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The night of sleep was so short that it was difficult for Helen to believe that hours had passed Bo appeared livelier this ot color!" exclai perfectly lovely? Couldn't you get drunk on that air? I sry!"

"Bo, our host will soon have need of his hunting abilities if your appetite holds," said Helen, as she tried to keep her hair out of her eyes while she laced her boots

"Look! there's a big dog--a hound"

Helen looked as Bo directed, and saw a hound of unusually large proportions, black and tan in color, with long, drooping ears Curiously he trotted nearer to the door of their hut and then stopped to gaze at them His head was noble, his eyes shone dark and sad He seeie! Coht in--on't hurt you," called Bo, but without enthusiash "Bo, you're si"

"Sure Wonder if he's Dale's Of course he ht When the girls presented themselves at the ca down His ears were so long that half of theirls up," said Dale, after greeting them "Did he scare you?"

"Pedro So that's his nah She's an awful tenderfoot," replied Bo

"He's a splendid-looking dog," said Helen, ignoring her sister's sally "I love dogs Will he make friends?"

"He's shy an' wild You see, when I leave ca around He an' Tom are jealous of each other I had a pack of hounds an' lost all but Pedro on account of Tom I think you can make friends with Pedro Try it"

Whereupon Helenwas matured, of almost stern aloofness, and manifestly not used to people His deep, wine-dark eyes seemed to search Helen's soul They were honest and wise, with a strange sadness

"He looks intelligent," observed Helen, as she sh human," responded Dale "Cootten the hound as a pup from a Mexican sheep-herder who clai attached to Dale In his younger days he did not get along ith Dale's other pets and Dale gave him to a rancher down in the valley Pedro was back in Dale's caan to care more for the hound, but he did not want to keep him, for various reasons, chief of which was the fact that Pedro was too fine a dog to be left alone half the tio to the farthest village, Snowdrop, where he left Pedro with a friend Then Dale rode to Shon and Pine, and the camp of the Beemans' and with them he trailed some wild horses for a hundred ot back to his caaunt and worn, overjoyed to welcome him home Roy Beeman visited Dale that October and told that Dale's friend in Snowdrop had not been able to keep Pedro He broke a chain and scaled a ten-foot fence to escape He trailed Dale to Shohere one of Dale's friends, recognizing the hound, caught him, and meant to keep him until Dale's return But Pedro refused to eat It happened that a freighter was going out to the Beeman caon Pedro broke out of the box, returned to Shon, took up Dale's trail to Pine, and then on to the Beeman camp That was as far as Roy could trace the movements of the hound But he believed, and so did Dale, that Pedro had trailed the Dale learned more from the herder of a sheepman at whose camp he and the Beemans; had rested on the way into New Mexico It appeared that after Dale had left this camp Pedro had arrived, and another Mexican herder had stolen the hound But Pedro got away