240 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
exclaimed mentally, “There he goes, the same old 
little red dog, suspicious and sneaky as ever, and 
very brisk and busy although his years must be 
well-nigh as many as my own,” I was thinking of 
the far past, and the sight of him brought back a 
memory of one of the first of the small red dogs 
I have known intimately. I was a boy then, and 
my home was in the pampas of Buenos Ayres. I 
had a young sister, a bright, lively girl, and I. 
remember that a poor native woman who lived in 
a smoky hovel a few miles away was fond of her, 
and that she came one day with a present for her 
—something precious wrapped up in a shawl—a 
little red pup, one of a litter which her own beloved 
dog had brought forth. My sister accepted the 
present joyfully, for though we possessed fourteen 
or fifteen dogs at the time, these all belonged to 
the house; they were everybody’s and nobody’s 
in particular, and she was delighted to have one 
that would be her very own. It grew into a common 
red dog, rather better-looking than most of its kind, 
having a bushier tail, longer and brighter-coloured 
hair, and a somewhat foxy head and face. In 
spite of these good points, we boys never tired of 
laughing at her little Reddie, as he was called, and 
his intense devotion to his young mistress and 
faith in her power to protect him only made him 
seem more ludicrous. When we all walked to- 
gether on the grass plain, my brother and I used 
to think it great fun to separate Reddie from his 
mistress by making a sudden dash, and then hunt 
