ng up on
chickens and eggs, a quarter here, a half-dollar there. In secret she
had dreamed and planned. They would have new furniture, she had thought,
when the house was theirs--new furniture and a parlour. She had meant to
surprise him, not to let him know till it came. She had the furniture
picked out in a catalogue.

"Jim," she concluded, "I've saved up two hundred and fifty-four dollars
and twenty cents!"

His arm was about her shoulders. "Poor gal," he said. "She would have
give it all up for me and Prince. Now, now--don't cry. It's all the
same--you tried."

She wiped her eyes on her apron and looked at him.

"I saw last night how hard hit you was. I never knew till then just how
much store you set on Prince. And I never knew how much I thought of
him, for what you love, I love. I made up my mind then, Jim. After
dinner I went to the club. I had to wait a long time, for he was out
hunting. When he came in I told him I'd give him what he gave you, and
four dollars more. Jim, I thought he understood, he looked so kind. He
made me set down there in the big room. Then, Jim, I told him--told him
how it was with us."

Jim's face grew suddenly stern. "You told him that?"

She nodded.

"And he turned you down?"

"Oh, he was nice enough, as nice as if I was his mother. He came out on
the porch with me; he wanted to send me home. But he said he didn't feel
like selling him--selling old Prince; that it was a bargain between you
and him. Jim, when he turned back, I went round the club house. He was
chained to a kennel. He knew me, Jim. He thought I had come after him!"

She was crying outright now, there beside her cold stove, and wiping her
eyes on her apron.

"Well," said Jim solemnly, "I've hunted with many a man. I never knew
one to be white in the field and black outside before."

They ate a silent supper. They went into the bedroom before the fire.
Above the mantel was a picture of a dog pointing, over the bed another
of a dog retrieving. And in Jim's mind was another of old Prince sitting
off at a distance like the gentleman he was, and a man on the log at his
own side eating Mary's lunch.

"God Almighty!" he said to himself.

Out in the night came the roar of the Florida Limited. It whistled once
long and melodiously, then twice in short staccatos. That meant
passengers for the club or passengers from the club for the train.
Maybe, right now, old Prince was waiting on the station platform in the
gla