CHAPTER II.
A SPELL COMING.
There was a moment of utter stillness; but the magnetism of Ralph's eye was too much for Bill Means.

The request was so polite, the master's look was so innocent and yet so determined.

Bill often wondered afterward that he had not "fit" rather than obeyed the request.

But somehow he put the dog out.

He was partly surprised, partly inveighed, partly awed into doing just what he had not intended to do.