256 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



long before he broke it to me that the dog was rather wild and a bit too much for him. 

 Would I see what could be done with him ? I was very well off at the time for dogs, but I 

 found room for the Canadian, and took him up the Grand Canal during the autumn races. 

 The first time he was out I coupled him to my clumber Baroti, a heavy pedigree dog who 

 weighed 60 lbs. A couple of teal got up, and Baron was proceeding to pick up the one that 

 had fallen into the water when the setter began tugging in the opposite direction like a 

 lunatic. My coolie picked up the bird, and we went on. After a few yards further I fired 

 off my gun, the clumber Baron down charged and the setter struggled in vain to get off. He 

 might just as well have tried to move the rock of Gibraltar as move Baron who was as 

 annoyed as I was at this "untoward behaviour," so I unshackled the animals who both 

 followed at heel for a time. But at the next shot the setter was not to be denied. He passed 

 me like a shot and I watched him grow smaller and smaller in the dim distance, heading as 

 far as I could make out for Peking. There was no chance of getting him back, so I 

 continued my shooting until dusk when I returned to the boat. Of course he had not come 

 back and a twinge of regret came over me after dinner, so I got the boy to write cards, 

 offering a reward to any one who would bring him back. At II o'clock the boy woke me up 

 with the news that a fisherman had found the dog miles away up a creek where he was cut 

 off. The man only asked 20 cents for his loss of time — that was before they began to talk in 

 dollars — and he was all gratitude as he eyed the three coins that I gave him. Naturally I was 

 not anxious to give Scot, that was the name the Canadian was supposed to own, but did not 

 answer to, any more trials, but I relented as we returned and let him ashore at Wusieh. He 

 seemed happy enough, but when my gun went off he went off too, head down into a tangled 

 bean field, ploughing through the yellow cover. It took a couple of coolies half an hour to 

 collect him. Again I made up my mind that this should be his last bit of freedom but I 

 again relented when I got down to Sankongkeu. I tied the boat up at the end of a small 

 peninsula covered with low bamboos and scrub and full of badger holes. It was not long 

 before I had a pheasant on the ground who ran into a badger earth where he got stuck, 

 betrayed by his gaudy tail sticking out a foot. I thought that this would be a capital 

 opportunity of giving Scot a sniff at a fresh pheasant. But Scot was not, for horribile 

 dictu, when I got to the boat I found that the beauty had floundered into a manure pit in his 

 fright and was industriously drying himself on my best counterpane. All my bed linen, the 

 bunk mattress and the boat carpet had to go into the creek. It will be readily imaginable 

 that I had had enough of Scot. At my suggestion he was put up to auction when he realized 

 Tls. 6, which was exactly Tls. 6 more than he was worth. Sinclair was rather anxious to 

 make a present of him to some friend. I intimated that that would be the cruellest wrong 



he could inflict on his worst enemy. 



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At different times my friend Daly imported retrievers. He had just received a great, 

 leggy, black animal with a grand character. It accompanied us on our Christmas shoot 

 1874, and soon gave us a specimen of his ability, for he went straight up to a deer that Daly 

 had knocked over, picked it up artistically, and returned with it at a canter. The deer was 

 a fair sized one, probably weighed 18 lbs. and it gave him no more concern than would a 

 rabbit to the ordinary dog. He was the only dog I ever came across that could lift a deer. 



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