil all our good times? Do we want a
woman around scolding if we are away from home, whining because she is
lonesome, fretting for luxuries we cannot afford to give her? Are you
going to let us in for a scrape like that, Bel?"

The bewildered dog could bear the unusual scene no longer. Taking the
rising inflection, that sounded more familiar, for a cue, and his name
for a certainty, he sprang forward, his tail waving as his nose touched
the face of the Harvester. Then he shot across the driveway and lay in
the spice thicket, half the ribs of one side aching, as he howled from
the lowest depths of dog misery.

"You ungrateful cur!" cried the Harvester. "What has come over you? Six
years I have trusted you, and the answer has been right, every time!
Confound your picture! Sentence me to tackle the girl proposition! I
see myself! Do you know what it would mean? For the first thing you'd
be chained, while I pranced over the country like a half-broken colt,
trying to attract some girl. I'd have to waste time I need for my work
and spend money that draws good interest while we sleep, to tempt her
with presents. I'd have to rebuild the cabin and there's not a chance in
ten she would not fret the life out of me whining to go to the city to
live, arrange for her here the best I could. Of all the fool, unreliable
dogs that ever trod a man's tracks, you are the limit! And you never
before failed me! You blame, degenerate pup, you!"

The Harvester paused for breath and the dog subsided to a pitiful
whimper. He was eager to return to the man who had struck him the first
blow his pampered body ever