“Larsen’s the man to bring him out,” said the big man in tweeds, who was George Devant himself.  “I saw his dogs work in the Canadian Derby.”

Thompson spoke hesitatingly, apologetically, as if he hated to bring the matter up.  “Mr. Devant, ... you remember, sir, a long time ago Larsen sued us for old Ben.”

“Yes, Thompson; I remember, now that you speak of it.”

“Well, you remember the court decided against him, which was the only thing it could do, for Larsen didn’t have any more right to that dog than the Sultan of Turkey.  But, Mr. Devant, I was there, and I saw Larsen’s face when the case went against him.”

Devant looked keenly at Thompson.

“Another thing, Mr. Devant,” Thompson went on, still hesitatingly; “Larsen had a chance to get hold of this breed of pointers and lost out, because he dickered too long, and acted cheesy.  Now they’ve turned out to be famous.  Some men never forget a thing like that.  Larsen’s been talkin’ these pointers down ever since, sir.”

“Go on,” said Devant.

“I know Larsen’s a good trainer.  But it’ll mean a long trip for the young dog to where he lives.  Now, there’s an old trainer lives near here, Wade Swygert.  There never was a straighter man than him.  He used to train dogs in England.”

Devant smiled.  “Thompson, I admire your loyalty to your friends; but I don’t think much of your business sense.  We’ll turn over some of the others to Swygert, if he wants ’em.  Comet must have the best.  I’ll write Larsen to-night, Thompson.  To-morrow, crate Comet and send him off.”

Just as no dog ever came into the world under more favourable auspices, so no dog ever had a bigger “send-off” than Comet.  Even the ladies of the house came out to exclaim over him, and Marian Devant, pretty, eighteen, and a sports-woman, stooped down, caught his head between her hands, looked into his fine eyes, and wished him “Good luck, old man.”  In the living-room the men laughingly drank toasts to his future, and from the high-columned portico Marian Devant waved him good-bye, as in his clean padded crate he was driven off, a bewildered youngster, to the station.

Two days and two nights he travelled, and at noon of the third day, at a lonely railroad station in a prairie country that rolled like a heavy sea, he was lifted, crate and all, off the train.  A lean, pale-eyed, sanctimonious-looking man came toward him.

“Some beauty that, Mr. Larsen,” said the agent as he helped Larsen’s man lift the crate onto a small truck.

“Yes,” drawled Larsen in a meditative voice, “pretty enough to look at—­but he looks scared—­er—­timid.”

“Of course he’s scared,” said the agent; “so would you be if they was to put you in some kind of a whale of a balloon an’ ship you in a crate to Mars.”

The station agent poked his hands through the slats and patted the head.  Comet was grateful for that, because everything was strange.  He had not whined nor complained on the trip, but his heart had pounded fast, and he had been homesick.