modern smokeless
powder now used by all hunters. Perhaps it was only an accident that
had caused Larsen before he left the house to load his pump gun with
black powder shells.

As for Comet he only knew that the birds rose; then above his head
burst an awful roar, almost splitting his tender eardrums, shocking
every sensitive nerve, filling him with terror such as he had never
felt before. Even then, in the confusion and horror of the surprise,
he turned to the man, head ringing, eyes dilated. A single reassuring
word, and he would have steadied. As for Larsen, though, he declared
afterward (to others and to himself even) that he noticed no
nervousness in the dog; that he was only intent on getting several
birds for breakfast.

Twice, three times, four times, the pump gun bellowed in its
cannon-like roar, piercing the eardrums, shattering the nerves. Comet
turned; one more glance backward at a face, strange, exultant--and
then the puppy in him conquered. Tail tucked, he ran away from that
shattering noise.

Miles he ran. Now and then, stumbling over briars, he yelped. Not once
did he look back. His tail was tucked, his eyes crazy with fear.
Seeing a house, he made for that. It was the noon hour, and a group of
farm hands was gathered in the yard. One of them, with a cry "Mad
dog!" ran into the house after a gun. When he came out, they told him
the dog was under the porch. And so he was. Pressed against the wall,
in the darkness, the magnificent young pointer with the quivering soul
waited, panting, eyes gleaming, the horror still ringing in his ears.

Here Larsen found him that afternoon. A boy crawled underneath the
porch and dragged him out. He, who had started life favoured of the
gods, who that morning even had been full of high spirits, who had
circled a field like a champion, was now a cringing, shaking creature,
like a homeless cur.

And thus it happened that Comet came home, in disgrace--a gun-shy dog,
a coward, expelled from college, not for some youthful prank, but
because he was--yellow. And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the
face of the big man, Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he
had spent his happy puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of
what he saw in the face of Jim Thompson.

In the house was a long and plausible letter, explaining how it
happened:

I did everything I could. I never was as surprised in my life. The
dog's hopeless.

As for the other inhabitants o