"I never told you about the time I was coming back home one night
from the tavern here at Hampton, after I'd just cashed my pay
check from the Pat'son market. I've never blabbed much about it,
because I was drunk. Yes, it was back in them days. Just after
I'd got Chum. A couple of fellers had got me drunk. And they set
on me in a lonesome patch of the road by the lake; and they had
me down and was taking the money away from me, when Chum sailed
into them and druv them off. He had follered me, without me
knowing. In the scrimmage I got tumbled headfirst into the lake.
I was too drunk to get out, and my head was stuck in the mud,
'way under water. I'd 'a' drowned if Chum hadn't of pulled me out
with his teeth in the shoulder of my coat. And that's the dog
you're wanting me to sell?"

"You aren't likely to need such help again, I hope," countered
the girl loftily, "now that you have stopped drinking and made a
man of yourself. So Chum won't be needed for--"

"I stopped drinking," answered Link, "because I got to seeing how
much more of a beast I was than the fine clean dog that was
living with me. He made me feel 'shamed of myself. And he was
such good comp'ny round the house that I didn't get lonesome
enough to sneak down to the tavern all the time. It wasn't me
that 'made a man of myself.' It was Chum made a man of me. Maybe
that sounds foolish to you. But --"

"It does," said Dorcas serenely. "Very foolish indeed. You don't
seem to realize that a dog is only an animal. If you can get a
nice home for the collie--such as John Iglehart will give him--"