“Love him too much to part with him, eh?” asked the other, smiling up at the big blacksmith. “Love him?” snorted Zinn. “Love a dog! I ain’t no fool.” “Ah?” said the stranger. “Then what’s your price?” Peter Zinn scratched his head; then he scowled, for when he tried to translate Blondy into terms of money, his wits failed him. “That’s two hundred and seventy-five dollars,” he said finally. “I’ll make it three hundred, even. And, mind you. my friend, this dog is useless for show purposes. You’ve let him fight too much, and he’s covered with scars. No trimming can make that right ear presentable. However, he’s a grand dog, and he’d be worth something in the stud.” Zinn hardly heard the last of this. He was considering that for three hundred dollars he could extend the blacksmith shop by one-half and get a full partnership with Harkness, or else he could buy that four-cylinder car which young Thompson wanted to sell. Yet even the showy grandeur of an automobile would hardly serve. He did not love Blondy. Love was an emotion which he scorned as beneath the dignity of a strong man. He had not married his wife because of love, but because he was tired of eating in restaurants and because other men had homes. The possession of an automobile would put the stamp upon his new prosperity, but could an automobile welcome him home at night or sleep at his feet? “I dunno,” he said at last. “I guess I ain’t selling.” And he walked on. He did not feel more kindly toward Blondy after this. In fact, he never mentioned the circumstance, even in his home, but often when he felt the warmth of Blondy at his feet he was both baffled and relieved. In the meantime Blondy had been making history in Sioux Crossing hardly less spectacular than that of Zinn. His idea of play was a battle; his conception of a perfect day embraced the killing of two or three dogs. Had he belonged to anyone other than Zinn, he would have been shot before his career was well started, but his owner was such a known man that guns were handled but not used when the white terror came near. It could be said in his behalf that he was not aggressive and, unless urged on, would not attack another. However, he was a most hearty and capable finisher of a fight if one were started. He first took the eye of the town through a fracas with Bill Curry’s brindled bulldog, Mixer. Blondy was seven or eight pounds short of his magnificent maturity when he encountered Mixer and touched noses with him; then the bulldog reached for Blondy’s left foreleg, snapped his teeth in the empty air, and the fun began. As Harkness afterward put it: “Mixer was like thunder, but Blondy was lightning on wheels.” Blondy drifted around the heavier dog for five minutes as illusive as a phantom. Then he slid in, closed the long, pointed, fighting jaw on Mixer’s gullet, and was only pried loose from a dead dog.