m, for the most part.
There were times when at a report above his head he still trembled,
and the shocked nerves in his ear gave a twinge like that of a bad
tooth. But always at the quiet voice of the old man, his god, he grew
steady, and remained staunch.

Some disturbing memory did start within him to-day as he glanced at
the man with the other dog. It seemed to him as if in another and an
evil world he had seen that face. His heart began to pound fast, and
his tail drooped for a moment. Within an hour it was all to come back
to him--the terror, the panic, the agony of that far-away time.

He looked up at old Swygert, who was his god, and to whom his soul
belonged, though he was booked as the property of Miss Marian Devant.
Of the arrangements he could know nothing, being a dog. Old Swygert,
having cured him, could not meet the expenses of taking him to field
trials. The girl had come to the old man's assistance, an assistance
which he had accepted only under condition that the dog should be
entered as hers, with himself as handler.

"Are you ready, gentlemen?" the judges asked.

"Ready," said Larsen and old Swygert.

And Comet and Peerless II were speeding away across that field, and
behind them came handlers, and judges and spectators, all mounted.

It was a race people still talk about, and for a reason, for strange
things happened that day. At first there was nothing unusual. It was
like any other field trial. Comet found birds, and Swygert, his
handler, flushed them and shot. Comet remained steady. Then Peerless
II found a covey, and Larsen flushed them and shot. And so for an hour
it went.

Then Comet disappeared, and old Swygert, riding hard and looking for
him, went out of sight over a hill. But Comet had not gone far. As a
matter of fact, he was near by, hidden in some high straw, pointing a
covey of birds. One of the spectators spied him, and called the
judges' attention to him. Everybody, including Larsen, rode up to him,
but still Swygert had not come back.

They called him, but the old man was a little deaf. Some of the men
rode to the top of the hill but could not see him. In his zeal he had
got a considerable distance away. Meanwhile, here was his dog,
pointed.

If any one had looked at Larsen's face he would have seen the
exultation there, for now his chance had come--the very chance he had
been looking for. It's a courtesy one handler sometimes extends
another who is absent from the spot,