A scurry of feet in the sand, and low sniffings, stiffened him to
alertness. It was as he had hoped. The dog had liked him from the
start, and had followed him.

For Dag Daughtry had a way with him, as Michael was quickly to learn,
when the man's hand reached out and clutched him, half by the jowl, half
by the slack of the neck under the ear. There was no threat in that
reach, nothing tentative nor timorous. It was hearty, all-confident, and
it produced confidence in Michael. It was roughness without hurt,
assertion without threat, surety without seduction. To him it was the
most natural thing in the world thus to be familiarly seized and shaken
about by a total stranger, while a jovial voice muttered: "That's right,
dog. Stick around, stick around, and you'll wear diamonds, maybe."

Certainly, Michael had never met a man so immediately likable. Dag
Daughtry knew, instinctively to be sure, how to get on with dogs. By
nature there was no cruelty in him. He never exceeded in peremptoriness,
nor in petting. He did not overbid for Michael's friendliness. He did
bid, but in a manner that conveyed no sense of bidding. Scarcely had he
given Michael that introductory jowl-shake, when he released him and
apparently forgot all about him.

He proceeded to light his pipe, using several matches as if the wind blew
them out. But while they burned close up to his fingers, and while he
made a simulation of prodigious puffing, his keen little blue eyes, under
shaggy, grizzled brows, intently studied Michael. And Michael, ears
cocked and eyes intent, gazed at this stranger who seemed never to have
been a stranger at all.