terest in her. Lass meant
nothing to them, except the work of feeding her and of keeping an extra
run in order. She was a liability, a nuisance.

Lass used to watch with pitiful eagerness for the attendants'
duty-visits to the run. She would gallop joyously up to them, begging
for a word or a caress, trying to tempt them into a romp, bringing them
peaceofferings in the shape of treasured bones she had buried for her
own future use. But all this gained her nothing.

A careless word at best--a grunt or a shove at worst were her only
rewards. For the most part, the men with the feed-trough or the
water-pail ignored her bounding and wrigglingly eager welcome as
completely as though she were a part of the kennel furnishings. Her
short daily "exercise scamper" in the open was her nearest approach to
a good time.

Then came a day when again a visitor stopped in front of Lass's run. He
was not much of a visitor, being a pallid and rather shabbily dressed
lad of twelve, with a brand-new chain and collar in his hand.

"You see," he was confiding to the bored kennel-man who had been
detailed by the foreman to take him around the kennels, "when I got the
check from Uncle Dick this morning, I made up my mind, first thing, to
buy a dog with it, even if it took every cent. But then I got to
thinking I'd need something to fasten him with, so he wouldn't run away
before he learned to like me and want to stay with me. So when I got
the check cashed at the store, I got this collar and chain."

"Are you a friend of the boss?" asked the kennel-man.

"The boss?" echoed the boy. "You mean the man who owns this place? No,
sir. But when I've walked past, on the road, I've seen his 'Collies for
Sale' sign, lots of times. Once I saw some of them being exercised.
They were the wonderfulest dogs I ever saw. So the minute I got the
money for the check, I came here. I told the man in the front yard I
wanted to buy a dog. He's the one who turned me over to you. I
wish--OH!" he broke off in rapture, coming to a halt in front of Lass's
run. "Look! Isn't he a dandy?"

Lass had trotted hospitably forward to greet the guest. Now she was
standing on her hind legs, her front paws alternately supporting her
fragile weight on the wire of the fence and waving welcomingly toward
the boy. Unknowingly, she was bidding for a master. And her wistful
friendliness struck a note of response in the little fellow's heart.
For he, too, was lonesome, much of the ti