I caught her behind her fat neck with my left hand, shook her severely, and said:
“Vixen, if you do that again you’ll be put into the verandah. Now, remember!”
She understood perfectly, but the minute I released her she mouthed my right wrist once more, and waited with her ears back and all her body flattened, ready to bite. The big dog’s tail thumped the floor in a humble and peace-making way.
I grabbed Vixen a second time, lifted her out of bed like a rabbit (she hated that and yelled), and, as I had promised, set her out in the verandah with the bats and the moonlight. At this she howled. Then she used coarse language — not to me, but to the bullterrier — till she coughed with exhaustion. Then she ran round the house trying every door. Then she went off to the stables and barked as though some one were stealing the horses,fake uggs, which was an old trick of hers. Last she returned, and her snuffing yelp said, “I’ll be good! Let me in and I’ll’ be good!”
She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I whispered to the other dog, “You can lie on the foot of the bed.” The bull jumped up at once, and though I felt Vixen quiver with rage, she knew better than to protest,homepage. So we slept till the morning, and they had early breakfast with me, bite for bite, till the horse came round and we went for a ride. I don’t think the bull had ever followed a horse before. He was wild with excitement, and Vixen, as usual, squealed and scuttered and scooted, and took charge of the procession.
There was one corner of a village near by,nike shox torch 2, which we generally passed with caution, because all the yellow pariah-dogs of the place gathered about it.
They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards, yet where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill and eat an English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them.
That morning they attacked Vixen, who, perhaps of design, had moved from beyond my horse’s shadow.
The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind, rolling in his run, and smiling as bull-terriers will. I heard Vixen squeal; half a dozen of the curs closed in on her; a white streak came up behind me; a cloud of dust rose near Vixen, and, when it cleared, I saw one tall pariah with his back broken, and the bull wrenching another to earth. Vixen retreated to the protection of my whip, and the bull paddled back smiling more than ever, covered with the blood of his enemies. That decided me to call him “Garin of the Bloody Breast,” who was a great person in his time, or “Garm” for short; so, leaning forward, I told him what his temporary name would be. He looked up while I repeated it, and then raced away. I shouted “Garin!” He stopped, raced back, and came up to ask my will.
Then I saw that my soldier friend was right, and that that dog knew and was worth more than a man. At the end of the ride I gave an order which Vixen knew and hated: “Go away and get washed!” I said. Garin understood some part of it, and Vixen interpreted the rest, and the two trotted off together soberly. When I went to the back verandah Vixen had been washed snowy-white, and was very proud of herself, but the dog-boy would not touch Garm on any account unless I stood by. So I waited while he was being scrubbed, and Garm, with the soap creaming on the top of his broad head, looked at me to make sure that this was what I expected him to endure,nike shox torch ii. He knew perfectly that the dog-boy was only obeying orders.
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