I looked right at the girl when I said it. I was boasting. She knew
it. She must see, too, what a woful figure I should make with
strong-limbed fellows like Tim there, and strong-limbed hounds like old
Captain, who was lying at my side. But somehow she liked my vaunting
speech. I knew it when our eyes met.
III
The gate latch clicked. From the road Henry Holmes called a last
good-night, and Tim and I were alone. We sat in silence, watching
through the window the old man's lantern as he swung away toward home.
Then the light disappeared and without all was black. The village was
asleep.
By the stove lay my hound, Captain, snoring gently. He had tried to
keep awake, poor beast! For a time he had even struggled to hold one
eye open and on his master, but at last, overcome by weariness, his
head snuggled farther and farther down into his fore paws, and the
tired tail ceased its rhythmic beating on the floor.
What is home without a dog! Captain is happy. He smiles gently as he
sleeps, and it seems that in that strange dog-dreamland he and I are
racing over the ridges again, through the nipping winds, on the trail
of a fox or a rabbit.
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