[Illustration:  SOMEWHERE NOT VERY FAR AHEAD OF HIM WAS A HOUSE. Page 96.]

With new hope and courage Bowser tried to hurry on.  Presently around a turn of the road he saw a farmyard.  The smell of the smoke from the chimney of the farmhouse was stronger now, and with it was mingled an appetizing smell of things cooking.  Into Bowser’s whimper there now crept a little note of eagerness as he dragged himself across the farmyard and up to the back door.  There his strength quite left him.  He didn’t have enough left to even bark.  All he could do was whine.  After what seemed a long, long time the door opened, and a motherly woman stood looking down at him.  Two minutes later Bowser lay on a mat close by the kitchen stove.

CHAPTER XXI

BOWSER BECOMES A PRISONER

    There is no one in all the Great World more faithful than a
    faithful dog.

    Bowser the Hound.

Bowser the Hound was a prisoner.  Yes, Sir, Bowser was a sure-enough prisoner.  But there is a great difference in prisons.  Bowser was a prisoner of kindness.  It seems funny that kindness should ever make any one a prisoner, but it is so sometimes.

You see, it was this way:  When Bowser had been taken in to that strange farmhouse, he had been so used up that he had had only strength enough to very feebly wag his tail.  Right away the people in that farmhouse knew what had happened to Bowser.  That is, they knew part of what had happened to him.  They knew that he had been lost and had somehow hurt one leg.  They were very, very good to him.  They fed him, and made a comfortable bed for him, and rubbed something on the leg which he had hurt and which had swollen.  Almost right away after eating Bowser went to sleep and slept and slept and slept.  It was the very best thing he could have done.

The next day he felt a whole lot better, but he was so stiff and lame that he could hardly move.  He didn’t try very much.  He was petted and cared for quite as tenderly as he would have been at his own home.  So several days passed, and Bowser was beginning to feel more like himself.  The more he felt like himself, the more he wanted to go home.  It wasn’t that there he would receive any greater kindness than he was now receiving, but home is home and there is no place like it.  So Bowser began to be uneasy.

“This dog doesn’t belong anywhere around here,” said the man of the house.  “I know every Hound for miles around, and I never have seen this one before.  He has come a long distance.  It will not do to let him go, for he will try to find his way home and the chances are that he will again get lost.  We must keep him in the house or chained up.  Perhaps some day we may be able to find his owner.  If not, we will keep him.  I am sure he will soon become contented here.”