By SAMUEL A. DERIEUX
From American Magazine
No puppy ever came into the world under more favourable conditions than Comet. He
was descended from a famous family of pointers. Both his mother and father were
champions. Before he opened his eyes, while he was still crawling about over his brothers
and sisters, blind as puppies are at birth, Jim Thompson, Mr. Devant's kennel master,
picked him out.
"That's the best un in the bunch."
When he was only three weeks old he pointed a butterfly that lit in the yard in front of his
nose.
"Come here, Molly," yelled Jim to his wife. "Pointed--the little cuss!"
When Thompson started taking the growing pups out of the yard, into the fields to the
side of the Devants' great southern winter home, Oak Knob, it was Comet who strayed
farthest from the man's protecting care. And when Jim taught them all to follow when he
said "Heel," to drop when he said "Drop," and to stand stock-still when he said "Ho," he
learned far more quickly than the others.
At six months he set his first covey of quail, and remained perfectly staunch. "He's goin'
to make a great dog," said Thompson. Everything--size, muscle, nose, intelligence,
earnestness--pointed to the same conclusion. Comet was one of the favoured of the gods.
One day, after the leaves had turned red and brown and the mornings grown chilly, a
crowd of people, strangers to him, arrived at Oak Knob. Then out of the house with
Thompson came a big man in tweed clothes, and the two walked straight to the curious
young dogs, who were watching them with shining eyes and wagging tails.
"Well, Thompson," said the big man, "which is the future champion you've been writing
me about?"
"Pick him out for yourself, sir," said Thompson confidently.
After that they talked a long time planning for the future of Comet. His yard training was
now over (Thompson was only yard trainer), and he must be sent to a man experienced in
training and handling for field trials.
"Larsen's the man to bring him out," said the big man in tweeds, who was George Devant
himself. "I saw his dogs work in the Canadian Derby."
