had ever before been seen upon Regina station platform. The people of
the West are a forthright, plain-spoken, and enterprising folk, and
before he left the station Captain Arnutt was offered fifty dollars for
Jan. Nothing damped by the captain's smiling refusal of his offer, the
sporting stranger said:

"Well, an' I don't blame ye, Colonel, neither. But, say, it's a pity to
miss a good deal. I like the looks o' that dog, and"--drawing out a fat
wallet from his hip-pocket--"we'll make it a hundred dollars, an' the
deal's done."

As Dick subsequently explained to Captain Arnutt, two thousand dollars
had been offered, and refused, for Jan's mother. "And I'm dead sure
twenty thousand wouldn't buy his sire."

But these figures were for private consumption, of course. Dick had no
wish to invite the attention of the predatory; and, in any case, buyers
and sellers of dogs do not talk in thousands of dollars on the prairie.

At the entrance to the R.N.W.M.P. barracks the unsuspecting Jan was
violently attacked by a fox-terrier, the pet of one of the senior
officers of the corps. This pugnacious little chap wasted no time over
preliminaries, and apparently had no desire whatever to examine the
new-comer. He just flew straight at Jan's throat, snarling furiously.
Captain Arnutt was distressed, for he made sure the terrier would be
killed, and that Jan would thereby make an enemy of one of the senior
officers. But his fears were groundless, thanks to Jan's few weeks of
discipline and training before leaving Nuthill.

"Come in here--in--here--Jan, boy. Don't touch him. Come--in--here!"