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Updated: June 23, 2025
As if in confirmation, Batard just perceptibly wriggled his lone ear up to catch the sound. "Ah say 'keel'." Batard growled deep down in his throat, the hair bristled along his neck, and every muscle went tense and expectant. "Ah lift de gun, so, like dat." And suiting action to word, he sighted the pistol at Batard.
Did Leclere give Batard half a fish and to his mates whole ones, Batard went forth to rob other dogs of their fish. Also he robbed caches and expressed himself in a thousand rogueries, till he became a terror to all dogs and masters of dogs.
When in anger, Batard was not nice to look upon, and more than once had he leapt for Leclere's throat, to be stretched quivering and senseless in the snow, by the butt of the ever ready dogwhip. And so Batard learned to bide his time. When he reached his full strength and prime of youth, he thought the time had come.
I then quoted my contract, my right. What a fine thing, the theatre! M. Saint-Ybars' contract antedates mine. They had thought le Batard would last two weeks and it will last forty days longer. Are directors rascals in all that? No, but incompetents who are always afraid of not having enough plays, and accept too many, foreseeing that they will have failures.
'It is time I protect my wife's name from you, and by God, I will do it! At that M'sieu' Doltaire laugh, and Cournal turn to him, and say, 'Batard! The Intendant have out his sword, and he roar in a hoarse voice, 'Dog, you shall die! But M'sieu' Doltaire strike up his sword, and face the drunken man. 'No, leave that to me. The King's cause goes shipwreck; we can't change helmsman now.
He thrust his head on one side quizzically, and advanced with mincing, playful steps. He rubbed his body gently against the box till it shook and shook again. Leclere teetered carefully to maintain his equilibrium. "Batard," he said calmly, "look out. Ah keel you." Batard snarled at the word and shook the box with greater force.
And Batard Leclere knew what was in Batard's mind, and more than once had read it in Batard's eyes. And so clearly had he read, that when Batard was at his back, he made it a point to glance often over his shoulder. Men marvelled when Leclere refused large money for the dog.
And he knew the subtle speech of the things that moved, of the rabbit in the snare, the moody raven beating the air with hollow wing, the baldface shuffling under the moon, the wolf like a grey shadow gliding betwixt the twilight and the dark. And to him Batard spoke clear and direct. Full well he understood why Batard did not run away, and he looked more often over his shoulder.
And by the time Leclere, finally convalescent, sallow and shaky, took the sun by the cabin door, Batard had reasserted his supremacy among his kind, and brought not only his own team-mates but the missionary's dogs into subjection.
In the end, exhausted, fainting from loss of blood, he crumpled up and fell by his victim, and when the wolf-dogs closed in to take their vengeance, with his last consciousness dragged his body on top of Batard to shield him from their fangs.
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