ote of it
before. Now he bent his head and sniffed at it with wondering
interrogation. The spreading blood, still warm, smote his nostrils;
and all at once, it seemed, death and the fear of death were borne in
upon his arrogant heart. He tossed his head, snorting wildly, flung
himself clear of the uncomprehended, dreadful thing upon the ground,
bounded over the wallow as if it, too, had grown terrifying, and fled
away up the trail through the merciless, unconcealing moonlight, till
he reached the end of the open shelf and a black wood hid his sudden
fear of the unknown.

Sonny and the Kid

THE little old gray house, with its gray barn and low wagon shed,
stood in the full sun at the top of a gullied and stony lane. Behind
it the ancient forest, spruce and fir and hemlock, came down and
brooded darkly over the edge of the rough, stump-strewn pasture. The
lane, leading up to the house from the main road, climbed between a
sloping buckwheat field on the one hand and a buttercupped meadow on
the other. On either side of the lane, cutting it off from the fields,
straggled a zigzag snake fence, with milk-weed, tansy, and mullein
growing raggedly in its corners.

At the head of the lane, where it came out upon the untidy but homely
looking yard, stood a largish black and tan dog, his head on one side,
his ears cocked, his short stub of a tail sticking out straight and
motionless, tense with expectation. He was staring at a wagon which
came slowly along the main road, drawn by a jogging, white-faced
sorrel. The expression in the dog's eyes was that of a hope so eager
that nothing but absolute certainty could permit him to believe in its
approaching fulfilment. His mouth was half open, as if struggling to
aid his vision.

He was an odd looking beast, formidable in his sturdy strength and his
massiveness of jaw; and ugly beyond question, but for the alert
intelligence of his eyes. A palpable mongrel, he showed none the less
that he had strains of distinction in his ancestry. English bull
was the blood most clearly proclaimed, in his great chest, short,
crooked legs, fine coat, and square, powerful head. His pronounced
black and tan seemed to betray some beagle kinship, as did his long,
close-haired ears. Whoever had docked his tail, in his defenceless
puppyhood, had evidently been too tender-hearted to cut those
silken and sensitive ears. So Sonny had been obliged to face life
in the incongruous garb of short tail a