feet spread out,
sighing heavily. She settled her head on the pillow several times,
to show her little airs and graces, and struck up her usual whiney
sing-song before slumber. The stranger-dog softly edged toward me. I
put out my hand and he licked it. Instantly my wrist was between Vixen's
teeth, and her warning aaarh! said as plainly as speech, that if I took
any further notice of the stranger she would bite.

I caught her behind her fat neck with my left hand, shook her severely,
and said:

"Vixen, if you do that again you'll be put into the verandah. Now,
remember!"

She understood perfectly, but the minute I released her she mouthed my
right wrist once more, and waited with her ears back and all her body
flattened, ready to bite. The big dog's tail thumped the floor in a
humble and peace-making way.

I grabbed Vixen a second time, lifted her out of bed like a rabbit
(she hated that and yelled), and, as I had promised, set her out in the
verandah with the bats and the moonlight. At this she howled. Then
she used coarse language--not to me, but to the bullterrier--till she
coughed with exhaustion. Then she ran round the house trying every door.
Then she went off to the stables and barked as though some one were
stealing the horses, which was an old trick of hers. Last she returned,
and her snuffing yelp said, "I'll be good! Let me in and I'll' be good!"

She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I
whispered to the other dog, "You can lie on the foot of the bed." The
bull jumped up at once, and though I felt Vixen quiver with rage, she
knew better than to protest. So we slept till the morning, and they had
early breakfast with me, bite for bite, till the horse came round and
we went for a ride. I don't think the bull had ever followed a horse
before. He was wild with excitement, and Vixen, as usual, squealed and
scuttered and scooted, and took charge of the procession.

There was one corner of a village near by, which we generally passed
with caution, because all the yellow pariah-dogs of the place gathered
about it.

They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards, yet
where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill and eat an
English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them.

That morning they attacked Vixen, who, perhaps of design, had moved from
beyond my horse's shadow.

The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind, rolling in
his r