He came face to face with Diada before he noticed her; he gazed with popping eyeballs; his pugilistic courage and his giant strength oozed out at his bootheels, and his iron jaw dropped down and wigwagged like the loose under lip of a plug horse sleeping in the sun.
“My Gawd!” he exclaimed.
He slunk slowly backward until he got some thorny shrubbery between himself and Diada, and then his ponderous feet beat a wild tattoo of panicky retreat upon the sodded turf.
“There, now!” Gaitskill exclaimed. “Hitch Diamond has given an outward and visible manifestation of my inward and spiritual emotions. Look at the wench! She hasn’t moved a muscle of her body for twenty minutes! Can’t you get her to do something?”
“Sure!” Captain Manse answered, feeling in his pocket and bringing forth a ten-cent piece. “Have you got a dime in your pocket?”
Gaitskill produced the silver piece and held it out.
“No,” Manse said, “I don’t want to touch it. Throw your money out there in the grass!”
The two men tossed their coins out into the thick Bermuda grass, and Manse gave a sharp whistle.
Diada turned and trotted toward him like a dog.
“Hunt, Diada!” Manse exclaimed, pointing to the grass. “Hunt!”