hat wet cobble-stones, smoothed by much
wear and greased with street slime, cannot be travelled heedlessly.
Either the heel or the toe calks must find a crevice somewhere. If they
do not, you are apt to go on your knees or slide on your haunches.
Flat-rail car-tracks give you unexpected side slips. So do the raised
rims of man-hole covers. But when it comes to wet asphalt--your calks
will not help you there. It's just a case of nice balancing and
trusting to luck.

Much, of course, depends on the man at the other end of the lines. In
this particular Chieftain was fortunate, for a better driver than Tim
Doyle did not handle leather for the company. Even "the old man"--the
stable-boss--had been known to say as much.

Chieftain had taken a liking to Tim the first day they turned out
together, when Chieftain was new to the city and to trucking. Driver
Doyle's fondness for Chieftain was of slower growth. In those days there
were other claimants for Tim's affections than his horses. There was a
Mrs. Doyle, for instance. Sometimes Chieftain saw her when Tim drove the
truck anywhere in the vicinity of the flat-house in which he lived. She
would come out and look at the team, and Tim would tell what fine horses
he had. There was a young Tim, too, a big, growing boy, who would now
and then ride on the truck with his father.

One day--it was during Chieftain's fifth year in the service--something
had happened to Mrs. Doyle. Tim had not driven for three days that time,
and when he did come back he was a very sober Tim. He told Chieftain all
about it, because he had no one else to tell. Soon after this young Tim,
who had grown up, went away somewhere, and from that time on the
friendship between old Tim and Chieftain became closer than ever. Tim
spent more and more of his time at the stable, until at the end, he
fixed himself a bunk in the night watchman's office and made it his
home.

So, for three years or more Chieftain had always had a good-night pat on
the flank from Tim, and in the morning, after the currying and rubbing,
they had a little friendly banter, in the way of love-slaps from Tim
and good-natured nosings from Chieftain. Perhaps many of Tim's
confidences were given half in jest, and perhaps Chieftain sometimes
thought that Tim was a bit slow in perception, but, all in all, each
understood the other, even better than either realized.

Of course, Chieftain could not tell Tim of all those vague longings
which had t