f a senseless dog. He thrust a bottle of hartshorn under
the black muzzle, and with a start and a moan Bobby came back to
consciousness.

"Lay him down flat and stop your havers," ordered the business-like,
embryo medicine man. "Bobby's no' dead. Laddie, you're a braw soldier
for holding your ain feelings, so just hold the wee dog's head." Then,
in the reassuring dialect: "Hoots, Bobby, open the bit mou' noo, an'
tak' the medicine like a mannie!" Down the tiny red cavern of a throat
Geordie poured a dose that galvanized the small creature into life.

"Noo, then, loup, ye bonny rascal!"

Bobby did his best to jump at Geordie's bidding. He was so glad to be at
home and to see all these familiar faces of love that he lifted himself
on his fore paws, and his happy heart almost put the power to loup into
his hind legs. But when he tried to stand up he cried out with the pains
and sank down again, with an apologetic and shamefaced look that was
worthy of Auld Jock himself. Geordie sobered on the instant.

"Weel, now, he's been hurt. We'll just have to see what ails the sonsie
doggie." He ran his hand down the parting in the thatch to discover if
the spine had been injured. When he suddenly pinched the ball of a hind
toe Bobby promptly resented it by jerking his head around and looking at
him reproachfully. The bairns were indignant, too, but Geordie grinned
cheerfully and said: "He's no' paralyzed, at ony rate." He turned as
footsteps were heard coming hastily around the kirk.

"A gude morning to you, Mr. Traill. Bobby may have been run over by a
cart and got internal injuries, but I'm thinking it's just sprains and
bruises from a bad fall. He was in a state of collapse, and his claws
are as broken and his toes as torn as if he had come down Castle Rock."

This was such an extravagant surmise that even the anxious landlord
smiled. Then he said, drily:

"You're a braw laddie, Geordie, and gudehearted, but you're no' a doctor
yet, and, with your leave, I'll have my ain medical man tak' a look at
Bobby."

"Ay, I would," Geordie agreed, cordially. "It's worth four shullings to
have your mind at ease, man. I'll just go up to the lodge and get a warm
bath ready, to tak' the stiffness out of his muscles, and brew a tea
from an herb that wee wild creatures know all about and aye hunt for
when they're ailing."

Geordie went away gaily, to take disorder and evil smells into Mistress
Jeanie's shining kitchen.

No sooner had