of almost stern aloofness, and manifestly not used to
people. His deep, wine-dark eyes seemed to search Helen's soul. They
were honest and wise, with a strange sadness.

"He looks intelligent," observed Helen, as she smoothed the long, dark
ears.

"That hound is nigh human," responded Dale. "Come, an' while you eat
I'll tell you about Pedro."

Dale had gotten the hound as a pup from a Mexican sheep-herder who
claimed he was part California bloodhound. He grew up, becoming attached
to Dale. In his younger days he did not get along well with Dale's other
pets and Dale gave him to a rancher down in the valley. Pedro was back
in Dale's camp next day. From that day Dale began to care more for the
hound, but he did not want to keep him, for various reasons, chief of
which was the fact that Pedro was too fine a dog to be left alone half
the time to shift for himself. That fall Dale had need to go to the
farthest village, Snowdrop, where he left Pedro with a friend. Then Dale
rode to Show Down and Pine, and the camp of the Beemans' and with them
he trailed some wild horses for a hundred miles, over into New Mexico.
The snow was flying when Dale got back to his camp in the mountains.
And there was Pedro, gaunt and worn, overjoyed to welcome him home. Roy
Beeman visited Dale that October and told that Dale's friend in Snowdrop
had not been able to keep Pedro. He broke a chain and scaled a ten-foot
fence to escape. He trailed Dale to Show Down, where one of Dale's
friends, recognizing the hound, caught him, and meant to keep him until
Dale's return. But Pedro refused to eat. It happened that a freighter
was going out to the Beeman camp, and Dale's friend boxed Pedro up and
put him on the wagon. Pedro broke out of the box, returned to Show Down,
took up Dale's trail to Pine, and then on to the Beeman camp. That was
as far as Roy could trace the movements of the hound. But he believed,
and so did Dale, that Pedro had trailed them out on the wild-horse hunt.
The following spring Dale learned more from the herder of a sheepman at
whose camp he and the Beemans; had rested on the way into New Mexico.
It appeared that after Dale had left this camp Pedro had arrived, and
another Mexican herder had stolen the hound. But Pedro got away.

"An' he was here when I arrived," concluded Dale, smiling. "I never
wanted to get rid of him after that. He's turned out to be the finest
dog I ever knew. He knows what I say. He can almost talk. An' I