The animal was immovable now, lost again, his anxious eyes watching the face of the master, his eager ears waiting for words he recognized.

After a long time the man continued slowly and hesitantly, as if fearing the outcome.
He did not realize that there was sufficient anxiety in his voice to change its tones.
"Or do I go courting this year?
Do I rig up in uncomfortable store-clothes, and parade before the country and city girls and try to persuade the one I can get, probably----not the one I would want----to marry me, and come here and spoil all our good times?
Do we want a woman around scolding if we are away from home, whining because she is lonesome, fretting for luxuries we cannot afford to give her?
Are you going to let us in for a scrape like that, Bel ?" The bewildered dog could bear the unusual scene no longer.

Taking the rising inflection, that sounded more familiar, for a cue, and his name for a certainty, he sprang forward, his tail waving as his nose touched the face of the Harvester.

Then he shot across the driveway and lay in the spice thicket, half the ribs of one side aching, as he howled from the lowest depths of dog misery.
"You ungrateful cur!" cried the Harvester.

"What has come over you?
Six years I have trusted you, and the answer has been right, every time! Confound your picture! Sentence me to tackle the girl proposition! I see myself! Do you know what it would mean?
For the first thing you'd be chained, while I pranced over the country like a half-broken colt, trying to attract some girl.