I stayed out with Jim for a while, and he asked me if I knew why Ned had thrown a strap for us, instead of a bone or something hard.

Of course I did not know, so Jim told me it was on his account.  He was a bird dog, and was never allowed to carry anything hard in his mouth, because it would make him hard-mouthed, and he would be apt to bite the birds when he was bringing them back to any person who was shooting with him.  He said that he had been so carefully trained that he could even carry three eggs at a time in his mouth.

I said to him, “Jim, how is it that you never go out shooting?  I have always heard that you were a dog for that, and yet you never leave home.”

He hung his head a little, and said he did not wish to go, and then, for he was an honest dog, he gave me the true reason.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

A RUINED DOG

“I was a sporting dog,” he said, bitterly, “for the first three years of my life.  I belonged to a man who keeps a livery stable here in Fairport, and he used to hire me out to shooting parties.

“I was a favorite with all the gentlemen.  I was crazy with delight when I saw the guns brought out, and would jump up and bite at them.  I loved to chase birds and rabbits, and even now when the pigeons come near me, I tremble all over and have to turn away lest I should seize them.  I used often to be in the woods from morning till night.  I liked to have a hard search after a bird after it had been shot, and to be praised for bringing it out without biting or injuring it.

“I never got lost, for I am one of those dogs that can always tell where human beings are.  I did not smell them.  I would be too far away for that, but if my master was standing in some place and I took a long round through the woods, I knew exactly where he was, and could make a short cut back to him without returning in my tracks.

“But I must tell you about my trouble.  One Saturday afternoon a party of young men came to get me.  They had a dog with them, a cocker spaniel called Bob, but they wanted another.  For some reason or other, my master was very unwilling to have me go.  However, he at last consented, and they put me in the back of the wagon with Bob and the lunch baskets, and we drove off into the country.  This Bob was a happy, merry-looking dog, and as we went along, he told me of the fine time we should have next day.  The young men would shoot a little, then they would get out their baskets and have something to eat and drink, and would play cards and go to sleep under the trees, and we would be able to help ourselves to legs and wings of chickens, and anything we liked from the baskets.

“I did not like this at all.  I was used to working hard through the week, and I liked to spend my Sundays quietly at home.  However, I said nothing.