She remembered when he had been a common little fellow, but a short time ago, sprawling in every mud-puddle, or wobbling uncertainly after the many strange alluring things in the streets. Matt, who seemed to have second sight in regard to the invisible, latent good points in all horses and dogs, had picked him up in the pound for a mere nothing; and to him there was granted the vision of a brilliant future for the vagrant puppy. "Mark my words," he had said decisively when Spot's fate hung in the balance, "you can't go wrong on him; he'll be a credit to us all some day." And so Spot was rescued from death, or at least from a life of poverty and obscurity, and given to George Allan to become his constant companion. "You know," she persisted, "if a leader is too young he's apt to become over-zealous and important the way Irish did the day we loaned him to Charlie Thompson in the first Moose Handicap. Don't you remember he was disgusted at the way they were being managed by a rank novice, so he took his place in front of a rival team that was being well driven, and led them to victory, with the whole town cheering and yelling? You don't want that to happen to you, because your leader is inexperienced." "It ain't the same thing at all," explained George patiently; for it is ever the man's part to try to be patient with the feminine ignorance of dogs and baseball and other essential things about which women seem to have no intuition. "You see, I ain't goin' to drive him loose. A dog shouldn't ever be a loose leader unless he's a wonder at managin' all the rest, an' young dogs ain't generally had the trainin' for it. After a dog has showed he can find the trail, an' keep it, an' set the pace, an' make the others mind him, bein' a loose leader's kind of an honor he's promoted to; like bein' a General in the army. He don't have t' be hitched up to the tow-line any more, an' pull; he just has t' think, an' keep the team out o' trouble." "It's too bad that dogs aren't driven with lines instead of spoken orders--then there wouldn't be all of the bother about a leader every time." Both George and Danny looked at her for a moment with a contempt they barely succeeded in concealing. Even Ben Edwards was unpleasantly surprised, and he was not given to regarding her vagaries with unfriendly criticism. Drive with lines! Bother about a leader! Why, if dogs were driven with lines there would be no more interest in driving a dog team than there is in driving a delivery wagon, or running an automobile. All of the fascination of having your dogs answer to your will, voluntarily and intelligently, would be lost in the mechanical response to the jerk and the pull of the reins. She was utterly hopeless. There was no use of a further waste of words with her on such matters.