In short, to the most gloriously satisfactory chums who ever
appealed to human vanity and to human desire for companionship

TO OUR TEN SUNNYBANK COLLIES MY STORY IS GRATEFULLY AND
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED


BRUCE by Albert Payson Terhune


CHAPTER I. The Coming Of Bruce

She was beautiful. And she had a heart and a soul--which were a
curse. For without such a heart and soul, she might have found
the tough life-battle less bitterly hard to fight.

But the world does queer things--damnable things--to hearts that
are so tenderly all-loving and to souls that are so trustfully
and forgivingly friendly as hers.

Her "pedigree name" was Rothsay Lass. She was a collie--daintily
fragile of build, sensitive of nostril, furrily tawny of coat.
Her ancestry was as flawless as any in Burke's Peerage.

If God had sent her into the world with a pair of tulip ears and
with a shade less width of brain-space she might have been
cherished and coddled as a potential bench-show winner, and in
time might even have won immortality by the title of "CHAMPION
Rothsay Lass."