Dixon bent to obey, but his fingers had barely touched Pink’s head before he stepped back with an exclamation, for her teeth had met in his wrist. She eyed him sorrowfully, even while the growl rattled in her throat. A well-bred dog could do no less for her master, however unworthy.
Bowman rolled about in drunken glee, urging his opponent to further effort, and Dixon’s temper snapped like dry kindling. He took Bowman behind a quiet hedge, and thrashed him into acquiescence. When he reappeared, Pink trotted meekly in his shadow. Together, they sought out the President, who listened a little impatiently to the demand that the dog might be run again.
“What’s the good?” he asked, watching his head shepherd making a glorious mull of things at the pen. “Having been the round once, she is no longer eligible for the prize.”
Dixon growled contempt.
“’Tisn’t the prize,” he said. “It’s the dog. She was run by a man who wasn’t fit to run her, a drunken fool who simply threw her away. She comes of the best stock in the county, and she can do better than that, I’ll lay my best heifer. She doesn’t know me, but I think I can work her. She’s been shamed before the whole county. Give her another chance.”
Arevar’s eldest son stood up and joined in the conversation. Dixon’s eyes met his without the slightest change of expression. The eldest son had a bandaged wrist.
“Let her run, Father,” he said. “It’s not harmin’ any one, and everybody should have a second chance in this world, shouldn’t they, Mr.—er—Dixon, I think? Let her run.”
Lyndesay shrugged his shoulders, and with difficulty restrained himself from rushing down to assist the head shepherd, who had at last succeeded in penning the whole of two of the sheep and half of the third.
“Very well!” he said. “Just as you like. She’ll do no good, anyway. She’s had all the intelligence beaten out of her, poor little brute!”
His son smiled gallantly into Dixon’s grim face.