gh to keep us
comfortable. You see, we spent such lots of money for those horrid old
doctors in the East, who didn't do me a bit of good."

"You been doin' your share just gettin' well and strong, which is savin'
money. But seein' you asked me, you can do a whole lot if Lorry was to
say anything to you about goin'. And you know how better'n I can tell
you or your daddy or anybody."

"But Lorry must do as he thinks best. We--we are not engaged."

"'Course. And it ain't no time for a young fella to get engaged to a gal
and tie up her feelin's and march off with her heart in his pocket.
Mebby some day she's goin' to want it back ag'in, when he ain't livin'
to fetch it back to her. I see, by the Eastern papers Torrance has been
sendin' me, that some young fellas is marryin' just afore they go to
jine the Frenchmen on the front. Now, what are some of them gals goin'
to do if their boys don't come back? Or mebby come back crippled for
life? Some of them gals is goin' to pay a mighty high price for just a
few days of bein' married. It riles me to think of it."

"I hadn't thought of it--as you do," said Dorothy.

"Well, I hope you'll forgive your Uncle Bud for ragin' and rampin'
around like this. I can't talk what's in my heart to folks around here.
They're mostly narrow-gauge. I reckon I said enough. Let's go look at
that new saddle."

"Isn't it strange," said Dorothy, "that I couldn't talk with father like
this? He'd be nice, of course, but he would be thinking of just me."

"I reckon he would. And mebby some of Lorry."

"If Lorry should ask me about his going--"

"Just you tell him that you think one volunteer is worth four conscripts
any time and any place. And if that ain't a hint to him they's somethin'
wrong with his ears."

Shoop rose and plodded out after Dorothy. Bondsman trailed lazily
behind. Because Shoop had not picked up his hat the big dog knew that
his master's errand, whatever it was, would be brief. Yet Bondsman
followed, stopping to yawn and stretch the stiffness of age from his
shaggy legs. There was really no sense in trotting across the street
with his master just to trot back again in a few minutes. But Bondsman's
unwavering loyalty to his master's every mood and every movement had
become such a matter of course that the fine example was lost in the
monotony of repetition.

A dog's loyalty is so often taken for granted that it ceases to be
noticeable until in an unlooked-for hazard it shines