Rick dear," answered his mother. "This may be a nice dog, and you may like him very much, but he must belong to someone else."

"Then couldn't I keep him 'till someone comes for him?" asked the boy. "He likes me—look how he stays with me."

"Yes, a puppy will stay with anyone," said Mrs. Dalton. "But I don't want you to have a dog, Rick. I'm afraid of them."

"Not this one—not—not Ruddy!" exclaimed Rick, giving the dog that name as it seemed best to fit him. "Why he'd just love Mazie! He wouldn't bite her and he can't scratch like a cat. Please, mother, let me keep this dog! He's mine! He came to me in the night! He was here waiting for me when I came down to see if I'd got one!"

Mrs. Dalton found it hard to refuse. She loved animals herself, and her only fear of a dog was on account of little Mazie.

"Well, you may keep him until after breakfast, anyhow," she said. "I expect he's hungry. Give him some milk, and then get washed for your own meal."

"Couldn't he have some meat, too?" asked Rick.

"I'll see if I can find him a few scraps. Too much meat isn't good for little dogs. Milk is better. But this isn't such a puppy as I thought at first. I'll see what I can find for him."

And what a meal that was to half-starved Ruddy! Never had scraps of meat, bits of bread and potato and milk tasted so good! He paused now and then, in his eager bolting of the food, to look up at Rick and his mother. Ruddy divided his glances of affection between them, for he did not know to whom he owed most. He ate quickly. A dog does not need to chew his food very much, as it is taken care of in his wonderful stomach. In that he is not like boys and girls, who, the more they chew their food, the better off they are.

"Oh, what you got?" cried a voice behind Rick, as he was watching his dog eat. "What you got?"

"A dog, Mazie," answered her brother. "It's my dog! He came in the night, and he was waiting down on the back steps for me. I prayed for him. Did you pray too, Mazie?"

"No. I—I was going to," said the little girl, "but I was so sleepy I forgot whether you said a dog or a cat, so I just prayed for a new doll for me. Oh, he's a nice dog!"

"I just guess he is!" cried Rick already proud in ownership of something real and alive and almost human. "He's my dog!"

Mrs. Dalton said nothing, but she looked over the heads of the children toward her husband.

"So Rick's found a dog after all; has he?" spoke Mr. Dalton, as he got ready to go to work. "Well! Well! He isn't such a bad dog, either."

"No, he seems right nice," spoke Mrs. Dalton. "But he must belong to someone."

"He belongs to me!" declared Rick. "I don't need Henry Blake's dog now; I got one of my own!"

The kitchen door was open. The sun was shining warmer now on the back steps, and Ruddy wanted to lie down in that patch of yellow light, and bask in the glow after his meal. Rick followed his new pet outside.

Sig Bailey, the coast guard, was just coming off duty, and going past the house on his way to home and breakfast. He looked in the yard and saw Rick patting Ruddy.

"Hello there!" called Sig. "Where'd you get my dog, Rick?"

"Your dog?" cried the boy, and his heart seemed to stop beating for a second. "Is—is this your dog?"

CHAPTER IV
RUDDY'S FIRST HUNT

Anxiously Rick waited for an answer from the coast guard. Ruddy who was standing beside the boy, cocked up his ears and sniffed the air that was blowing from the man toward that sensitive animal nose. Once Ruddy (or any dog, for that matter) had smelled a person, he never forgot. Years afterward Ruddy would remember that person's smell, and know whether he was a friend or enemy. And Ruddy knew he had smelled this man before.

With the remembrance was both pleasure and something of pain. The pleasure was in the joyous memory of the bit of bread and meat the coast guard had given the dog. The pain came when Ruddy recalled how he was driven away—or at least he thought he was. But we know that the coast guard was only telling the puppy to shelter himself from the storm.

And then, in that wonderful manner dogs have of really knowing that men's ways are not their ways, and that sometimes a man makes a dog do something for the animal's good that the creature would rather not do—somehow, in this manner Ruddy knew that the coast guard was to be numbered among his new friends.

Back and forth wagged the expressive tail, and, with a joyful bark, Ruddy bounded toward the man who had been out in the storm all night on the lonely beach. Ruddy was beginning a new life, and the guard and the boy were the first two important things in it.

"Is—is he really your dog?" asked Rick again, slowly.

"Well, don't you see how he comes to me?" asked Sig with a laugh, as he patted the brown head. "I found him last night. Washed off some wreck, I reckon. I gave him a bit of my snack, and then I got more from Bill Park. Told the pup to wait up among the dunes for me, where the wind didn't blow so hard, but he must have run along for I didn't see him after that."

"He—he came right here to me," spoke Rick. "I—I wanted a dog a long while. I—I prayed for him and he came. But if—if he's your dog, Mr. Bailey——"

"Oh, shucks! He isn't my dog; that is special!" exclaimed the coast guard. He really had no idea of claiming Ruddy, but was only teasing Rick. And when he saw how badly the boy felt, Sig had not the heart to keep up the little fun he was having.

"I don't want him," the coast guard went on. "Course he's a nice pup, but my wife's got a cat, and they might not get along good together. As I say, I saw him on the beach in the storm last night. Must have been washed off some craft, and he swam ashore. Keep him for all of me!"

"Oh, thanks! Thanks!" cried Rick. "Oh, he's my dog after all! He's mine! Did you hear, mother!" he exclaimed. "He's a dog from the ocean, just like Mazie said, and he's mine!"

Again Rick threw his arms about the wiggling, brown puppy whose tail was wagging so joyously. Ruddy knew when he was loved, and he began to have great hopes for the future. Surely a happier day was dawning for him.

"Did you really find the dog on the beach?" asked Mr. Dalton, as he came out to go to work.

"Yes, he's a regular sea-dog!" laughed the guard. "Poor pup! He doesn't look as if he'd had a very good time. Seems sort of thin!"

"Yes, he does need filling out," agreed Mr. Dalton, with a glance at Ruddy's ribs that plainly showed through the thin sides. "Well, we'll keep him for a day or so, anyhow."

"Can't I keep him always, Dad?" asked Rick.

"I don't know. Better settle that with your mother," was the answer. "I don't mind having a dog, 'specially such a nice one as this seems to be. But my wife's sort of afraid about Mazie and a dog," he added to the coast guard.

"A good dog doesn't bite—that is bite children," declared Mr. Bailey. "It's queer how even a dog that's surly and snappy to strangers will let a baby pull his tail and ears, and never so much as growl. If you like dogs I'd let Rick keep this one. You won't have any trouble about him biting Mazie."

And the little girl herself, coming out just then, seemed to have no fear of her brother's new pet. For she put her arms around the neck of Ruddy and he nestled his head close against her.

"My! What a lot of friends I'm making all of a sudden!" said