Tike went out and got some bottles somewhere. Then they pulled down all the blinds, locked the house door, and the outer shed door, lighted an old lamp, and sat down at a table with some cards between them.
They hadn’t a suspicion that I would try to escape. Apparently, I was beaten almost to a jelly, but I am a very strong dog, and I wasn’t half as done out as I appeared to be.
Tike cast a glance at me occasionally, as I lay on my straw bed, but soon he got interested in the cards and the bottles and forgot all about me.
As I lay there, I was doing some pretty hard thinking. Never before in my whole life had I felt as I was now feeling. I was on fire with anger, and I felt the strength of ten dogs in my body. I had had all the worries and trials of an average dog in the course of my life, but this rage of resentment was an absolutely new experience. A most profound sympathy for all tortured things came over me. I pitied all the suffering men and women in the world, the children, and poor dumb animals. Then I arranged my little plan of escape. In the morning, I would either be away from this place, or so done out that I didn’t care what happened to me.
First thing I must get some rest. Nothing could be done till the two young brutes inside had been put to sleep by the stuff in the bottles.
I am a pretty determined dog, and I made myself drop into a heavy slumber. About one o’clock, I woke up. The most extraordinary snoring duet I ever heard in my life was going on in the room beyond me, and I could see where the two poor wretches had thrown themselves, undressed, across the bed. They were safe for some hours.
The lamp was just smoking out. It would soon be dark, but I knew every inch of the ground about me, and the darkness would not interfere with what I had to do.
For the thousandth time since my captivity, I smelt round the iron bar to which I was chained. That bar had to come out of the ground. There was no other way of escape, for it was impossible for me to detach my metal collar from the steel chain that fastened me to the bar.
I must dig my way out. Fortunately, my legs are very muscular, for I have been a dog that has taken a great deal of exercise, and back of me are generations of fox-terriers trained to unearth foxes in old England.