"If you want nice things go to work and earn them; that's the way to get them." While this conversation was going on, David was pulling off his wet clothes and putting on his best suit, the one he wore on Sundays.

It was not just such a suit as the most of us would like to go to church in, but it was whole and neat, and David looked like another boy in it.

He kept the pointer in the house with him all the while, for fear that his brother might attempt to steal him again; but Dan was too much astonished at the turn affairs were taking, and too badly frightened, to make any more efforts to win the ten dollars reward.
He sat on the bench, with his eyes fastened thoughtfully on the ground, and saw David come out with the pointer and lead him down the road toward General Gordon's, without saying a word.
When David reached the barn he walked straight through it to the shop, and there he found Don and Bert, busy at work building more traps.

They were surprised to see him dressed in his best, and still more surprised, and delighted too, when the pointer bounded in and fawned upon them.
"Father said that the offer of a reward would bring him if anything would," exclaimed Don, as he wound his arms around the animal's neck and hugged him as he might have hugged a brother he had not seen for a long time.
"Yes, the reward did it," replied David, and that was true.

If Dan had not seen the notice in the post-office, he never would have had that conversation with David, and consequently the latter would not have known where to go to find the pointer.
"We all thought he was stolen," continued Don.