When he stopped this time he did not look back at Chet but watched the ball, and Chet after a single glance threw back his head and laughed aloud and cried to himself, “Now ain’t that comical?” For Job, a six-months’ puppy, was on his first point. Head low and flattened, nose on a line toward the ball, legs stiff, tail straight out behind with faintly drooping tip, the pup was motionless as a graven dog--a true setter in every line. And Chet laughed aloud. This laughter was a mistake, for at the sound the pup leaped forward, the cord slipped through Chet’s fingers and the dog caught the woolly ball and began to worry it. Chet, still laughing, took the ball from him, caressed him, praised him and ended the lesson for that day. And by so doing he permitted the birth in Job of one fault which he would never be able to overcome. The pup supposed he had been applauded for capturing the woolly ball and that notion would never altogether die in his dog brain. Job would break shot, as the gunners say, till the end of his days. III By October of his second year Job was sufficiently educated to be called a good working dog. He would stop at the word of command; he would swerve to right or left at a hand gesture; he would come to heel; he would point and hold his point as long as the bird would lie. He was a natural retriever, though Chet had to correct a tendency to chop the object that was retrieved. The man did this by thrusting through and through the woolen teaching ball a dozen long darning needles. When the dog, retrieving this ball, closed his jaws too harshly these needles pricked his tender mouth. He learned to lift the ball as lightly as a feather; he developed a mouth as soft as a woman’s hand; and even in his second year he would at command retrieve an egg which Chet rolled across the kitchen floor and never chip the shell. His one fault, his trick of breaking shot, was buttressed and built into the dog’s very soul by an incident which occurred in his first year’s hunting. He and Chet left the farmhouse one afternoon and started down through the fringe of woodland toward the river. It was near sunset. Chet had his gun, and as he expected, they found game; Chet had ample warning when he saw Job stiffen at half point, his tail twitching. He watched until the dog began to move forward with slow steps, and he said to himself, “He’s roding a pa’tridge. I knew there’d be one here.” Job’s head was high, evidence in itself that he had located partridge rather than woodcock. Chet skirted the fringe in the open land, studying the ground well ahead of the dog, alert for the burst of drumming wings. He moved quietly and Job moved among the trees, his feet stirring the leaves. The dog was tense; so was the man. And presently the dog froze again, this time in true point, tail rigid as an iron bar.