It was on a cold November day that I set out with my friend Venner to drive to Okanagan Falls-six miles away,where we were to find a brown pup, which was to be sent as far as that little hamlet by his first master.

The brown pup was only a cross-bred, half retriever and half English setter, and his career almost ended at its threshold, for we had barely left "The Falls" when he suddenly jumped from the sulky as I held him lightly between my feet under the rug. The wheel passed right over his little body, and for the rest of the long six miles I was nursing in my arms an almost unconscious puppy.

On arriving at our shack I laid him by a warm fire, but for some hours he did not move, and I feared the worst. At length, however, he began to revive, and after he had been given a little condensed milk I went to bed quite hopeful.

His recovery was rapid, and the very next evening he seemed little the worse for the trying experience of being weaned from his mother and run over on the hard road all in one day. He realised at once that he was my dog, for Venner had his own clever and faithful old

I.

Riot, who took kindly to the pup at once, and was soon showing him that dogs could be useful in the home, as well as in the field or in the water.

Banjo's first undertaking was to fetch my slippers from the bedroom when the day's work was over and we came in for supper; he took the greatest pride in this accomplishment, and we were highly entertained by his baby efforts.

Then he found that firewood was constantly being brought in from outside, and might he not help in this work as well? This was a much heavier task than carrying slippers, but he was getting bigger and stronger each day, and, until he was able to carry them, he dragged in such billets as he could manage, saving us many journeys.

Following Riot's example, he became very busy burying meat all over the ranch, for some cattle had died in the big meadow opposite, where a thousand of them were being fed on hay that winter.

I do not think that they dug up any of their câches again, although, from the pains they took to conceal their treasures from each other, they evidently anticipated a future use for them. Fortunately, the rainy

never came.

When the cattle had gone to feed on the spring grasses of the ranges, and the coyotes had left nothing but the bare bones of the dead animals in the meadows, Banjo often brought huge marrow-bones, which he placed at my feet with an appeal which was easily interpreted as "Please crack these for me with that big mattock of yours." I was, at this time, digging many hundreds of holes in which to plant young fruit-trees.

Venner and Riot left, so that Banjo and I were much alone together, and we learnt how to carry on interesting dialogues.

He was barely six months old when he took over what was always thereafter his special work and trust.

A two-horse stage in those days passed our gate three times each way every week; carrying mails, and passengers too when such were to be had, from Penticton-on Okanagan Lake-twenty miles north, to Fairview-once a gold-mining town-ten miles south of Vaseau Lake.

This stage brought my mail from the north, leaving it in a box on a post, unless I happened to be working near the road.

Banjo began by taking the bag from me as I carried it to the shack, but soon he was asking the driver to give it to him instead of putting it into the box or handing it to me, and as I found that he was

VOL. CCXXV.-NO. MCCCLIX.

man to give it to him whether I was in sight or not.

There were always Vancouver papers in the bag on mail days, if nothing else, so there were no disappointments for Banjo, and he soon understood everything I said to him about this important matter. On the mornings that the stage would be coming from Penticton I used, when at my work, to say to him, "Mail day to-day, Banjo." "Yes," he would reply, with his speaking eyes and wagging tail, "but it isn't time yet."

Towards eleven o'clock he would begin to be on the alert, and before the stage arrived at the gate he was awaiting it, and ready to reach up and take the bag from the driver when the horses stopped. He did not bring it to me where I was working, but always carried it to the shack door and lay there guarding it between his paws until I came to lunch.

Sometimes I could neither see nor hear the stage from the part where I happened to be working, and people who travelled by it began to know the ranch as "The place where the dog takes the mail."

When he was ten months old a day came that made it necessary for me to test severely his character and loyalty. I wanted a Jersey cow, and could not get one nearer than about seventy-five miles away. Starting off one morning on my saddle-horse, with Banjo accompanying us, we travelled the

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twenty miles to PentictonBanjo's birthplace, although he could not have remembered it, of course. Here I had to take the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's steamer, which would start early the next morning.

Leaving my horse at a livery stable, I showed Banjo where I was putting my saddle in the barn, and told him he must look after it whilst I was away. Late in the evening Banjo accompanied me to the wharf and saw me aboard, and he must have slept that night on the wharf, for at five o'clock the next morning, when the whistle blew and the boat started, I peered cautiously out of my cabin window to see a very disconsolate-looking pup gazing wistfully at the departing steamer.

I dared not show myself or speak to him for fear that he might jump into the lake to swim after me. I could only watch the solitary little figure gradually fading away to the vanishing point in the distance.

Another long ride was necessary after I left the steamer at Kelowna, and a night had to be spent in that town, so that it was not until the second evening after saying good-bye to Banjo on the wharf that I found myself nearing Penticton again, with the Jersey cow on board.

As it grew dark I began to wonder whether I should have to search the little town the next morning for the abandoned pup; to find him per

haps enjoying life with some new-found canine friend. Was it not expecting too much to dare to think that I should find him guarding my saddle?

