The dog sprang nimbly over and, yelping, ran after an innocent rabbit that bounded across the pasture like an India rubber ball, his short pennant making an almost unbroken line of white over the green grass as he fled before his enemy. Luckily he reached the opposite fence in time and darted behind the protecting stones; baffled, the dog stood barking, furiously.
Soon the boy put his fingers in his lips and whistled, shrilly.
Time and again True had warned Black Baby of this very dog, but the lamb, having known only love and kindness all his little life, forgot, and frolicked gaily towards him!
William Howe cried out in delight, “Sick him, Cornwallis!”
The cosset lamb stood an easy mark for the dog and in an instant lay gasping on the ground, the blood flowing from a horrid wound in his throat. His sobbing breath found an echo in True’s heart and for the first time the colt lost control of himself.
Overcome with a thirst for vengeance, and, screaming as only a horse does when the strait is desperate, he plunged and reared. With a well-aimed blow of his hard, very dark, front-feet he knocked the dog senseless.
This did not satisfy the lamb’s champion; he stamped the body of the wicked beast into the earth, crushing bones as if they had been straws! Furiously he bit, and finally caught the limp carcass in his strong teeth and threw it high in the air. For the moment he was a demon and sought, savagely, for more ways to wipe the remains out of existence!
Suddenly he remembered William Howe who stood at a distance, pelting him with stones. Uttering another fierce cry he turned upon the boy, baring his teeth hideously between his firm lips.
Howe made for the fence, where the desperate rabbit had sought cover, and scrambled over, thinking to be safe on the other side; he did not know the colt was descended from the “birds of the desert!”
True was not even aware of a barrier! As if he had wings he soared over it, doubling his hind-feet close under his body a little to one side.