arking with joy, he leaped up into the face of his friend;
then started out on his swift strong gallop through the level fields of
broomstraw. In his eagerness to find birds he rounded a swamp. A wide,
free ranger, he drew quickly out of sight. In a clearing engirt by pines
he stopped abruptly--stopped just in time. Right before him, his nose
told him, were birds.

He stiffened into an earnest, beautiful point. He would not stir until
Lancaster came up behind him and ordered him on. And Lancaster with the
guide was far behind and on the other side of the swamp.

A fine sight he made in that lonely country, standing, head erect, tail
straight out, sun flashing on his silken red hair. So those two men,
driving in a dilapidated wagon along a sandy road in the edge of the
pines, must have thought. For the driver, a burly, sallow fellow,
pointed him out, pulled on the reins, and the wagon stopped. The two
talked for a while in guarded tones; next they stood up on the wagon
seat and looked all around; then they climbed out and came stealthily
across the field. The burly man held in his hand a rope.

Instinct alarmed the dog, warned him to turn. Professional pride held
him rigid, lest he flush those birds and be disgraced. Pride betrayed
him. A sudden grip cut his hind legs from under him, threw him flat on
his back just as the birds rose with a roar. A thumb and forefinger,
clamped in his mouth, pressed on his nose like a vise. He was squirming
powerfully in the sand, but a knee was on his throat and the sky was
growing black.

Writhing and twisting, he was lifted to the wagon and tied in the bottom
with ropes. Then pine trees were passing swiftly overhead. One man was
lashing the mule. The other was standing up, looking back.

"See anybody?"

"No."

"Reckon he's one of them thousand-dollar dogs, Jim?"

"Reckon so! Look at him!"

All day the wagon wheels ground the sand. All day old Frank, tied in the
bottom of the wagon, sullenly watched those two men in the seat. Once or
twice, at the sound of other wheels approaching along the unfrequented
road, they pulled aside into the woods and waited. At dusk they turned
into a dirty yard. On the porch of an unpainted shack stood a woman,
beyond stretched level fields of broomstraw, then the flat blue line of
forest, and above the forest a dark-red glow.

They unfastened all the ropes but the one about his neck, pulled him out
of the wagon, dragged him off to the log cornc