"I can keep Romulus," said Sam, "but I've got to ask you to take Remus back. I've given him every chance and I find he's hopeless as a bird dog. He learns quick enough—quicker than Romulus if anything. But he's got no nose, none at all, and a setter with no nose is about useless in the field. It would be a waste of time to try to train him, and when we got on the birds he would only get in Romulus's way and spoil him. So I guess you'll have to take him back and let me go ahead with the good one."
"Why, what do you mean?" inquired Jack, struggling to hide his disappointment. "Can't he smell?"
"Oh, I s'pose he can tell spoiled fish when he gets it, but he don't catch the scent of anything on the air. I guess it was the distemper that did it. He had it worse than Romulus and it often spoils their noses when they have it hard enough. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped and it can't be cured."
For a few minutes Jack stood silent, pressing his lips together. Then suddenly he knelt down beside Remus and hugged him passionately.
"I don't care whether you've got a nose or not, Remus," he cried. "I don't want to go hunting, ever. Noses don't matter. You're the best dog in the whole world, anyhow."
And so they took Remus back with them that afternoon, leaving Romulus behind, howling mournfully for his brother.
Such reports as they received from Sam indicated that the training of Romulus proceeded with fair rapidity during the fall. They were not able to go up to his shack very often for one reason or another, and Jack, at least, was not so anxious to do so as he had been. Remus lived in solitary luxury in Rome and was in some danger of being spoiled by the petting he received from his loyal master.
Romulus, so Ernest learned, could now retrieve at command and would bring back a dead pigeon or other bird without rumpling its feathers. He would also range in obedience to a wave of Sam's hand and was gradually learning to stand fast and hold his point when he flushed a covey of birds. Finally Sam took out his gun to shoot over him, and the rest of his training was to be chiefly that persistent practice which finally makes perfect.
It was decided that Romulus should remain with Sam until snow fell, but one night there came a scratching and a whining at the door and a series of peculiar short little barks so persistently kept up that they awakened both the boys. They slipped on their dressing gowns and slippers and stole downstairs.
At the door they found Romulus with a broken bit of rope tied to his collar.