“What was this upon his bridge!”
The intruder stopped, sank on his belly, and gave back a savage growl—his gage of battle. Below the river dimpled in the starlight and murmured joyfully along the shores. Carefully the dog inched forward, his mouth open, his upper lip curled back. The coon waited, his beady eyes watching the play of every muscle in the form of his antagonist, and the curving claws on all four feet shot out to their fullest length. These were his main defence; his teeth were secondary. Both animals were at a disadvantage. The dog was out of his element, and his footing was very precarious. On the other hand the coon, while perfectly at home, never waged his battles in a tree. When he fought it was lying flat on his back on the ground. But the guile of many years was in his sly old brain, and where the trees locked was a little hollow safely bulwarked by the peculiar way in which the branches had entwined. As the dog leaped at his throat he threw himself on his back and struck out with all four feet at once. But the starved alien knew his business well. Ignoring the stinging rents which the hind claws made, he bore the fore legs down with the force of his fall, and his jaws gained the coveted hold without which no coon can be conquered. But that was not all the battle. Fiercely the old boar wrestled, ripping the body of his foe with lightning-like movements of his strong legs, gnashing his teeth in a vain effort to use them, and struggling for breath. The dog bore his awful punishment like a martyr, lying as closely as he could so as to impede the other’s movements, but never uttering a cry of pain and wrenching and tugging at the furry throat over which his jaws had closed. In the intensity of their joint efforts neither had a thought of caution. Presently the raccoon was out of the hollow where he had lain to receive the attack; there was a slip, a scuffle, and through twenty feet of space two writhing bodies, locked so closely as to seem almost one, fell with a loud splash into the liquid depths below. And so the river received them both, and a whirlpool sucked them down.
Now the bark on the tree-bridge is almost worn away from the constant passing of little feet, which before had been afraid.
THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLOCK
THE GUARDIAN OF THE FLOCK
IN a ravine where men seldom placed their feet, a rod or more up a rocky, bushy hillside, in a hole almost concealed by an overhanging dewberry bush, lay a dog. A big dog. His head, huge, disfigured, terrible, rested upon the earth between his paws, and the lids had fallen over the fierce eyes, which glowed with changing lights when open. The big dog was asleep. His back-bone was a succession of knots, with small depressions between. It terminated in a tawny stump, perhaps six inches long, which stood for a tail. The bones above his hips jutted out like door-knobs; his flanks were sunk in cavernously, and palpitated with each sharply indrawn breath. There were scars on the ribbed body; old scars which had healed bare and blackly; others where the aggrieved flesh was beginning to join, and still others which showed raw and red—almost dripping, and about these tiny gnats had gathered and sat in rows at their feast, while their colorless bodies quickly took on a crimson shade. A large green fly boomed into the hole in the hill, zigzagged about over the recumbent form, and then plumped his spiked feet down in one of the rawest of the wounds. A convulsive shiver passed over the side of the dog and the green fly lost his foothold; but, not to be cheated out of his meal, he returned more cautiously, and, standing among the scant, scrubby hair at the edge of the moist fissure he stretched out his neck and thrust out his tongue. The muscles along the bruised side moved again, but more slightly, and the fly and the gnats ate and drank their fill.
The dog’s high shoulder-blades seemed ready to burst through their covering; there was a deep hollow between them. The neck was short, thick, bull-like. One ear was bleeding—the other was gone, and a tangled mass of gnarled flesh marked where it had been. About the grim muzzle were some patches of sheep wool, draggled and red.
The dog had been out nearly all night, and it was now early morning. He had travelled many miles since the sun had set the day before; ranging back and forth, skulking, hiding, waiting. Before he returned to his hiding-place he had battened on blood and fought a battle.