dent friendliness of Ponto's greeting, pricked up its
ears, and sought, in a spirit of canine brotherhood, to touch noses with
him. The needle in Ponto's muzzle did its work to the agony and horror of
the pointer, which leaped back with a yelp, and turned tail. Ponto, in an
effort to apologize, followed, and finding itself bayonetted at every
contact with this demon dog, the pointer definitely took flight, howling,
leaving Ponto in a state of wonder and humiliation at the sudden end of
what had promised to be a very friendly acquaintance. I have known
instances not entirely dissimilar among human beings. The pointer's master
watched its strange flight, and swore. His eye turned to the boy who had
caused all this, and he alighted pale with anger.

"I've got time," said he, remembering Newton's impudent question, "to give
you what you deserve."

Newton grinned and dodged, but the bank of loose earth was his undoing,
and while he stumbled, the chauffeur caught and held him by the collar.
And as he held the boy, the operation of flogging him in the presence of
the grading gang grew less to his taste. Again Ponto intervened, for as
the chauffeur stood holding Newton, the dog, evidently regarding the
stranger as his master's friend, thrust his nose into the chauffeur's
palm--the needle necessarily preceding the nose. The chauffeur behaved
much as his pointer had done, saving and excepting that the pointer did
not swear.

It was funny--even the pain involved could not make it otherwise than
funny. The grading gang laughed to a man. Newton grinned even while in the
fell clutch of circumstance. Ponto tried to smell the chauffeur's
trousers, and what had been a laugh became a roar, quite general save for
the fact that the chauffeur did not join in it.

Caution and mercy departed from the chauffeur's mood; and he drew back his
fist to strike the boy--and found it caught by the hard hand of Jim
Irwin.

"You're too angry to punish this boy," said Jim gently,--"even if you had
the right to punish him at all!"

"Oh, cut it out," said a fat man in the rear of the car, who had hitherto
manifested no interest in anything save Ponto. "Get in, and let's be on
our way!"

The chauffeur, however, recognized in a man of mature years and full size,
and a creature with no mysterious needle in his nose, a relief from his
embarrassment. Unhesitatingly, he released Newton, and blindly, furiously
and futilely, he delivered a blow meant for J