door in answer to the now familiar _woof_, I knew, even without the
uplift of Sigurd's eloquent look, what had happened. He was dripping
with blood, his own and Major's, and dragged one hind leg painfully,
yet he had an air of expecting congratulations. We bathed and
disinfected his wounds as well as our inexperience could--in the course
of the next few years we became experts at canine first aid--but the
injury to the leg looked so serious that we called in Dr. Vet, who
found that one of Major's tusks had penetrated the joint. The leg was
packed in an antiphlogistic clay until it looked more like an
elephant's leg than Sigurd's and was secured from the investigation of
his own inquisitive teeth by broad bands of plaster and innumerable
yards of bandages. The proud sufferer, who, claiming that he was now
entitled to all sick privileges, had insisted on taking to my bed, lay
there on a fresh rug, anxiously watching every movement of the doctor's
hands but enduring even the probing without protest.

After AEsculapius had gone and the rest of the family were gathered
about the invalid, who, despite all smarts and aches, keenly relished
being the center of attention, Joy-of-Life and I sallied forth to
inquire for Major. That redoubtable little ruffian, cuddled into his
basket, rolled up doleful eyes from a gory lump that bore but small
resemblance to his massive, wrinkled, pugnacious head. A beholder of
the battle reported that as Sigurd was trotting innocently across a
vacant lot, a brighter spot of yellow weaving its path through the
goldenrod, Major, after his wonted manner of attack, came sneaking up
behind and gripped him by the joint of a hind leg. Sigurd wheeled,
catching and crushing Major's head between his own powerful jaws, and
then the two dogs, locked in furious combat, spun round and round, a
snarling whirligig, gathering a vociferous group of ineffective
dissuaders, until a grocer's boy, jumping down from his delivery wagon,
came rushing up with a packet of pepper, hurling its contents into
Sigurd's nostrils and, through his literally open countenance, into
Major's. In a spasm of sneezing, the circle of dog broke apart, and
each dilapidated fragment made for home. Sigurd was a week or more in
getting well and he limped for a month after, but the scars on Major's
head were in evidence longer yet. They never matched prowess again,
though the language that they would use to each other, especially with
a wide roa