But all that morning while he went from one sales stable to another Jim knew Prince would be pricking his ears at every footstep around the club, and scanning every approaching face with hopeful, eager eyes. He had known some bird dogs who were the property of any hunter who chanced along with a gun, and others that stuck to one man, and one man alone. Prince was a one man's dog. He left town in the afternoon, sitting on a box in the rear of Jennings's wagon, leading the mule by a halter. Before sunset they came to the country where he and Prince had hunted a hundred times. On top of that steep hill, yonder by that dead pine, Prince had held a covey an hour one stormy day in a gale of wind that threatened to blow him off his feet. Into this swift creek, over whose bridge the wagon wheels rumbled, Prince had plunged one icy morning and retrieved a wounded bird, the water freezing on him as he stepped dripping out. These things and others like them, in spite of himself, passed, along with the slowly passing landscape, through the mind of Jim Taylor while the sun dropped low over the hills and Tom Jennings talked about what a bargain the mule was, and the mule pulled back, as mules always do, on the halter. It was nearly dusk when they came in sight of the club, whose lights twinkled through the trees, and Jennings spoke up suddenly: "Hello! Ain't that your wife yonder?" Jim glanced around. "Looks like her, Tom." "She just left the club." "Been to sell eggs, likely." But when they caught up with her Jim saw that she was in her best black dress with the black beaded bonnet, and when he helped her in the wagon he noticed that her face was worried. She did not even seem to observe the mule; and Jim, as he led his sleek new purchase to the barn, was wondering what it all meant. He was still wondering while he finished his lonely work about the yard. As he stamped up the back steps he saw her through the kitchen window rise suddenly from a chair. She had changed her dress, but she had not started the fire or lit the lamp. He must have surprised her. Oh, she was just tired, she said in reply to his anxious question. She had been to the club to sell eggs. "They must have been mighty fine eggs," he said, his eyes twinkling kindly, "for you to dress up so. You must have toted 'em in your hands, too, for you forgot your basket." She sank into a chair, looking up helplessly at him. "Sit down, Jim," she said. Then she went on: "I never meant to tell you, Jim. I tried--I tried to buy him back." "Buy him?" "Yes, old Prince." "Why, Mary, I thought I told you--he give me two hundred and fifty dollars." "I know. I offered him what he gave." "You--you done what?"