One night, I remember, we had waited supper,—­the wife and I,—­we were obliged to wait, the trout being in Jonathan’s creel,—­when Jonathan walked in, looking tired and worried.

“Hez George come home, Marthy?” he asked, resting his long bamboo rod against the porch rail and handing the creel of trout to the wife.  “No?  Wall, I’m beat ef thet ain’t cur’us.  Guess I got ter look him up.”  And he disappeared hurriedly into the darkening forest, his anxious, whistling call growing fainter and fainter as he was lost in its depths.  Marthy was not uneasy,—­not about the dog; it was the supper that troubled her.  She knew Jonathan’s ways, and she knew George.  This was a favorite trick of the dog’s,—­this of losing Jonathan.

The trout were about burnt to a crisp and the corn-bread stone cold when Jonathan came trudging back, George in his arms,—­a limp, soggy, half-dead dog, apparently.  Marthy said nothing.  It was an old story.  Half the time Jonathan carried him home.

“Supper’s ready,” she said quietly, and we went in.

George slid out of Jonathan’s arms, smelt about for a soft plank, and fell in a heap on the porch, his chin on his paws, his mean little eyes watching lazily,—­speaking to nobody, noticing nobody, sulking all to himself.  There he stayed until he caught a whiff of the fragrant, pungent odor of fried trout.  Then he cocked one eye and lifted an ear.  He must not carry things too far.  Next, I heard a single thump of his six-inch tail.  George was beginning to get pleased; he always did when there were things to eat.

All this time Jonathan, tired out, sat in his big splint chair at the supper-table.  He had been thrashing the brook since daylight,—­over his knees sometimes.  I could still see the high-water mark on his patched trousers.  Another whiff of the frying-pan, and George got up.  He dared not poke his nose into Marthy’s lap,—­there were too many chunks of wood within easy reach of her hand.  So he sidled up to Jonathan, rubbing his nose against his big knees, whining hungrily, looking up into his face.

“I tell ye,” said Jonathan, smiling at me, patting the dog as he spoke, “this yere George hez got more sense’n most men.  He knows what’s become of them trout we ketched.  I guess he’s gittin’ over the way I treated him to-day.  Ye see, we wuz up the East Branch when he run a fox south.  Thinks I, the fox’ll take a whirl back and cross the big runway; and, sure enough, it warn’t long afore I heard George a-comin’ back, yippin’ along up through Hank Simons’ holler.  So I whistled to him and steered off up onto the maountin’ to take a look at Bog-eddy and try and git a pickerel.  When I come daown ag’in, I see George warn’t whar I left him, so I hollered and whistled ag’in.  Then, thinks I, you’re mad ’cause I left ye, an’ won’t let on ye kin hear; so I come along hum without him.  When I went back a while ago a-lookin’ for him, would yer believe it, thar he wuz a-layin’ in the road,