Milvaine had his strong, tall crook, John his terribly—punishing hide whip, the cleerach had a double-barrelled gun.
The bull—infuriated now beyond measure—came roaring to meet them.
The cleerach fired at his legs. The shot but made him stumble for a moment; it had no other effect. On he came wilder than ever. He seemed to single the farmer himself out, and charged him head down. Mr Milvaine met the charge manfully enough. He leapt nimbly to one side, striking straight home with the iron-shod end of the crook. It wounded the bull in the neck, but ill would it have fared with the farmer had he not got speedily behind a tree.
Whack, whack, whack. John is behind the bull with his whip of hide.
The bull wheels round upon him ere ever he can escape, and runs him between his horns against a tree.
John has seized the horns, and thus they stand man and brute locked in a death grip.
The farmer has stumbled and fallen in running to John’s assistance. The cleerach is loading again, when help comes from a most unexpected quarter, and Eily herself rushes on the scene.
She at once seizes the bull by the hock. The roar he emits is one of agony and rage, but John is free.
Eily easily eludes the bull’s charge. He follows a little way towards the gate, then turns, when she fixes him again. And this game continues until the bull is fairly into the field.
Whenever the bull turns Eily seizes his hock; whenever he gives her chase she runs farther into the field, barking defiantly.