And of a sudden, without thought or plan but on the unconsidered impulse of the moment, Chet dropped his gun till the muzzle was just behind Old Tantry’s head. At the roar of it a woodcock rose on shrilling wings--rose and flew swiftly up the run with never a charge of shot pursuing. Chet had not even seen it go. The man was on his knees, cradling the old dog in his arms, crying out as though Tantry still could hear: “Tantry! Tantry! Why did I have to go and--I’m a murderer, Tantry! Plain murderer! That’s what I am, old dog!” He sat back on his heels, laid the white body down and folded his arms across his face as a boy does, weeping. In the still crisp air a sound seemed still ringing--the sound of a dog’s bark--the bark of Old Tantrybogus, yet strangely different too. Stronger, richer, with a new and youthful timbre in its tones; like the bark of a young strong dog setting forth on an eternal hunt with a well-loved master through alder runs where woodcock were as thick as autumn leaves. VII Half an hour after that Will Bissell chanced by Chet’s farm and saw Chet fetching pick and shovel from the shed, and something in the other’s bearing made him ask: “What’s the matter, Chet? Something wrong?” Chet looked at him slowly, said in a hoarse voice: “I’ve killed Old Tantrybogus. I’m going down to put him away.” And he went through the barn and left Will standing there, down into the wood to a spot where the partridges love to come in the late fall for feed, and made a bed there and lined it thick with boughs and so at last laid Old Tantry to sleep. His supper that night was solitary and cheerless and dreary and alone. But--Will Bissell must have spread the news, for while Chet was washing the dishes someone knocked, and when he turned Mary Thurman opened the door and came in. Chet could not bear to look at her. He turned awkwardly and sat down at the kitchen table and buried his head in his arms. And Mary, smiling though her eyes were wet, came toward him. There was the mother light in her eyes, the mother radiance in Mary Thurman’s face. And she took Chet’s lonely head in her arms. “There, Chet, there!” she whispered softly. “I reckon you need me now.” ONE CROWDED HOUR I