When the mastiff charged him Jeff acted on pure instinct. Having shown his resentment at the effort to chew him up, he was now quite content to let the quarrel rest where it was. But apparently this dog mountain who had attacked him would not have it so. In fact, the mastiff had cornered him. And the only road to safety was to go through a foe nearly twice as big as himself.
This looked like an impossible task, yet Jeff tackled it. His hind quarters were wedged between the open door and the street wall. In front was the mastiff. The big dog was not charging now. No need to waste speed and rashness on a helplessly cornered victim. Head down, legs crouched, the mastiff crept on his waiting prey. There was a hideous menace in the crawlingly savage advance.
Up went Dan Rorke’s stick again. Dan had gripped the weapon by the ferrule and he was measuring the distance between its clubbed handle and the giant mongrel’s head. But, as before, he did not strike; for there was no need.
The mastiff gathered himself for a death spring. But Jeff sprang without waiting to gather himself. Jeff did not spring aloft, as did the other. He dived under the rearing forelegs, slashing one of them to the bone as he sped.
The mastiff snapped murderously at his whizzing foe, as Jeff passed under him. His ravening teeth closed on nothing but a bunch of golden ruff hair instead of reaching their goal in the collie’s vertebræ. And the mouthful of fur was his sole asset from the encounter.
Roaring aloud with rage and with the pain of his flesh wounds, the mongrel bounded out of the corner and made for his escaped victim. Now Jeff had fought his way out of the trap at no worse loss than a bunch of neck hair. The whole world lay before him as an avenue of retreat. No domestic animal but the greyhound can pass a strong young collie in a footrace. And assuredly this unwieldy mastiff could never have hoped to overhaul him.
But a queer change had come to the friendly youngster during that ugly moment in the corner. He, who had always been on jolly terms with everyone, had been set upon in unprovoked fashion while he was minding his own business. He had been threatened with death; for a less clever dog than Jeff could not have failed to read red murder in the mastiff’s bloodshot eyes.
More, a wad of his fur had been yanked out in most painful fashion. And, for the first time in his eighteen pleasant months of life, hot wrath surged up in the collie’s friendly heart. This giant was not going to treat him so and get away with it scot-free. The battle yell of his wolf ancestors burst from Jeff’s furry throat.
As the mastiff turned he faced a wholly different antagonist from the astonished puppy he had set upon in the corner. Ruff abristle, head down, snowy fangs glinting from under his upwrithing lip, young Jeff flew to meet him like a fluffy catapult. And a truly epochal fight was on.