“Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays,” was the reply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and started the horses.

Buck’s senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay where he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.

“ ‘Answers to the name of Buck,’ ” the man soliloquized, quoting from the saloon-keeper’s letter which had announced the consignment of the crate and contents. “Well, Buck, my boy,” he went on in a genial voice, “we’ve had our little ruction, and the best thing we can do is to let it go at that. You’ve learned your place, and I know mine. Be a good dog and all’ll go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I’ll whale the stuffin’ outa you. Understand?”

As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly pounded, and though Buck’s hair involuntarily bristled at touch of the hand, he endured it without protest. When the man brought him water he drank eagerly, and later bolted a generous meal of raw meat, chunk by chunk, from the man’s hand.