you say. We'll go back
to the house now; and we'll see to it that Frank doesn't kill any more
chickens."

Tommy took a deep breath; he could hardly believe his ears. He had
braced himself for fight, prepared himself to defend his assertion, and
now there wasn't going to be any fight at all. At first he thought his
father must have understood and become _particeps_ in the secret with
him and Frank and the gun. Then it dawned on his delighted mind--his
father actually believed what he had said!

He went back to the yard with them, profoundly relieved, as if he were
walking on air. He even had for a moment a virtuous feeling as if Frank
had really killed the rooster, and he had only spoken the truth. Then he
began to feel proud in a secret sort of way. It had been quite a stroke.
He had never experimented sufficiently with this method of getting out
of trouble. It was really quite simple. He would try it again some time.

He had a vague idea that something had hurt his mother, and he was
sorry for that. But she would get over it; he would be unusually loving
to her. Really, all one had to do was to make a statement, and grown
people would swallow it. They were easy marks.

Yet, somehow, though he had won out by superior intelligence, he wasn't
as happy as he should have been. He felt some of the loneliness of
genius. And when in the back yard his father turned and called Frank
sternly to him, he began to fear that the affair might not be so simple
after all.

With growing uneasiness he watched old Frank go to Earle, tail
depressed, eyes troubled. Earle led him to the kennel at the side of the
house and chained him up. Frank sat down on his haunches and looked up
into his master's face.

"Now," said Earle, "I'm going to give you time to think about it. Then
I'm going to wear you out!"

"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" cried the boy, the blood rushing to his
face.

His father turned and spoke to him confidentially, as man to man. They
would have to cure Frank, right now, before killing chickens got to be a
habit. They couldn't afford to have a chicken-killing dog on the
place--it was too expensive.

And that was just the beginning of his troubles and complications. Every
afternoon since he could remember, he and his father and Frank had gone
to the pasture to see about the cattle. But now old Frank was chained
up. And when his father asked _him_ to come along, he shook his head. He
didn't want to be alone with his fat