"Oho," he said, "so you are going to be a fighter, are you? I'll fix you for that." His face was red and furious. He seized me by the back of the neck and carried me out to the yard where a log lay on the ground. "Bill," he called to one of his children, "bring me the hatchet."
He laid my head on the log and pressed one hand on my struggling body. I was now a year old and a full-sized dog. There was a quick, dreadful pain, and he had cut off my ear, not in the way they cut puppies' ears, but close to my head, so close that he cut off some of the skin beyond it. Then he cut off the other ear, and, turning me swiftly round, cut off my tail close to my body.
Then he let me go and stood looking at me as I rolled on the ground and yelped in agony. He was in such a passion that he did not think that people passing by on the road might hear me.
[Chapter III My Kind Deliverer and Miss Laura]
There was a young man going by on a bicycle. He heard my screams and springing off his bicycle, came hurrying up the path, and stood among us before Jenkins caught sight of him.
In the midst of my pain, I heard him in say fiercely "What have you been doing to that dog?"
"I've been cuttin' his ears for fightin', my young gentleman," said Jenkins. "There is no law to prevent that, is there?"
"And there is no law to prevent my giving you a beating," said the young man, angrily. In a trice he had seized Jenkins by the throat, and was pounding him with all his might. Mrs. Jenkins came and stood at the house door, crying, but making no effort to help her husband.