The bull doubtless thought he himself was doing the driving, by means
of his panting rushes, and by his lurches to one side or another to
keep away from the dog's sharp bites. But he was not. It was Lad who
chose the direction in which they went. And he chose it deliberately.
Presently the two were but fifteen feet away from the river, at a
point where the bank shelved, cliff-like, for two or three yards, down
to a wide pool.
Feinting for the nose, Lad induced Tenebris to lower his tired
head. Then he sprang lightly over the threatening horns, and landed,
a-scramble, with all four feet, on the bull's broad shoulders.
Scurrying along the heaving back, the dog nipped Tenebris on the hip,
and dropped to earth again.
The insult, the fresh pain, the astonishment combined to make Tenebris
forget his weariness. Beside himself with maniac wrath, he shut both
eyes and launched himself forward. Lad slipped, eel-like, to one
side. Carried by his own blind momentum, Tenebris shot over the bank
edge.
Too late the bull looked. Half sliding, half scrambling, he crashed
down the steep sides of the bank and into the river.
Lad, tongue out, jogged over to the top of the bank, where, with head
to one side and ears cocked, he gazed interestedly down into the
wildly churned pool.
Tenebris had gotten to his feet after the ducking; and he was
floundering pastern-deep in stickily soft mud. So tightly bogged down
that it later took the efforts of six farm-hands to extricate him, the
bull continued to flounder and to bellow.
A stream of people were running down the meadow toward the river. Lad
hated crowds. He made a loping detour of the nearest runners and
sought to regain the spot where last he had seen the Mistress and
Master. Also, if his luck held good, he might have still another bout
with the man he had once treed. Which would be an ideal climax to a
perfect day.
He found all the objects of his quest together. The groom, hysterical,
was swaying on his feet, supported by Glure.
At sight of the advancing collie the bitten man cried aloud in fear
and clutched his employer for protection.
"Take him away, sir!" he babbled in mortal terror. "He'll kill me! He
hates me, the ugly hairy devil! He _hates_ me. He tried to kill me
once before! He----"
"H'm!" mused the Master. "So he tried to kill you once before, eh?
Aren't you mistaken?"
"No, I ain't!" wept the man. "I'd know him in a million! That's why he
went for me again to-day. He remembered me. I seen he did. That's no
dog. It's a _devil!_"
"Mr. Glure," asked the Master, a light dawning, "when this chap
applied to you for work, did he wear grayish tweed trousers? And were
they in bad shape?"
"His trousers were in rags," said Glure. "I remember that. He said a
savage dog had jumped into the road from a farmhouse somewhere and
gone for him. Why?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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