He licked the hand of the boy, then glanced up inquiringly into the face of the mother who sat beside him. She shook her head and he licked it no more. Later she whispered to him that he could lie down now, and nodded at the floor at her feet. He understood, but he did not move. The muscles of his haunches were cruelly cramped when the nurse snapped off the light. In the pale light growing luminous and pink and gradually suffusing the room Tommy Earle opened his eyes. First they looked up into the happy face of the mother, then at Steve Earle standing at the foot of the bed, then straight and clear into the faithful eyes of his friend. The cramped muscles quivered and jerked, the long tail beat the floor. He wanted to leap on the bed, to rush round the room. The mother caught him by the mane. He must be still, she said. The voice of Tommy Earle when he spoke was as gentle and clear as the chirp of half-awakened birds out of the window. "F'ank?" he said. Steve Earle had to hold the dog now--had to drag him away from the bed. They brought him a pan of water. They made him lie down. They came softly in, nurses and internes, and looked at him. He lay beside the bed, relaxed now, but panting slightly, his eyes still aglow. They said it was a wonderful thing he had done. And one of them, she was young and radiant, gazed long and steadily, as if fascinated, into his gentle, brave eyes, upraised to hers. "He knows what he's done!" she said. VIII THE TRIAL IN TOM BELCHER'S STORE It was a plain case of affinity between Davy Allen and Old Man Thornycroft's hound dog Buck. Davy, hurrying home along the country road one cold winter afternoon, his mind intent on finishing his chores before dark, looked back after passing Old Man Thornycroft's house to find Buck trying to follow him--_trying_ to, because the old man, who hated to see anybody or anything but himself have his way, had chained a heavy block to him to keep him from doing what nature had intended him to do--roam the woods and poke his long nose in every briar patch after rabbits. At the sight Davy stopped, and the dog came on, dragging behind him in the road the block of wood fastened by a chain to his collar and trying at the same time to wag his tail. He was tan-coloured, lean as a rail, long-eared, a hound every inch; and Davy was a ragged country boy who lived alone with his mother, and who had an old single-barrel shotgun at home, and who had in his grave boy's eyes a look, clear and unmistakable, of woods and fields.