And she went on wiping dishes and shaking her turbaned head. It was winter when Steve Earle and Lancaster lifted Frank, without protest on his part, into the baggage car at Breton Junction. It was summer in the strange flat country where after two days and a night of travel Lancaster lifted him, rejoicing in his freedom, out again. It was old Frank's staunchness that brought calamity upon him. But that is going ahead. There had been three days of great shooting. The exiled feeling had left him, and he and Lancaster had become comrades. Lancaster was a good shot and that commanded his respect. Lancaster was a kind man and that commanded his affection. At the lodge in the pines where they lived were other men, hunters like Lancaster, and other dogs, bird dogs like himself, a congenial crowd, sportsmen all. Sometimes as he lay in the lodge, where if the night was cool a fire was built, and while he listened to the talk and laughter of the men, he thought of home--gravely, without repining, as a mature and self-sufficient man does. Lancaster would take him back, that he knew. If any doubts assailed him, a look into Lancaster's face and into the faces of the other men dispelled them. These men were like his master--men on whom a dog can depend. On the morning of the fourth day Lancaster took him out alone, with only a guide. Barking with joy, he leaped up into the face of his friend; then started out on his swift strong gallop through the level fields of broomstraw. In his eagerness to find birds he rounded a swamp. A wide, free ranger, he drew quickly out of sight. In a clearing engirt by pines he stopped abruptly--stopped just in time. Right before him, his nose told him, were birds. He stiffened into an earnest, beautiful point. He would not stir until Lancaster came up behind him and ordered him on. And Lancaster with the guide was far behind and on the other side of the swamp. A fine sight he made in that lonely country, standing, head erect, tail straight out, sun flashing on his silken red hair. So those two men, driving in a dilapidated wagon along a sandy road in the edge of the pines, must have thought. For the driver, a burly, sallow fellow, pointed him out, pulled on the reins, and the wagon stopped. The two talked for a while in guarded tones; next they stood up on the wagon seat and looked all around; then they climbed out and came stealthily across the field. The burly man held in his hand a rope. Instinct alarmed the dog, warned him to turn. Professional pride held him rigid, lest he flush those birds and be disgraced. Pride betrayed him. A sudden grip cut his hind legs from under him, threw him flat on his back just as the birds rose with a roar. A thumb and forefinger, clamped in his mouth, pressed on his nose like a vise. He was squirming powerfully in the sand, but a knee was on his throat and the sky was growing black.