horns could reach him, and although he passed and 

 repassed behind to try on the other side when he had 

 failed at the one, and looked up eagerly at the hind- 

 legs as he passed them, he made no attempt at them. 



It must have been at the fourth or fifth stand that 

 Jock got through the guard at last. The sable was 

 badly wounded in the body and doubtless strength 

 was failing, but there was little evidence of this yet. 

 In the pauses Jock's tongue shot and slithered about, 

 a glittering red streak, but after short spells of panting, 

 his head would shut up with a snap like a steel trap 

 and his face set with that look of invincible resolution 

 which it got in part from the pursed-up mouth and 

 in part from the intensity of the beady black-brown 

 eyes : he was good for hours of this sort of work. 



This time the sable drove him back towards a big 

 thorn-tree. It may have been done without design, 

 or it may have been done with the idea of pinning him 

 up against the trunk. But Jock was not to be caught 

 that way ; in a fight he took in the whole field, behind 

 as well as in front as he had shown the night the second 

 wild dog tackled him. On his side, too, there may or 

 may not have been design in backing towards the tree ; 

 who knows ? I thought that he scored, not by a 

 manoeuvre, but simply because of his unrelaxing 

 watchfulness and his resolute unhesitating courage. 

 He seemed to know instinctively that 

 the jump aside, so safe with the 

 straight-charging animals, was no 

 game to play against the side ^^ 

 sweep of a sable's horns. 



439 



