“What the blue blazes!” sputtered Royce in amaze. “D’you mean to say you don’t want him, after all the fuss you made? He--” “Yep!” snarled old Fenno. “I want him more’n I want my right leg. An’ I reckon I’ll be twice as lonesome without him as I’d be without the two of my legs. But I--I don’t want him the way I won him. I thought I did. But I don’t. It--it sticks in my throat. He’s a square dog, Trevy is. He ain’t goin’ to be won by no crooked trick. So I-- Oh, take him along an’ shut up!” Royce continued to stare in bewilderment. His owlish aspect angered Joel. “We shook dice for him,” expounded Fenno, sourly. “You throwed a six an’ a five. I throwed a six an’ a one. You looked back to see who was buttin’ into the room that time of night. I flicked the one-spot over, an’ made it a six. Take him along. I--I-- Trevy, son,” he ended, a frog in his throat as he laid a shaky hand on the collie’s head, “you see for yourself, I couldn’t keep you, that way; you bein’ so clean an’ decent; an’ me cheatin’ to get you. I--” To his astonishment, Royce Mack broke into a shout of laughter. “When I put Reine on the Pullman to go East,” said Royce, “I told her about our throwing dice for Treve. I was still sore over losing him. D’you know what she said? Said she was tickled to death that I’d lost. Said she can’t bear dogs, and that she’d never be able to endure having Treve around after the savage way he upset her. She said she’d always be afraid of him, and that she’d have insisted, anyway, on my leaving him behind. That settles it.... Good-by, Treve, old friend. Good-by, Joel. Luck to the pair of you!” Late into the warm evening, Joel Fenno sat silent on the porch. At his feet, in drowsy contentment, lay Treve. The old man’s face was aglow with wordless happiness. Every now and then he would stoop to stroke the sleeping dog. Then he would listen delightedly to the responsive lazy thump of Treve’s tail on the boards. Life was worth while, after all. It was great to have a chum that was all one’s own, and to sit thus with him at the close of day. No more bickerings, no more jawing, no more need to pretend he didn’t like this wonderful collie of his. It was _fine_ to be alive! “Trevy,” he exhorted, solemnly, as he knocked out his final pipe and prepared to go indoors, “don’t you ever let me ketch you throwin’ dice crooked. But if ever you do, don’t go blabbin’ about it. Not one time in a trillion-an’-seven, c’d you expec’ to find a girl who’d square it all for you, like that pudgy Reine person done for me. An’, Trevy, lemme say ag’in, for the sev’ralth time, right here,--of all the dogs that ever happened--you’re--you’re that dog. Now le’s quit jabberin’ an’ go to sleep!” CHAPTER XII: AFTERWORD I have drawn upon one of our Sunnybank collies for the name and the aspect and certain traits of this book’s hero. The real Treve was my chum, and one of the strangest and most beautiful collies I have known.