that Mary
saw.

"Hold on, Jim! What's this on him?"

She was down on the floor with the dog. She jerked something off his
collar.

"Light the lamp, Jim!" she cried.

With trembling hands he obeyed. She had risen now, so had Prince. He had
taken refuge behind her skirts, from which point of vantage he was
looking round her up into the face of his master. The light Jim held
over her shoulder showed writing on a piece of paper.

"Jim!" she cried, all out of breath, "Jim! It says: 'Compliments of Mr.
Gordon to Mrs. Taylor. You see, I couldn't sell him to you, but I want
you two to have him. I am leaving in a few minutes. No time for more.
The train is coming."

Jim set the lamp on the table. "Well, well!" he said and sank into a
chair. Before him the fire roared and crackled up the chimney. Prince's
head was on his knee. He saw a man sitting on a log beside him in the
woods. He looked into the man's clear sportsman's eyes.

Far in the north through the stillness of the night he heard the faint,
vanishing whistle of the Limited. He put his hand on Prince's silken
head, and Prince nestled close and sat down on his haunches. Jim's arm
was about the shoulders of Mary, who had knelt down beside him.

"Well, well!" he said again, and the fire grew dim and blurred before
his eyes.

XII

THE CALL OF HOME

Old Frank, Irish setter, crawled out of his clean warm kennel underneath
the back porch; stretched his long, keen muscles till they cracked;
yawned with a fog of frosted breath at the misty winter sun risen over
distant mountains; then trotted around the side of the big white house
called Freedom Hill--the house that was his master's home and his own.

As if a happy thought had struck him, he broke into a sudden burst of
speed. He ran up the front steps three at a bound. He scratched at the
side front doors with the fan-shaped transom above. He waited with ears
pricked and wagging tail, nose to the crack of the door.

For it was always interesting to speculate on who would open the doors
on this particular morning. Maybe it would be the master, Steve Earle,
maybe the mistress, Marian Earle, maybe the boy Tommy--maybe old Aunt
Cindy the cook. If it were the old black woman she would grumble. She
would declare she didn't have time to bother with a dog while her
breakfast waited on the stove. She would remind him that he was only a
dog. But she would let him in, for all that.

He scratched again. He didn't