Chet had expected that Mac, the young dog, would prove a companion for Job, but at first it seemed he would be disappointed. To begin with, Job was jealous; he sulked when Chet paid Mac attention and was a scornful spectator at Mac’s training sessions. This early jealousy came to a head about the time Mac got his full stature--in a fight over a field mouse. It happened in the orchard, where Chet was piling hay round his trees. Mac dug the mouse out of the grass, Old Tantrybogus stole it and Mac went for him. Tantry was old, but strength was still in him, and some measure of craft. He got a neck hold and it is probable he would have killed Mac then and there if Chet had not interfered. As it was, Chet broke the hold, punished both dogs and chained them up for days till by every language a dog can muster they promised him to behave themselves. They never fought again. Mac had for Tantry a deep respect; Job had for Mac--having established his ascendancy--a mild and elderly affection. In Tantry’s thirteenth year during the haying Mac caught a mouse one day and brought it and gave it to the older dog; and Chet, who saw the incident, slapped his knee and cried, “Now ain’t that comical?” About his twelfth year old Tantry’s bark had begun to change. Little by little it lost the deeper notes of the years of his prime; it lost the certainty and decision which were always a part of the dog. It began to crack, as an old man’s voice quavers and cracks. A shrill querulous note was born in it. Before he was thirteen his bark had an inhuman sound and Chet could hardly bear to hear it. On gunning days while Chet was preparing to take the field with Mac, Old Tantrybogus would dance unsteadily round him, barking this hoarse, shrill, delighted bark. It was like seeing an old man gamboling; it was age aping youth. There was something pitiful in it, and Chet used to swear and chain Tantry to his kennel and bid him--abusively--be still. The chain always silenced Tantry. He would lie in the kennel, head on his paws in the doorway, and watch Chet and Mac start away, with never a sound. And at night when they came home Chet would show him the birds and Tantry would snuffle at them eagerly, then hide his longing under a mask of condescension as though to say that woodcock had been of better quality in his day.