My horse, I knew, would have no attraction for him, for Banjo never made friends with old Jim, nor with any of the many horses that followed later. It was quite dark when the boat reached Penticton; the gang-plank was thrown on to the wharf, and with a number of others I was half-way ashore when, to my delight, I found Banjo jumping all over me.

The liveryman, who had been away when I left my horse at his stable, helped me to take the cow to his corral, and as we were doing this he remarked, "Oh, is that your dog! He has been around the barn all the last two days, except when the Aberdeen came in last night and the freight-boat this afternoon; he went to the wharf with me to meet them." Doglover as he was, I doubt whether he quite realised how much these glad tidings meant to me. Banjo had been tried, and would, I knew now, always be faithful.

A month or two later we had another trip to Penticton, to meet my brother and sister who were arriving from England to join me on the ranch; and it was, I am sure, a great relief to Banjo to find that on this occasion, instead of leaving him behind, we were to return home the next morning with more company for him on the quiet ranch.

He at once adopted the newcomers, and was never so happy as when he could get us all together round a big fire on a cold evening; he would then get on to the lap of one and endeavour to stretch himself far enough to rest his head on another, whilst his vigorously wagging tail kept him in touch with the third.

One day a most painful and unusual thing happened to Banjo. He was sniffing excitedly at a mouse's nest in a hollow stump when he drew into one of his nostrils a bearded head of wild millet, from which the mouse had taken all the seed. I saw it working its way in, as only such bearded growths could have done, and tried to get hold of it, but I was too late, and after its quick disappearance from view it must have gone farther and farther in with each convulsive movement of the muscles of Banjo's

nose.

It gave him constant discomfort for some time, and his face was often contorted with pain as he tried to blow out the offending thing.

At length, a doctor whom we consulted suggested that we should see what a long and well-oiled feather would do; so my brother Edward-being the surgeon" of the familyundertook, with a goose-quill, to try this method.

I helped to hold Banjo on his back during the painful operation. He could not help giving occasional cries of pain, and these brought still louder

lamentations from Skeelo-Edward's young collie-who stood by, trembling with sympathetic excitement, the whole time.

Banjo made no attempt to bite; he quite understood that we were trying to aid him, and at last the feather caused him to give a tremendous snort or sneeze, which brought out both blood and the remains of the now softened millet head.

Banjo was in ecstasies of delight; he realised that it was Edward and not I who had been the doctor, and he jumped all over him expressing his thanks. My brother at this time was living a short distance away, in our mother's home by the shore of Vaseau Lake, and when he arrived each morning at our orchard home Banjo, for a long while after this, greeted him with so great a show of appreciative pleasure that Skeelo became quite jealous.

As a sporting dog Banjo might, I think, have had the characteristics of both his parents developed-setter and retriever-had I been able to train him in his youth. The making of a ranch in the wilds did not, however, leave me any time for this; and as so many of my walks and rides into the hills and upland valleys were made without a gun, and with horses and cows as the objects of my quest, Banjo was too often forgotten, and was consequently running far and wide ahead of me, and so his chances of becoming a setter were spoilt.

When a willow- or bluegrouse had been lost in thicket

or long grass, or a pheasant had gone to ground amongst the great fallen rocks beneath the cliffs, his excellent nose made him most useful, and as a retriever of ducks he was unsurpassed.

With the freezing of farnorthern waters each fall, our river-with its chain of large lakes-as well as the smaller mountain ponds, became for a time the rendezvous of many species of wild-fowl. The geese passed on after a short stay, but swans and some of the ducks remained all the winter.

Our larder was kept well stocked with ducks by my brother and Banjo. Some twelve or thirteen varieties were counted amongst the bags Edward brought in during his first season.

These included the widelyknown mallard, canvas-back and teal, as well as bald-pate, red-head, golden-eye and scaup.

On one occasion, when Edward had shot three of the very palatable little ducks known as buffle-heads or butterballs, Banjo seemed to think that one trip into the cold waters of early winter should be sufficient to retrieve all three. This, of course, was no easy task, as he realised when he tried to pick up the third with two already in his mouth. But Banjo was ever resourceful, and, finding it impossible to hold all three at the same time, he cleverly pushed one in front of him as he swam, and brought them all to shore together in spite of the difficulties caused by the river's current.

From the days of his early puppyhood Banjo always had his own particular plate-a tin one, which he could carry without damage to his teeth. This he generally kept under a peach-tree in the orchard, and on our saying to him, "Fetch your plate, Banjo," he would race out and bring it back in his mouth.

It was not always quite such a simple task as this, for he was no dull creature of routine, and as the young orchard trees grew bigger he often had to romp from tree to tree before finding it in the tangled clover where he had câched it.

His only real meal each day was his supper, and when the time for this arrived he would bring his plate to me or to my sister-of his own accord if we kept him waiting too long.

The supper consisted of a large cake made of rolledoats mixed with any spare fat, meat, or milk; this was baked until brown or crisp outside, and then broken into pieces for him.

Sometimes my sister and I arranged a little stunt to be enacted before he had his meal.

My sister would hide in some dark corner, with her face to