e I'm a fool, I s'pose," he growled. "I guess Chum wouldn't care
much 'bout livin' with a thief. Take him up there with you on the seat.
Don't let him fall out. An'"--his voice scaling a half octave in its
pain--"keep him to home after this. I ain't no measly angel. I can't
swear I'd have the grit to fetch him back another time."

He stopped, to note a curious phenomenon. There were actually tears in
the girl's big grave eyes. Link wondered why. Then she said:

"Cavalier isn't my father's dog. He is mine. My father gave him to me
when he bought him, last spring. Colonel Marden seemed to have
forgotten that to-day. And I didn't want to start a squabble by
reminding him of it. After all, it's my father's affair, and mine.
Nobody else's. My father got me another collie last spring to take
Cavalier's place. A collie I'm ever so fond of. So I don't need
Cavalier. I don't want him. I tried to find you to tell you so. But you
had gone. So I got my father to drive me to your place. We'd have
started sooner, but Cavalier got away. And we waited to look for
him--to bring him along."

"Bring him along?" mutteringly echoed the blankbrained Link. "What fer?"

"Why," laughed the girl, "because your house is where he belongs and
where he is going to live. Just as he has been living all summer."

Ferris caught his breath in a choked wheeze of unbelieving ecstasy.

"Gawd!" he breathed. "GAWD!"

Then, he stammered brokenly

"They--they don't seem no right words to--to thank you in, Ma'am. But
maybe you und'stand what I'd want to say if I could?"

"Yes," she said gently. "I think I understand. I understood from the
minute I saw you and the dog together. That's why I decided I didn't
want him. That's why I--"

"An' you'll get that thousand dollars!" cried Link, his fingers buried
rapturously in Chum's fur. "Ev'ry cent of it. I--"

"I think," interrupted the girl, winking very fast. "I think I've got
what I wanted, already. My father doesn't want the money either. Do
you, Dad?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, stop rubbing it in!" fumed Gault. "Come on
home! It's getting cold. I ought to thank the Lord for not having you
anywhere near me in Wall Street, girl! You'd send me under the hammer
in a week."

He kicked the accelerator, and the little car whizzed off in the
twilight.

"Chum," observed Ferris, gaping after it. "Chum, I guess the good Lord
built that gal the same day He built YOU. If He did--well, He sure done
one grand day