Hippity-Hop had been very lonely after Jan’s disappearance, and the dog did not dream that the three-legged kitten had mewed and mewed for him until the old captain picked her up in his arms and said, “He will come back to us some day, Hippity-Hop.”  And each day the old man, with the kitten at his side, sat on the front porch watching down the road.

The morning after Jan’s return, Mr. Melville came again to the bungalow and he and the captain called Jan to get in the automobile with them.  Hippity-Hop’s forlorn little face peered between the curtains of the front window, but none of them heard her plaintive cry as they all vanished from her sight.  When the automobile stopped, Jan saw a grey building of stones with windows crossed by iron bars.  He followed his friends into a large room where several men were seated.  They spoke to the captain and Mr. Melville, and all looked at Jan, patting his head for some reason, as they talked of him.

Then Jan, the captain, and Mr. Melville followed another man through long dim hallways that had doors on either side, very close together.  One of these doors was unlocked, and as Jan and his friends passed through, the door was shut and locked again.

They were in a dingy room with grey walls, the only window being high up and criss-crossed by bars.  It was a very small window.  On a cot in a corner of the room sat a man.  He turned his head toward them and when he saw the dog, he jumped to his feet, calling, “Jan!”

“Woof!” answered the dog in surprise as he leaped toward the man.

Shorty dropped on his knees and took Jan’s head between his hands, talking to the big dog as though talking to a little child whom he loved very dearly.  Jan did not know, nor would he have cared had he known, that Shorty was in jail.  He only knew that this was his friend who had tried to protect him from William’s abuse.  And all the while, Captain Smith and the artist were watching them with kindly eyes.

At last, Shorty rose and sat on his narrow cot, with his two visitors on either side, and Jan, planted right in front of Shorty, turned his head from one to the other as though he were trying to understand what they were talking about so earnestly.  Shorty’s hand stroked Jan’s head, and every once in awhile the man would say, “I’m so glad you found him.”

“You love dogs, don’t you?” asked the old poundmaster, as they rose to go.

Shorty looked down at Jan for a second, then answered, “I never had any friends in my life excepting dogs.”

They left Shorty alone in the little grey room and went back to the men in the big room, where the sun streamed across the floor like a tiny river of gold, but back in the other room the window was so high and so small that the sun could not shine through it at all.  Shorty did not think about that now.

The captain talked to the men, who listened attentively, and finally he said, “Judge, I don’t believe that any one who loves dogs and is kind to them is bad all the way through.  Shorty says he never had a friend in his life except dogs.”