"'Dade an' he did."
"There isn't room in him for such a growl as that and such a bark. The cow can't find him."
"No more there is. When I got him I thought it was a bad cold he had, an' it wud lave him wid warrum weather, but he's only worse. He's an April-fool of a dog, and that's his whole name."
Again and again all that big sound was thrown at the head of the brindled cow, and she knew it came from somewhere in the grass. She saw the wiry-haired bit of a quadruped, of course, but she was an old experienced cow, knowing all about dogs, and she knew the bark could not come from him.
Those boys! She knew a good deal about boys, and she had never before seen so many at once in that pasture lot. Her calf could be left alone for a moment, with nothing to hurt him but a tuft of yellow hair in a bunch of grass. She herself went at once after that Polar Expedition.
It was already running, every boy of it, as fast as its many short legs could carry it, and the cow had no idea how triumphantly Soddy Corcoran's dog was galloping over the grass behind her. He had no doubt whatever but what he had scared the calf's mother, and was chasing her.
The boys made for the north fence, because it was nearest, but not all of them would have reached it in time if the cow had not hesitated for a moment just as she got almost among them. She stopped in her tracks, with her head down, and right behind her, almost under her heels, again arose that awful growl and the short hoarse bark. There was no room in that dog for a longer bark of that thickness, but it made the angry cow wheel to look for it.
"Woof! Ur-r-r-r-r! Woof!"
Right at her heels all the time, and nothing to be seen, however fast she might wheel, for Soddy Corcoran's dog was determined to sit in a safe spot, and the cow, after all, might have looked for half an hour without hitting so small a mark.
"Ape! Ape! Sure an' ye've fooled her enough for wanst. Coom along, now."