Into the hallowed precinct Link piloted the much-interested Chum. There he paused for a dazzled instant. The putting green and the fore-lawn in front of the field-stone clubhouse had been covered with a mass of wooden alleyways, each lined with a double row of stalls about two feet from the ground, carpeted with straw and having individual zinc water troughs in front of them. In nearly every one of these "benches" was tied a dog. There were more dogs than Link Ferris had seen before in all his quasi-dogless life. And all of them seemed to be barking or yelping. The din was egregious. Along the alleyways, men and women in sport clothes were drifting, in survey of the chained exhibits. In a central space among the lines of benches was a large square enclosure, roped off except for one aperture. In the middle of this space, which Link rightly guessed to be the judging ring, stood a very low wooden platform. At one side of the ring were a chair and a table, where sat a steward in a Palm Beach suit, fussily turning over the leaves of a ledger and assorting a heap of high-packed and vari-colored ribbons. Link, mindful of instructions, bore to the right in search of a stall labeled "65." As he went, he noted that the dogs were benched in such a way that each breed had a section to itself. Thus, while he was still some distance away from his designated bench, he saw that he was coming into a section of dogs which, in general aspect, resembled Chum. Above this aggregation, as over others, hung a lettered sign. And this especial sign read "Collie Section." So Chum was a "collie"--whatever that might be. Link took it to be a fancy term for "bird dog." He had seen the word before somewhere. And he remembered now that it had been in the advertisement that offered seventy-five dollars for the return of a lost "sable-and-white collie." Yes, and Dominie Jansen had said, "sable" meant "black." Link felt a glow of relief that the advertisement had not said "a brown-and-white collie." Chum was viewing his new surroundings with much attention, looking up now and then into his master's face as they moved along the rackety line--as though to gain reassurance that all was well. To a high-strung and sensitive dog a show is a terrific ordeal. But Chum, like the aristocrat he was, bore its preliminaries with debonair calm. Arriving at Bench 65 in the collie section, Link enthroned his dog there, fastening the chain's free end to a ring in the stall's corner. Then, after seeing that the water pan was where Chum could reach it in case he were thirsty and that the straw made a comfortable couch for him, Ferris once more patted the worried dog and told him everything was all right. After which Link proceeded to take a survey of the neighboring collies, the sixteen dogs which were to be Chum's competitors.