Part 27

"Come here, Janie," yelled the delighted Thompson who saw it. "Pointed--the damn little cuss!"

When Jim started taking the growing pups out of the yard and into the fields to the side of Devant's great Southern winter home, Oak Hill, it was Comet who strayed farthest from the man's protecting care. While at sight of a tree stump or a cow or some other monstrous object his brothers and sisters would scamper back to the man, Comet would venture toward it, provided it were not too far, to see what it was. If a cow he would bark, anxious little yelps, to show how brave he was. Then he would turn and run back--but not until he had first barked.

Over and over Jim, speaking of him to his wife--they looked after Oak Hill in the summer--would say with conviction:

"He's goin' to make a great dog!"

It looked as if Jim's prophecy would be fulfilled. Comet grew to be handsomer than his brothers and sisters. When Jim taught them to follow when he said "Heel!" to drop when he said "Drop!" and to stand stock still when he said "Ho!" Comet learned more quickly than the others. In everything he was favoured, even in temperament. Now and then he quarrelled with his brothers, who grew jealous of him, and sometimes the quarrel ended in a fight. But the fight over, he never sulked even if he were beaten, but was a loving brother two minutes afterward.

His height he gained quickly, like tall beanpole boys, and though big, his bones were shapely, and the muscles began to stand out on his lank, handsome body. At six months he was a stripling youth, two thirds pup, one third grown dog. Though he still romped with the others, it was plain to the practised eye that he was different. Sometimes he lay in the shade a long time and thoughtfully gazed into the distance, dreaming as serious-minded youths dream the world over. But all Comet's dreams were centred in fields of broomstraw where birds lay hid and in the thrillings his nose told him there.

At six months he set his first covey of quail, and though he was trembling with the excited joy of one who knows he has found his life's work, still he remained staunch several minutes. And though when the birds flushed he chased them, he came quickly and obediently back at Jim's command.

Everything--size, contour, nose, muscle, intelligence, spirit--pointed to a great dog. Yes--Comet was one of the favoured of the gods.

One day after the leaves had turned red and brown and the mornings grown chilly and pungent, a crowd of people, strangers to Comet, came to the big house at Oak Hill. With them were automobiles, trunks, horses. All this was tremendously exciting, and with noses pressed against the chicken wire of their yard Comet and his brothers and sisters watched these goings-on.

Then out of the house with Thompson came a big man in tweeds, and the two walked straight to the curious young dogs who were watching them with shining eyes and wagging tails.

"Well, Thompson," said the big man, "which is the future champion you've been writing me about?"

"Pick him out yourself, sir," said Thompson.

They talked a long time, planning the future of Comet. His yard training was over--Thompson was only yard trainer--and he must be sent to a man experienced in training and handling for field trials. His grade-school days were past. He must go off to college. He must be prepared for the thrilling life of the field-trial dog.

"Larsen's the man to bring him out," said the big man in tweeds, who was George Devant himself. "I saw his dogs work in the Canadian Derbies. I like his methods."

Thompson spoke hesitatingly, as if he disliked to bring the matter up.

"Mr. Devant--you remember, sir, a long time ago Larsen sued us for old Ben, saying the dog was his by rights?"

"Yes, Thompson, I remember--now you speak of it."

"Well, you remember the court decided against him, which was the only thing it could do, for Larsen didn't have any more right to that dog than the Sultan of Turkey. But, Mr. Devant, I was there. I saw Larsen's face, sir, when the case went against him."

Devant looked keenly at Thompson.

"Another thing, Mr. Devant," Thompson went on, still hesitatingly. "Larsen had a chance to get hold of this breed of pointers. He lost out because he dickered too long and acted cheesy. Now they've turned out to be famous. Some men never forget a thing like that, sir. Larsen's been talking these pointers down ever since. At least, that's what folks tell me. He's staked his reputation on his own breed of dogs. Calls 'em the Larsen strain."

"Go on," said Devant.

"I know Larsen's a good trainer. But it'll mean a long trip for the young dog. It'll be hard to keep in touch with him, too. Now there's an old trainer lives near here, old Wade Swygert. Used to train dogs in England. He's been out of the game a long time--rheumatism. He wants to get back in. He's all right now. I know he never made a big name, but there never was a straighter man than him. He's had bad luck----"

Devant smiled. "Thompson, I admire your loyalty to your friends, but I don't think much of your judgment. We'll turn some of the other puppies over to Swygert if he wants them, but Comet must have the best. I'll write Larsen to-night. To-morrow, crate Comet and send him off."

Just as no dog ever came into the world under more favourable auspices, so no dog ever had a bigger "send-off" than Comet. Even the ladies in the house came out to exclaim over him, and Marian Devant, pretty, eighteen, and a sportswoman, stooped down, caught his head between her hands, looked into his fine eyes, and wished him "Good luck, old man." In the living room men laughingly drank toasts to his future, and from the high-columned front porch Marian Devant waved him good-bye as he was driven off to the station, a bewildered young dog in a padded crate.

Two days and two nights he travelled. At noon of the third, at a dreary railroad station in a vast prairie country, he was lifted, crate and all, off the train. A man, tall, lean, pale-eyed, came down the platform toward him.

"Some beauty here, Mr. Larsen," said the station agent.

"Yes," drawled Larsen in a meditative, sanctimonious voice. "Pretty to the eye, but he looks scared--er--timid."

"Of course he's scared!" protested the agent. "So would you be if I was to put you in some kind of whale of a balloon and ship you off to Mars."