m such a start that he was
still shaking long afterward. He was disappointed, but not less downcast
than old Spot.

"Never mind, old boy!" Johnnie said. "We'll have better luck next time!"

But they didn't. Twice more that same thing happened. And after the
third miss old Sport turned tail and ran away.

"I don't see what's the matter with that boy," he muttered. "I've
pointed three birds for him. And he has let every one of them get
away.... There's no fun in that kind of shooting."

After that Johnnie couldn't get Spot to go into the woods with him.
Whenever Johnnie appeared in the yard with his gun, Spot promptly
vanished.

So Johnnie spent a good deal of time shooting at old tin cans which he
set on a fence post or a stone wall. And it wasn't long before he found
he could hit them at every shot.

At last he came home from the woods one day with a grouse. When he
showed it to Spot the old dog actually began teasing him to go hunting.

The next day they set out together for the woods. And Johnnie knocked
down the very first grouse that Spot found for him.

Spot brought the bird to Johnnie and laid it proudly at his feet.

"Did Johnnie Green ever give you any of the birds that you find for
him?" Miss Kitty Cat inquired when Spot was boasting a bit about the
sport he and Johnnie had in the woods. "No!" she said, answering her own
question. "You're silly to hunt for him. I prefer to do my hunting
alone. Then nobody can take the game away from me."

Old dog Spot walked away from her, to the barn.

"Miss Kitty Cat doesn't know what real hunting is," he told the old
horse Ebenezer. "She creeps up on small birds after dark, when they are
asleep."

"And you creep up on big birds in the daytime," said old Ebenezer, "so
Johnnie Green can shoot them."

Being a sporting dog, Spot couldn't see anything queer in that remark.

"Certainly!" he said.

XIV

MISSING HIS MASTER

Johnnie Green went visiting one summer, after haying was done. Much to
old dog Spot's disgust, Johnnie did not take him on this journey. But it
was not Spot's fault that he was left at home. Had he not been shut up
in the harness room in the barn when Johnnie drove the old horse
Ebenezer out of the yard Spot would have followed beneath the buggy.

It was hours before Farmer Green set Spot free. When Farmer Green at
last flung open the door of the harness room Spot rushed out and dashed
into the road. To his sorrow he couldn't smell