It was a pretty sight. And it set Tenebris into active motion at once.
The bull doubtless thought he himself was doing the driving, by means of his panting rushes, and by his lurches to one side or another to keep away from the dog's sharp bites. But he was not. It was Lad who chose the direction in which they went. And he chose it deliberately.
Presently the two were but fifteen feet away from the river, at a point where the bank shelved, cliff-like, for two or three yards, down to a wide pool.
Feinting for the nose, Lad induced Tenebris to lower his tired head. Then he sprang lightly over the threatening horns, and landed, a-scramble, with all four feet, on the bull's broad shoulders.
Scurrying along the heaving back, the dog nipped Tenebris on the hip, and dropped to earth again.
The insult, the fresh pain, the astonishment combined to make Tenebris forget his weariness. Beside himself with maniac wrath, he shut both eyes and launched himself forward. Lad slipped, eel-like, to one side. Carried by his own blind momentum, Tenebris shot over the bank edge.
Too late the bull looked. Half sliding, half scrambling, he crashed down the steep sides of the bank and into the river.
Lad, tongue out, jogged over to the top of the bank, where, with head to one side and ears cocked, he gazed interestedly down into the wildly churned pool.
Tenebris had gotten to his feet after the ducking; and he was floundering pastern-deep in stickily soft mud. So tightly bogged down that it later took the efforts of six farm-hands to extricate him, the bull continued to flounder and to bellow.