afternoon, sitting on a box in the rear of
Jennings's wagon, leading the mule by a halter. Before sunset they came
to the country where he and Prince had hunted a hundred times. On top of
that steep hill, yonder by that dead pine, Prince had held a covey an
hour one stormy day in a gale of wind that threatened to blow him off
his feet.

Into this swift creek, over whose bridge the wagon wheels rumbled,
Prince had plunged one icy morning and retrieved a wounded bird, the
water freezing on him as he stepped dripping out. These things and
others like them, in spite of himself, passed, along with the slowly
passing landscape, through the mind of Jim Taylor while the sun dropped
low over the hills and Tom Jennings talked about what a bargain the mule
was, and the mule pulled back, as mules always do, on the halter.

It was nearly dusk when they came in sight of the club, whose lights
twinkled through the trees, and Jennings spoke up suddenly:

"Hello! Ain't that your wife yonder?"

Jim glanced around. "Looks like her, Tom."

"She just left the club."

"Been to sell eggs, likely."

But when they caught up with her Jim saw that she was in her best black
dress with the black beaded bonnet, and when he helped her in the wagon
he noticed that her face was worried. She did not even seem to observe
the mule; and Jim, as he led his sleek new purchase to the barn, was
wondering what it all meant.

He was still wondering while he finished his lonely work about the yard.
As he stamped up the back steps he saw her through the kitchen window
rise suddenly from a chair. She had changed her dress, but she had not
started the fire or lit the lamp. He must have surprised her.

Oh, she was just tired, she said in reply to his anxious question. She
had been to the club to sell eggs.

"They must have been mighty fine eggs," he said, his eyes twinkling
kindly, "for you to dress up so. You must have toted 'em in your hands,
too, for you forgot your basket."

She sank into a chair, looking up helplessly at him.

"Sit down, Jim," she said. Then she went on: "I never meant to tell you,
Jim. I tried--I tried to buy him back."

"Buy him?"

"Yes, old Prince."

"Why, Mary, I thought I told you--he give me two hundred and fifty
dollars."

"I know. I offered him what he gave."

"You--you done what?"

She smiled a little at the amazement in his face, but her voice trembled
as she made her confession. For ten years she had been savi