l see
something of the world."

So spoke Steve Earle, the master. But out in the spacious kitchen, hung
with pots and pans, where his mistress and Tommy put his pot of
breakfast before him and watched while he ate--out in the kitchen old
Aunt Cindy, the cook, raised her voice in protest.

"Ain't dey got no dogs up in New York whar dat man come from?" she
demanded. "Why don't he have a dog of his own, den? He rich enough to
buy a dozen. What he want to stop over here an' borry _our_ dog for?
What he gwine to take him to, Miss Marian? Fluridy, you say? Lordy,
lordy, dat a long way to take our dog, a powerful long way!"

"But he's goin' to bring him back, though!" cried Tommy.

"Well, honey, I don't know about dat. You never can tell. Dis here's
Friday, an' Friday a bad luck day. Sometimes folks, an' dogs, too, set
out on Friday, an' never do come back. Lordy, lordy, ain't I see things
like dat happen?"

Marian laughed.

"Don't scare the child, Aunt Cindy."

"I ain't skeerin' the chile, Miss Marian. I mean ev'y word I say, Miss.
Friday a bad day to start anywhere--a powerful bad day!"

And she went on wiping dishes and shaking her turbaned head.

It was winter when Steve Earle and Lancaster lifted Frank, without
protest on his part, into the baggage car at Breton Junction. It was
summer in the strange flat country where after two days and a night of
travel Lancaster lifted him, rejoicing in his freedom, out again. It was
old Frank's staunchness that brought calamity upon him. But that is
going ahead.

There had been three days of great shooting. The exiled feeling had left
him, and he and Lancaster had become comrades. Lancaster was a good shot
and that commanded his respect. Lancaster was a kind man and that
commanded his affection. At the lodge in the pines where they lived were
other men, hunters like Lancaster, and other dogs, bird dogs like
himself, a congenial crowd, sportsmen all.

Sometimes as he lay in the lodge, where if the night was cool a fire was
built, and while he listened to the talk and laughter of the men, he
thought of home--gravely, without repining, as a mature and
self-sufficient man does. Lancaster would take him back, that he knew.
If any doubts assailed him, a look into Lancaster's face and into the
faces of the other men dispelled them. These men were like his
master--men on whom a dog can depend.

On the morning of the fourth day Lancaster took him out alone, with only
a guide. B