d tell you a few things--and you
can do as you like about making the motion."

CHAPTER II

REVERSED UNANIMITY

The great blade of the grading machine, running diagonally across the road
and pulling the earth toward its median line, had made several trips, and
much persiflage about Jim Irwin's forthcoming appearance before the board
had been addressed to Jim and exchanged by others for his benefit.

To Newton Bronson was given the task of leveling and distributing the
earth rolled into the road by the grader--a labor which in the interests
of fitting a muzzle on his big mongrel dog he deserted whenever the
machine moved away from him. No dog would have seemed less deserving of a
muzzle, for he was a friendly animal, always wagging his tail, pressing
his nose into people's palms, licking their clothing and otherwise making
a nuisance of himself. That there was some mystery about the muzzle was
evident from Newton's pains to make a secret of it. Its wires were curled
into a ring directly over the dog's nose, and into this ring Newton had
fitted a cork, through which he had thrust a large needle which protruded,
an inch-long bayonet, in front of Ponto's nose. As the grader swept back,
horses straining, harness creaking and a billow of dark earth rolling
before the knife, Ponto, fully equipped with this stinger, raced madly
alongside, a friend to every man, but not unlike some people, one whose
friendship was of all things to be most dreaded.

As the grader moved along one side of the highway, a high-powered
automobile approached on the other. It was attempting to rush the swale
for the hill opposite, and making rather bad weather of the newly repaired
road. A pile of loose soil that Newton had allowed to lie just across the
path made a certain maintenance of speed desirable. The knavish Newton
planted himself in the path of the laboring car, and waved its driver a
command to halt. The car came to a standstill with its front wheels in the
edge of the loose earth, and the chauffeur fuming at the possibility of
stalling--a contingency upon which Newton had confidently reckoned.

"What d'ye want?" he demanded. "What d'ye mean by stopping me in this kind
of place?"

"I want to ask you," said Newton with mock politeness, "if you have the
correct time."

The chauffeur sought words appropriate to his feelings. Ponto and his
muzzle saved him the trouble. A pretty pointer leaped from the car, and
attracted by the evi