“He’ll not try it again very soon, I’m thinking,” added the boy, with a malicious pleasure.
“Do you know where he is now?” I asked.
“Home, I suppose. He went off that way, limping,” answered the boy.
“Was he much hurt?”
“Considerable, I guess.”
I went back home, but no one had seen Ponto. I was beginning to feel anxious about the dog, when he was found in one of the third-story rooms, snugly covered up in bed, with his head on the pillow. On turning down the clothes a sight met our eyes. The sheets were all stained with blood, and the [!-- Illustration - PONTO --] poor dog, hurt and exhausted, looked as helpless and pitiful as any human being.
PONTO.
I will not tell you of all the wounds he had received. There were a great many of them, and some quite severe. “A good lesson for him,” we all said. And it proved so, for he was a little more careful after that how he got into a fight.
A few months before, I had been thrown from a wagon and badly hurt—so much so that I was confined to bed for a week. Ponto was with me at the time of the accident, and on my arrival at home followed me into the house and up to the chamber where I was taken. He watched every movement as I was laid in bed, and then sat down with his eyes on my pale face, regarding me with such looks of pity and interest that I was touched and surprised.