334: MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



hand when I set a saucer of milk before him, and only 

 touched the milk when my hand was no longer available 

 as food. Perhaps, poor fellow, his epicurean palate 

 longed for live chicken, and resented the offer of their 

 bones after his master had taken the choice parts. Gurth, 

 the swineherd, had some such feeling toward Cedric, the 

 Saxon. 



We passed the summer, and the corn had nearly 

 passed the roasting-ear stage; I had learned to guard 

 myself from the carnivorous dentition of Lupus, but one 

 day Warren called out: "The cattle are in the corn!" and 

 surely they were. 



I was a farmer. Ten acres had been put in sod corn 

 and there was a crop. The crop may have been due to 

 the richness of the soil or to my excellent farming, if 

 you will. But the fence was down, and half a dozen 

 steers and some cows were doing to that corn what Lu- 

 pus did to the chickens. Perhaps they were right, but 

 it was no time for argument. I rushed out, and the near- 

 est way was past the kennel of Lupus. He was lying 

 quietly within until I passed, when he suddenly decided 

 to see if my leg might not have a better flavor than my 

 hand, and he acted on the impulse of the moment, and 

 took a piece of it, just above the boot leg, where I kept 

 a favorite muscle well trained for running and another 

 for kicking. He tackled the wrong muscle, and the 

 kicking one came to the relief of its neighbor and pro- 

 jected a boot under his chin with such force that he was 

 a-weary. Other leg muscles took up the argument, and 

 somehow the same boot that lifted him one under the 

 jaw cracked his skull, and his hide was drying on the 

 fence an hour afterward. 



I was sorry, very sorry; so was my leg. It was too 

 bad to kill the poor c , and it was too bad to kill 



