aster pitifully. Mr. Belcher caressed him. There
was still one creature living that recognized him, and acknowledged him
as his lord. He looked up at his house and took a final survey of the
dim outlines of the village. Then he mounted his wagon, turned his horse
around, and went slowly down the hill, calling to his dog to follow. The
huge creature followed a few steps, then hesitated, then, almost
crawling, he turned and sneaked away, and finally broke into a run and
went back to the house, where he stopped and with a short, gruff bark
scouted his retiring master.

Mr. Belcher looked back. His last friend had left him. "Blast the
brute!" he exclaimed. "He is like the rest of 'em."

As he came down the road to turn into the main highway, a man stepped
out from the bushes and seized Old Calamity by the bridle. Mr. Belcher
struck his horse a heavy blow, and the angry beast, by a single leap,
not only shook himself clear of the grasp upon his bit, but hurled the
intercepting figure upon the ground. A second man stood ready to deal
with Mr. Belcher, but the latter in passing gave him a furious cut with
his whip, and Old Calamity was, in twenty seconds, as many rods away
from both of them, sweeping up the long hill at a trot that none but
iron sinews could long sustain.

The huge pile that constituted the Sevenoaks poor-house was left upon
his right, and in half an hour he began a long descent, which so far
relieved his laboring horse, that when he reached the level he could
hardly hold him. The old fire of the brute was burning at its hottest.
Mr. Belcher pulled him in, to listen for the pursuit. Half a mile
behind, he could hear wheels tearing madly down the hill, and he
laughed. The race had, for the time, banished from his mind the history
of the previous week, banished the memory of his horrible losses,
banished his sense of danger, banished his nervous fears. It was a stern
chase, proverbially a long one, and he had the best horse, and knew that
he could not be overtaken. The sound of the pursuing wheels grew fainter
and fainter, until they ceased altogether.

Just as the day was breaking, he turned from the main road into the
woods, and as the occupants of a cabin were rising, he drove up and
asked for shelter and a breakfast.

He remained there all day, and, just before night, passed through the
forest to another road, and in the early morning was driving quietly
along a Canadian highway, surveying his "adopted