layed the game--had asked no odds because she was a woman. He thought
of his own youngest daughter. Suppose she were standing there, as that
girl stood!

When the three judges rode up, she herself lifted the big pointer out
of the crate. Once more he reared up on her, once more her hand stroked
his head. Then, at a command of the judges, she was leading him into the
field, her pony following; at her side walked the handler of Count
Redstone, and in front of him, the Count strained at his leash.

"Are you ready?" asked the senior judge.

Count Redstone's handler, a bronzed, gray-haired veteran, said "Ready!"
as he had said it a hundred times. The girl merely looked up at the
judge and nodded.

"Let go!" ordered the judge.

Burton saw the dogs dash away. The girl, like an athlete, sprang into
her saddle. Both handlers galloped after their dogs. Behind followed the
judges, then, after an interval, the field, among them old Burton, his
heart beating fast. The fight was on--but it was more than a fight
between dogs. It was a conflict between a girl's will and the wild
heritage in a dog's nature.

The dogs have to be kept within a course some half-a-mile wide and many
miles long. If a dog gets out of the course and is lost for a length of
time--that varies according to the conception of the judges, but is
usually confined to half an hour--that dog is ruled out. This much
Burton knew. The question was whether the girl by her whistle and the
wave of her handkerchief to right and left could keep the dog within
the course. The test is, which dog will find the most birds in that
course and handle them with the greatest speed and dash.

At first the girl succeeded in handling her dog, though she had to ride
hard to do so. Far ahead of the judges she kept, a slim figure against
the hills. Now and then came the shrill of her whistle and the wave of
her handkerchief. Then it began to be rumoured among the field that she
had lost him. But not for long. On top of a hill she appeared, her right
arm thrown up high. Judges, then the field, galloped toward her. The
upraised hand meant her dog had scored--had found birds.

Burton, spurring up his horse, kept up with the crowd. There, in the
midst of a straw field, head up, tail straight out, stood the pointer.
The girl had dismounted, taken the little gun out of the scabbard, and
was advancing, slim, straight, flushed of cheek, toward him.

"Flush your birds!" ordered the senior ju