conception of life.

However, Jan was in earnest now; more so than he had ever been since,
more than five months earlier, he had flung his gristly bulk upon the
vixen fox who slew his sister in the cave. Some breath he wasted in a
second cry--all challenge and fury, and no questioning wonder this
time--and then, like a Clydesdale colt attacking a leopard, he flung
himself upon the sheep-dog, roaring and grappling for a hold. It seemed
that Grip was made of steel springs and india-rubber. The shock of Jan's
assault was doubtless something of a blow; for Jan weighed more than the
sheep-dog; but he tossed it from him with a twist of his densely clad
shoulders, and again as the youngster blundered past him he took toll
(this time of the loose skin on the right side of the hound's neck) in
his precisely worked jaws.

All unlearned though he was in these wolf-like (or any other) fighting
tactics, Jan presented an imposing picture of rampant fury as he wheeled
again to face his calmly resourceful enemy. David Crumplin had now
recognized the young hound as an animal of value and consequence in the
world, and in all sincerity was doing his best to separate the pair. But
the fight had gone too far now for verbal remonstrances to have any
effect, even with disciplined Grip; and as for Jan, he was merely
unconscious, alike in the matter of David's adjurations and the thrusts
and thwacks of his stave.

In the pages of a correctly conceived romance, one man (providing, of
course, that he is a hero) is always able without much difficulty to
separate two fighting dogs, even though he be innocent of doggy lore and
attired blamelessly, as judged by the illustrator's standards for
walking out with the heroine. But in real life the thing is somehow
different. Not only are two pairs of strong hands needed, but it is
necessary that the possessors of those hands should approach the fray
from opposite sides, and be nimble and strong enough to get clear away,
one from the other, when each pair has grabbed its dog. No single pair
of hands can manage it in the case of big dogs, and a man's feet are not
far enough removed from his hands to make them an adequate substitute
for a second pair of hands.

David Crumplin, having speedily given up persuasion, yelled for help,
and cursed and swore vehemently at the dogs, banging and thrusting at
each in turn, without prejudice and without effect. Much they cared for
his curses, or his ashen staff. J