“Can’t you keep the beast from acting like he belonged to me, when I’m judging him?” grumpily complained McGilead, once to the Master. “A fine impression it makes, don’t it, on strangers, when they see him come wagging and grinning up to me and wanting to shake hands, or to roll over for me to play with him? One fool asked me, was it my own dog I gave the prize to. He said no outsider’s dog would be making such a fuss over a judge. Try to keep him in better order in the ring, or I’ll prove he isn’t mine, by ‘giving him the gate,’ one of these days. See if I don’t.” But he never did. And the Master knew well that he never would. So it was that Bruce’s career as a winner continued unbrokenly, while other champions came and went. With dogs, as with horses, youth will be served. By the time a horse is six, his racing days are past; and he has something like twenty years of cart or carriage mediocrity ahead of him. His glory as a track king has fled forever. And with dogs—whose average life of activity runs little beyond ten years—ring honours usually come in youth or not at all. Yes, and they depart with youth. The dog remains handsome and useful for years thereafter. But his head has coarsened. His figure has lost its perfection. His gait stiffens. In a score of ways he drops back from the standard required of winners. Younger dogs are put above him. Which is life—whether in kennel, or in stable, or in office, or in the courts of love. Youth wins. Yet the passing years seemed to take no perceptible toll of Bruce. His classic head lost none of its fineness. His body remained limber and graceful and shapely. His coat was mightier than ever. Even McGilead’s apprehensive and super-piercing glance could find no flaw, no sign of oncoming age. The years had, hitherto, been well-nigh as kind to Angus, himself. Dry and wiry and small, he had neither shown nor felt the weight of advancing age. Yet, now, passing his sixtieth milestone, an attack of rheumatic fever left him oddly heavy and slothful. Instead of taking the stairs two at a time, he set a foot on every step. And at the top of any very long flight, he was annoyed to find himself breathing absurdly hard. He found himself, for the first time in his life, sneering at youth’s gay ebullience, and snubbing the bumptiousness of his growing sons.