ourself!"

"Gimme that dog!"

"It's my dog!"

"Where'd ye git it?" sneered the other, making clutches at the puppy.

"My papa bought him for me in New York."

"Hm! All the way your father could git a dog like that is to steal
him. Your father 'ain't got no money. You stole him. You steal jest
like your father. Gimme the dog."

The claimant boy laid such insistent hands on the puppy, and Eddy so
resisted, that the little animal yelped loudly.

Carroll stepped up. His lips were ashy. This last idiotic episode was
unnerving him more than all that had gone before. "Give that boy his
dog," he commanded Eddy, sternly.

Eddy clung more tightly to the little dog, and began to whimper.
"But, papa--"

"Do as I tell you."

"He came to our stable, and he didn't have any collar on, and a dog
without any collar on--"

"Do as I tell you."

But Eddy had found an unexpected ally. Anderson had come on the
platform as the train approached. He was going on business to New
Sanderson, and he had furtively collared the owner of the puppy,
thrust something into his hand, whispered something, and given him a
violent push. The boy fled. When Carroll turned, the boy who had been
imperiously aggressive at his elbow was nowhere to be seen. Several
of the by-standers were grinning. Anderson was moving along to be at
the side of his car, as the train approached. It had all happened in
a very few seconds. Eddy clung fast to the puppy. There was no time
for anything, and the female Carrolls were pressing softly about for
the last words.

"I don't think the puppy belonged to that boy," Mrs. Carroll said.
"He was just a little, stray dog."

She had seen nothing of what Anderson had done, and neither had the
others. There was manifestly nothing more to be done. It was an
absurdity for Carroll to load himself up with that squirming puppy,
when the ownership seemed so problematic. He bade them all good-bye
again, and they got on the train. The women's pretty, wistfully
smiling faces appeared at windows, also Eddy's, and the innocently
wondering visage of the puppy. Anderson was in the smoking-car. As
the train passed, Carroll saw his face at a window, and bowed,
raising his hat half-mechanically. Anderson was conscious of a
distinct sensation of pity for him, the more so that he was helpless
and rebelliously depressed himself. He meditated upon the
advisability of going into the other car, the Pullman, before the
arrival of the train at