Cuffy, the Beautiful Newfoundland Dog 139 



Nothing pleased Cuffy more than to plunge 

 into the water among them and to take a 

 part in the fun. At first when she used to 

 thus spring in among them, they would all 

 dive down and lie quietly at the bottom. 

 After a while some of them at least did not 

 seem to mind her and played about as usual. 

 There was an especially large one, that 

 became quite friendly with Cuffy, although 

 the dog never seemed to understand how it 

 was that the fish could so quickly get out 

 of sight. One great trick of Cuffy's was to 

 firmly seize hold of the tail of the great fish. 

 The instant the sturgeon would feel this, 

 down it would quickly dive, dragging Cuffy 

 completely out of sight. It would not how- 

 ever be very long before the dog, sputter- 

 ing and blowing, would come to the surface 

 and quickly strike out for the shore. Here 

 she would cough and sneeze at a great rate 

 until she had forced all the water out of 

 her lungs. This sudden and doubtless un- 

 expected plunge, into the depths, did not in 

 any way discourage the plucky dog and so, 

 as soon as the sturgeon was up and appar- 

 ently looking for its old playmate, Cuffy 

 would plunge in to renew this most unique 

 sport. 



