Ti-Ti-Pu: A Boy of Red River

This is how it befell. Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, thought that a flourishing colony right in the midst of the rich hunting-grounds of the Hudson's Bay Company, in which he was interested, would prove no less a benefit to the natives than an excellent thing for the colonists. Accordingly, he busied himself in persuading a number of his fellow-countrymen to leave their hillside farms, and, with their families, voyage to the unknown wilds of the New World.
Among those whose courage was equal to this enterprise was Andrew Macrae, accompanied by his good wife, Kirstie, his sturdy son, Hector, then just on the edge of his teens, his bonnie wee daughter, Ailie, and his two splendid sheep dogs, Dour and Dandy.
The dogs' names were not given them at random. They just fitted their natures. A more serious creature than Dour surely never stood upon four legs. He bore himself as if he were responsible, not merely for the occupants of the sheep-cote, but also of the cottage as well. He was never known to frisk or gambol, or to bark without due cause.
Dandy was the very opposite, as black as a raven, save for a superb snow-white shirt-front, which he managed to keep marvellously clean, and a few touches of golden-brown on his shapely head. He was only a little slighter than Dour, and as lively and frolicsome as the other was impassive. Although not quite the equal of Dour, Dandy was an excellent sheep dog, too, and many a cotter envied Andrew the possession of the two fine creatures.
Hector loved both dogs dearly, albeit he stood a trifle in awe of Dour. The dogs were as much members of the family as Ailie and himself. He would have shared his last bit of bannock or sup of 'parritch' with either of them, and they fully returned his affection, each in his own way.
Hector was a 'braw laddie,' in very sooth. From his father, he got the straightness and strength of body, the deftness of hand and foot, and the rapidity of thought that made him an unquestioned leader among his playfellows, and from his mother the light, crisp hair, the laughing blue eyes, and the happy turn of speech that made the other boys love as well as obey him.