Bob, with his master coming from one way and the train coming from the other, stayed on his spot, deaf to the appeals of the former and the warnings of the latter.
The engine reached him first. Ned, horrified, saw him hurled into the air, up, up, twenty feet, his legs dangling and his ears flopping. Turning slow somersaults down he came, clear of the trestle, into the depths below. Ned caught a glimpse of the engineer and fireman looking back from the cab and laughing, which made him mad.
The first freeze of the fall had covered the slough with an inch of ice. Down dropped Bob, as swiftly as though he were from the dog-star, and lit squarely, in a sitting position, on a shallow place.
The sound of a shrill yelp floated up to Ned, leaning over to gaze. Bob bounced to his feet, and leaving the outlines of his hind parts, with a hole marking where his tail had bored, across the slough he fled, his ki-yi’s drifting behind him, fainter and fainter.
After much whistling Ned found him again, hiding in the woods. In body Bob was uninjured, but his feelings had been hurt; and for some time he could not be made to believe but that a mean trick had been played upon him by Ned and the train.
Finally he allowed himself to be coaxed upon the trestle, and with whimper and trembling, with tail between his legs and with many a backward glance, he made the journey across.
Thereafter he took the trestle in a hurry, without a sign of hesitation. He had learned a lesson.
Bob’s stubbornness was not always of mischief to him. Sometimes it stood him in good stead, and above all in his fights. Now, Bob was not willingly a fighter. There were times when he would run from a dog not half his size. This lack of spirit was a cause of great vexation to Ned, who, while he would not have Bob a bully like some dogs, upon the other hand would not have him a craven and a coward.
But when cornered, or when once started, Bob was a perfect demon at a fight. The dog that picked upon him, thinking to be able to nag him without return, was likely to have a sudden rush of trouble.
Bob’s great jaws closed on him with a grip that no struggles could break. When Bob bit, he bit for keeps.