“ ‘They ’ain’t got no grit. What makes you think they can fight?’ I asked one day.
“ ‘Fight?’ says H’Anglish. ‘My deah man, they’re full-blooded. Cost seventy pun each. They’re dreadful creatures when they’re roused—they’ll tear a wolf to pieces like a rag—kill bears—anything. Oh! Rully, perfectly dreadful!’
“Well, it wasn’t a week later that he went over to the east line with me to mend a barb wire. I had my pliers and a hatchet and some staples. About a mile from the house we jumped up a little brown bear that scampered off when he seen us, but bein’ agin’ a bluff where he couldn’t get away, he climbed a cotton-wood. H’Anglish was simply frothin’ with excitement.
“ ‘What a misfortune! Neyther gun nor hounds.’
“ ‘I’ll scratch his back and talk pretty to him,’ says I, ‘while you run back and get a Winchester and them ferocious bull-dogs.’
“ ‘Wolf-hounds,’ says he, with dignity, ‘full-blooded, seventy pun each. They’ll rend the poor beast limb from limb. I hate to do it, but it’ll be good practice for them.’
“ ‘They may be good renders,’ says I, ‘but don’t forgit the gun.’
“Well, I throwed sticks at the critter when he tried to unclimb the tree, till finally the boss got back with his dogs. They set up an awful holler when they see the bear—first one they’d ever smelled, I reckon—and the little feller crawled up in some forks and watched things, cautious, while they leaped about, bayin’ most fierce and blood-curdlin’.
“ ‘How you goin’ to get him down?’ says I.
“I’ll shoot him in the lower jaw,’ says the Britisher, ‘so he cawn’t bite the dogs. It’ll give ’em cawnfidence.’