ruined him in his sixth month, trying to harden his feet behind a
dog-cart on the great north road. The result was, when he was shown at
the Palace in his eleventh month, his fore legs had gone for ever--like
a dachshund's."

"Ah! When I get back," said Dick, musingly, you'll be pretty nearly a
two-year-old, Jan, boy."

"And if all goes well, he will be as strong a hound as any in England;
won't he, Betty? You'll see to that."

"I will if you'll help to keep us going the right way," said Betty,
smiling at the Master.

And so, directly after an early breakfast, the Nuthill party drove to
the station, with Jan on the floor of the wagonette and Finn pacing
easily beside it. There was quite an assembly on the platform of the
little station to see "young Mr. Vaughan" off. For he was bound for
Liverpool that day, where he was to meet Captain Will Arnutt, of the
Royal North-west Mounted Police of Canada, with whom he was to embark
for Halifax, _en route_ for Regina, in Saskatchewan, the headquarters of
the R.N.W.M.P., for which fine service Dick Vaughan had enlisted, after
a stiff course of training under Captain Arnutt's personal supervision.

"Between ourselves," the captain had told the Master, in Lewes, a week
or two earlier, "neither I nor the Royal North-west have much to teach
young Vaughan in the matter of horsemanship, and I look to see him make
as fine a trooper as any we've got. But there's one thing we can give
him, and that's discipline. We can teach him to face the devil himself
at two o'clock in the morning without blinking--and I think he'll take