Mr. Bates's yellow dog was a very big one. Perhaps he was not altogether a bad dog, either, but he had a sad weakness for teasing any animal smaller than himself. Cats, sheep, chickens, anything defenseless, would have been wise to keep out of his way if they could.
The two poor Dorking chickens had not been able to get away from him the day before, and so they had lost their feathers and their lives.
He had jumped the barn-yard fence now in search of more helpless chickens, and more of what he called fun.
A snap of his great jaws would have been enough to kill any fowl in that yard, and it would have crushed the life out of one of the little yellow "peepers" the old hens were now clucking to, if he had but put a paw on it.
But Bayard, the game-cock, was neither a Dorking, nor an old hen, nor a chicken, and he did not run an inch when the big dog came charging so fiercely toward him. He did but lower his head and step a little forward.
"Oh, Uncle Joe! He will be torn all to pieces."
"No, he won't. See!"
It was done almost too quickly for Parry to see, but the sharp spurs of the beautiful "bird" had been driven smartly into the nose of the big yellow dog, and the latter was pawing at it with a doleful whine.
The game-cock had not done with the barn-yard invader. He meant to follow that matter up till he had finished it.
"Clip!" he had hit him again—in the left shoulder this time—and the dog's whine changed to a howl.