The cup under his arm and Robin at his heels, Jeff departed. He had come to town on mule-back, the dog running alongside. Even at the best pace he could scarce hope to get home very much before midnight. He had come to Duneka on the preceding day and had planned to stay until next morning. But, already, his imagination was afire with the thought of bursting in on Eve that very night, with the glittering trophy. So he bent his steps towards the stable where he housed his mule.
Across the fair-grounds, from the cityward gate, a bevy of barelegged newsboys was scampering, with armfuls of newspapers—copies of the Chronicle’s first afternoon edition. One of them ran past Jeff.
Jeff’s keen mountaineer eyes chanced on a dark blotch near the bottom of the swaying sheet’s first page. With an unbelieving gasp, he stopped short in his tracks and bawled to the fleeing newsboy to come back.
The boy returned, holding out the paper. Jeff snatched it from him, riveting his incredulous gaze upon that dark blotch on the front page. The blotch, at close range, resolved itself into a two-column cut—a picture of Robin, lying majestically at full length in his bench, his trustful gaze fixed on the lank man who squatted beside him and who held aloft an ornate silver cup!
Above the cut ran the caption:
“A PRIZE-WINNER AND HIS PRIZE.”
Beneath the picture were the lines:
“Mrs. Jeff Titus’ Robin Adair; Winner of cup for Best Collie in Show.”
Doubled, in single-column space under this, was one of the two-stick “human-interest” stories with which Graham was wont to strew the Chronicle’s pages. Jeff’s fascinated eyes tore themselves from the picture and caught a glimpse of his own name midway of this explanatory yarn. He read the sentence containing the name, then the next line or so. Slowly and painfully he spelled out:
Mr. Titus exhibited the dog for his wife, who is ill at their Keytesville home. With characteristic mountaineer modesty, Mr. Titus refused to sound his splendid exhibit’s praises. When congratulated by throngs of admirers who paid homage to the peerless Robin Adair, Mr. Titus’ sole comment on Robin’s sensational victory was:
“He’s good enough for us!”
Robin Adair was good enough for the judges, too, and good enough to win over one of the finest aggregations of high-bred collies ever shown in this part of the South.