Before the puppy could make any effort to defend himself, the handler and Fraser Colt had rushed into the fray. The police dog was hauled back, snapping and snarling. Colt’s rough hand restrained the collie from doing anything in the way of reprisal. The very brief fight was ended. Colt glanced over his pup, once more; this time with more worry than mere appraisal. Battle-scarred canine visages do not impress dogshow judges favorably. Then, from Fraser Colt’s thick throat avalanched a torrent of lurid blasphemy. For he saw something which affected him as might the loss of his garish diamond scarfpin. One of the puppy’s tulip ears still tipped gracefully forward from the point. But the other ear hung down from the side of his head as limply as a sodden handkerchief. In brief, if one ear was tulip, the other was wilted cabbage leaf. From the down-hanging lacerated ear, blood was trickling; in token of the police dog’s bite. The shaking of the mighty jaws had wrenched and broken the cartilage and muscular system of the stricken ear into raglike loppiness. Ear-carriage is an all-important detail in the judging of show-collies. Lack of perfect ear-carriage may perhaps be condoned to some extent, if the dog’s other points be good enough to counteract it. But no collie-judge on earth would give a ribbon to a dog with one semi-erect ear and one ear that hangs flappily down the side of his head. No, the pup’s show possibilities were gone,--absolutely gone. Two minutes earlier he had been worth perhaps $400 of any fancier’s cash. As he stood, he was worth as much, for all show-purposes, as a one-eyed woman in a beauty contest. That savage wrench of the police dog’s jaws had harmed no vital spot. But it had ripped hundreds of dollars out of Fraser Colt’s bank account. Why, nobody, now, would be willing to pay as much as $50 for the collie, as a pet! Who would want a lopsided, clownish-looking dog, when a handsome mutt could be bought for half the price? To Colt, a dog was as much an insensate chattel as was a bank note. This particular dog had just deprived him of a rare chance to annex many bank notes. In illogical fury, he brought his open hand down over the puppy’s bleeding head, with a resounding and stingingly painful slap. In Colt’s present frame of mind, he must needs take out his furious disappointment on something. The blow knocked the puppy half way across the car. Striding after him, Fraser Colt swung his hand--fist clenched, this time--for a second and heavier blow. In righteous indignation at the injustice, and in unbearable pain, the collie met the second attack, halfway. As Colt’s big fist smote at him, the pup shifted deftly aside from the descending arm. Slashing as he jumped, he scored a deep red furrow in his owner’s wrist.