Alertly calm of nerve, heedless of his surroundings so long as his worshipped god was crooning reassurances to him, Bobby stood at Mackellar’s side. His incredible coat was burnished like old bronze. His head was calmly erect, his mighty frame steady. His eyes, with true eagle look, surveyed the staring throng. Never before, in all the Westminster Club’s forty-odd shows, had such a collie been led into the ring. Eugenic breeding, wise rationing and tireless human care had gone to the perfecting of other dogs. But Mother Nature herself had made Lochinvar Bobby what he was. She had fed him bountifully upon the all-strengthening ration of the primal beast; and she had given him the exercise-born appetite to eat and profit by it. Her pitiless winter winds had combed and winnowed his coat as could no mortal hand, giving it thickness and length and richness beyond belief. And she had moulded his growing young body into the peerless model of the Wild. Then, because he had the loyal heart of a collie and not the incurable savagery of the wolf, she had awakened his soul and made him bask rapturously in the friendship of a true dog-man. The combination was unmatchable. “Walk your dogs, please,” ordered the judge, coming out of his momentary daze. Before the end of the ring’s first turn, he had motioned Frayne and Mackellar to take their dogs into one corner. He proceeded to study the five others; awarding to two of them the yellow third-prize ribbon and the white reserve, and then ordering the quintet from the ring. After which he beckoned Bobby and King to the judging block. In the interim, Frayne had been staring goggle-eyed at the Midwestburg collie. He tried to speak; but he could not. A hundred thoughts were racing dumbly through his bemused brain. He stood agape, foolish of face. Jamie Mackellar was pleasantly talkative. “A grand class, this,” he confided to his voiceless comrade. “But, first crack, Judge Breese had the eye to single out our two as so much the best that he won’t size ’em up with the others. How do you like Bobby, sir? Is he very bad? Don’t you think, maybe, he’s picked up, just a trifle, since you shipped him to me? He’s no worse, anyhow, than he was then, is he?” Frayne gobbled, wordlessly.