their owners can’t, or won’t, keep out of mischief.  Meek-looking fellows some of them are.  The owners go to bed at night, and the dogs pretend to go, too; but when the house is quiet and the family asleep, off goes Rover or Fido to worry poor, defenseless creatures that can’t defend themselves.  Their taste for sheep’s blood is like the taste for liquor in men, and the dogs will travel as far to get their fun, as the men will travel for theirs.  They’ve got it in them, and you can’t get it out.

“Mr. Windham cured his dog,” said Mrs. Wood.

Mr. Wood burst into a hearty laugh.  “So he did, so he did.  I must tell Laura about that.  Windham is a neighbor of ours, and last summer I kept telling him that his collie was worrying my Shropshires.  He wouldn’t believe me, but I knew I was right, and one night when Harry was home, he lay in wait for the dog and lassoed him.  I tied him up and sent for Windham.  You should have seen his face, and the dog’s face.  He said two words, ‘You scoundrel!’ and the dog cowered at his feet as if he had been shot.  He was a fine dog, but he’d got corrupted by evil companions.  Then Windham asked me where my sheep were.  I told him in the pasture.  He asked me if I still had my old ram Bolton.  I said yes, and then he wanted eight or ten feet of rope.  I gave it to him, and wondered what on earth he was going to do with it.  He tied one end of it to the dog’s collar, and holding the other in his hand, set out for the pasture.  He asked us to go with him, and when he got there, he told Harry he’d like to see him catch Bolton.  There wasn’t any need to catch him, he’d come to us like a dog.  Harry whistled, and when Bolton came up, Windham fastened the rope’s end to his horns, and let him go.  The ram was frightened and ran, dragging the dog with him.  We let them out of the pasture into an open field, and for a few minutes there was such a racing and chasing over that field as I never saw before.  Harry leaned up against the bars and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, Then Bolton got mad, and began to make battle with the dog, pitching into him with his horns.  We soon stopped that, for the spirit had all gone out of Dash.  Windham unfastened the rope, and told him to get home, and if ever I saw a dog run, that one did.  Mrs. Windham set great store by him, and her husband didn’t want to kill him.  But he said Dash had got to give up his sheep-killing, if he wanted to live.  That cured him.  He’s never worried a sheep from that day to this, and if you offer him a bit of sheep’s wool now, he tucks his tail between his legs, and runs for home.  Now, I must stop my talk, for we’re in sight of the farm.  Yonder’s our boundary line, and there’s the house.  You’ll see a difference in the trees since you were here before.”

We had come to a turn in the road where the ground sloped gently upward.  We turned in at the gate, and drove between rows of trees up to a long, low, red house, with a veranda all round it.  There was a wide lawn in front, and away on our right were the farm buildings.  They too, were painted red, and there were some trees by them that Mr. Wood called his windbreak, because they kept the snow from drifting in the winter time.