[FACE TO FACE WITH A MAD DOG.]
“I can’t say that I object very much to the muzzling order,” remarked Captain Peyton. “I have had too many experiences with mad dogs, and my voyage with one of them I am never likely to forget.”
“How was that?” we inquired eagerly; and after a little pressing the captain spun us the following yarn:
The thing happened, he began, on board the ship Globe, when I was a young man before the mast, coming home in her from Denmark.
Our captain had procured the animal for a friend of his, who lived somewhere in the country, and wanted such a dog to keep off tramps and other trespassers.
I have seldom seen a larger or more vicious-looking dog. He was of the breed called the Great Dane, a kind noted for size and fierceness; and though only a year old, he did honor to both these characteristics.
He would make friends with no one forward, and sometimes would even show his large white teeth upon a too familiar caress from the captain, his master pro tem.
You may be sure that not a single one of us ever kicked that dog out of the way or took any other liberty with him.
“That animal will be a treasure to Captain Gale’s friend,” the second mate remarked one day. “Why, if I had him I should expect to come home some afternoon to find my wife in half a dozen pieces, and my children lying about in little strips. What can a man be thinking of to want such a creature as that about the place?”