his travelling splendour. Close beside him
stood old Frank, fierce-eyed, wise, suffering.

"Get in, son," said the man at the wheel, his voice gruff and husky.
"We're goin' to take you to your ma. You ain't got no business down here
in the woods alone. Quick now--no fooling!"

But Tommy drew back.

"Is--is F'ank goin'?"

"Sure. Let the dog in, Bill."

The red-faced man slammed the door on boy and dog and clambered heavily
into the front seat. The lumbering car lurched and swayed along the
unused wood road. It was stifling hot in here with the curtains down,
but old Frank, wedged in between bundles and suitcases, was panting with
more than heat. And Tommy, into whose face he looked with flattened ears
and eyes solemn with devotion, was suddenly pale.

Just ahead, the big road came into sight, shining in the sun. The car
stopped. The woman against whose knees boy and dog were pressed in the
crowded space was breathing fast. The crimson, sleazy shirtwaist rose
and fell. Her face, in spite of the red spots, was pasty, as if she
might faint. The men looked up and down the road, nodded grimly at each
other, and the car started with a jerk. The scream of Tommy broke the
terrible silence.

"That ain't the way! That ain't----!"

The red-faced man whirled around, caught the boy by the back of the neck
and pressed the other hand over his mouth. And old Frank, rearing up in
the crowded confusion, buried his shining fangs deep in that hand and
wrist. The other man sprang out of the car, jerked the door open, and
caught him by both hind legs.

"Don't stick him, Bill!" he gasped. "They'll find his body. Let him go
home!"

Snarling, writhing, fighting, Frank was dragged out and hurled into the
road. A savage kick sent him tumbling backward; the man sprang once more
into the front seat. The car darted away, Frank after it, barking
hoarsely in his rage and horror, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, the
road flying dizzily underneath him.

All that blazing August day he followed the car--followed though at the
next patch of woods it stopped and a man jumped out with a shotgun. He
was a hunting dog; he knew what that meant. Like a big red fox caught
prowling about after daylight, he sprang into the bushes and disappeared
from sight. After that he did not show himself again. Where he could, he
stayed in the woods, running parallel to the road like a swift, silent
outrider. At open places he lagged shrewdly behind; by short cu