d send him
off."

Just as no dog ever came into the world under more favourable
auspices, so no dog ever had a bigger "send-off" than Comet. Even the
ladies of the house came out to exclaim over him, and Marian Devant,
pretty, eighteen, and a sports-woman, stooped down, caught his head
between her hands, looked into his fine eyes, and wished him "Good
luck, old man." In the living-room the men laughingly drank toasts to
his future, and from the high-columned portico Marian Devant waved him
good-bye, as in his clean padded crate he was driven off, a bewildered
youngster, to the station.

Two days and two nights he travelled, and at noon of the third day, at
a lonely railroad station in a prairie country that rolled like a
heavy sea, he was lifted, crate and all, off the train. A lean,
pale-eyed, sanctimonious-looking man came toward him.

"Some beauty that, Mr. Larsen," said the agent as he helped Larsen's
man lift the crate onto a small truck.

"Yes," drawled Larsen in a meditative voice, "pretty enough to look
at--but he looks scared--er--timid."

"Of course he's scared," said the agent; "so would you be if they was
to put you in some kind of a whale of a balloon an' ship you in a
crate to Mars."

The station agent poked his hands through the slats and patted the
head. Comet was grateful for that, because everything was strange. He
had not whined nor complained on the trip, but his heart had pounded
fast, and he had been homesick.

And everything continued to be strange: the treeless country through
which he was driven, the bald house and huge barns where he was lifted
out, the dogs that crowded about him when he was turned into the
kennel yard. These eyed him with enmity and walked round and round
him. But he stood his ground staunchly for a youngster, returning
fierce look for fierce look, growl for growl, until the man called him
away and chained him to a kennel.

For days Comet remained chained, a stranger in a strange land. Each
time at the click of the gate announcing Larson's entrance he sprang
to his feet from force of habit, and stared hungrily at the man for
the light he was accustomed to see in human eyes. But with just a
glance at him the man would turn one or more of the other dogs loose
and ride off to train them.

But he was not without friends of his own kind. Now and then another
young dog (he alone was chained up) would stroll his way with wagging
tail, or lie down near by, in that strang