HOME AGAIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 180, 8 September 1876, Page 9

HOME AGAIN.

The following anecdote, which is strictly true, was related to our correspoudent a few days since by a very prominent and highly respected railroad official, and is based on facts contained in a letter received a short time since by Dan McCawley, at Leona, Kan.

Some time ago Mr. McCawley's father, who resides at Flat Rock, Seneca county, 0., shipped a full-blooded shepherd dog by express to his son at Leona, Kan. In due time the dog arrived at his destination, and was conveyed in a waggon to Mr. McCs house, two miles from that place, where he was tied up in the barn to prevent his straying. The idea that on the following morning the dog would turn up missing never entered the head of." friond Mac, and his astonishment may be imagined when he discovered, shortly after breakfast, that the dog had. broken away and left for parts unknown.

The loss was deeply felt by all the family, and steps were at once taken to discover the whereabouts of the animal ; but all their efforts proved unsuccessful, and the disappearance remained a mystery for nearly four weeks ; indeed, no clue whatever could be obtained as to whether he had wandered, or, if stolen, who the thief was. So, after making many unsuccessful attempts to discover him, Mac concluded it was a mystery too deep for solution, and resolved to quit the search, at the same time vowing dire vengeance against whosoever should have stolen his valuable present, provided the thief was ever detected. The disappearance occasioned surprise and comment, and created a nine day's wonder, but is hardly possible to imagine how much more surprise and astonishment were felt by Mac and his family on receipt of the following intelligence contained in a letter from Mac's father, written about four months after the disappearance of the dog. In this letter he informed his son that twenty-two days after the day on which the dog was received at the express office at Leona, he appeared at his old home in Flat Rock, Ohio ; or, in other words, that the dog, guided by his instinct, hai travelled nine hundred miles in twenty-two days. The most astonishing circumstance connected with this anecdote is that the dog was conveyed the entire distance from Ohio to Kansas on his outward I journey in an express car, and how in the world he ever found his I way back on foot is a mystery which only that dog can solve. j That he had travelled the entire distance was apparent by tha ! condition he was in when he reached his old home, being footsore, i nearly starved, and badly used up. — ' St. Joseph Herald.'