ard the gate. Just outside the hound stopped to
speak to an aristocratic St. Bernard who had been friendly:

"Sorry to leave you, old fellow," he said, "but I'm going in to watch
over the kid. You see, I'm all she has up here."

The bull-terrier looked at the Airedale for appreciation.

"That's the way we do it," he said proudly.

"Yes, but--" the Airedale put his head on one side in perplexity.

"Yes, but what?" asked the guide.

"The dogs that don't have any people--the nobodies' dogs?"

"That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here. Crouch
down,--you must be tired,--and watch," said the bull-terrier.

Soon they spied another small form making the turn in the road. He wore
a Boy Scout's uniform, but he was a little fearful, for all that, so new
was this adventure. The dogs rose again and snuffled, but the better
groomed of the circle held back, and in their place a pack of odds and
ends of the company ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was reassured by
their friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose an
old-fashioned black and tan, and the two passed in.

Tam looked questioningly.

"They didn't know each other!" he exclaimed.

"But they've always wanted to. That's one of the boys who used to beg
for a dog, but his father wouldn't let him have one. So all our strays
wait for just such little fellows to come along. Every boy gets a dog,
and every dog gets a master."

"I expect the boy's father would like to know that now," commented the
Airedale. "No doubt he thinks quite often, 'I wish I'd let him have a
dog.'"

The bull-terrier laughed.

"You're pretty near the earth yet, aren't you?"

Tam admitted it.

"I've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys, having them both in
the family, and a mother as well."

The bull-terrier leaped up in astonishment.

"You don't mean to say they keep a boy?"

"Sure; greatest boy on earth. Ten this year."

"Well, well, this is news! I wish they'd kept a boy when I was there."

The Airedale looked at his new friend intently.

"See here, who are you?" he demanded.

But the other hurried on:

"I used to run away from them just to play with a boy. They'd punish me,
and I always wanted to tell them it was their fault for not getting
one."

"Who are you, anyway?" repeated Tam. "Talking all this interest in me,
too. Whose dog _were_ you?"

"You've already guessed. I see it in your quivering snout. I'm the old
dog that had