the first time in his life, had a dog. Incidentally,
for the first time in his life, he had an intimate friend--something of
whose love and loyalty he waxed increasingly sure. And he was happy.

His brighter spirits manifested themselves in his farm work,
transforming drudgery into contentment. And the farm began, in small
ways, to show the effects of its owner's new attitude toward labor.

The day after he found Chum, Link had trudged to Hampton; and, there,
had affixed to the clapboards of the general store a bit of paper
whereon he had scrawled:

"Found-One white and brown bird dog with leg broken. Owner can have
same by paying a reward."

On his next huckster trip to Craigswold he pinned a similar sign to the
bulletin board of that rarefied resort's post-office. And he waited for
results.

He did more. He bought two successive copies of the county's daily
paper and scanned it for word of a missing dog. But in neither copy did
he find what he sought.

True, both editions carried display advertisements which offered a
seventy-five dollar reward for information leading to the return of a
"dark-sable-and-white collie lost somewhere between Hohokus and
Suffern."

The first time he saw this notice Link was vaguely troubled lest it
might refer to Chum. He told himself he hoped it did. For seventy-five
dollars just now would be a godsend. And in self-disgust he choked back
a most annoying twinge of grief at thought of parting with the dog.

Two things in the advertisement puzzled him. In the first place, as
Chum was longhaired and graceful, Link had mentally classified him as
belonging to the same breed as did the setters which accompanied
hunters on mountain rambles past his farm in the autumns. Being wholly
unversed in canine lore, he had, therefore, classified Chum as a "bird
dog". The word "collie", if ever he had chanced to hear it before,
carried no meaning to him.

Moreover, he did not know what "sable" meant. He asked Dominie Jansen,
whom he met on the way home. And the dominie told him "sable" was
another name for "black." Jansen went on to amplify the theme,
dictionary-fashion, by quoting a piece of sacred poetry about "the
sable wings of night."

A great load was off Link's heart. Chum, most assuredly, was not black
and white. So the advertisement could not possibly refer to him. The
reverend gentleman, not being a dog fancier, of course had no means of
knowing that "sable", in collie jargon, mean