United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When Dancing, who had been with Bob Scott hunting, came in late that night he found Bucks asleep and Scuffy lying in Dancing's own bed, from which he was ejected only after the most vigorous language on his own part as well as on that of the lineman. Even then, Scuffy retreated only as far as Bucks's feet, where he slept for the rest of the night undisturbed.
Indeed, Bob Scott remarked at once that if Scuffy should survive the greetings of his new comrades he would prove his right to live. The hounds always set upon him at meal-times, usually chewed him at bed-time, and harried him at all times. To a less hopeful temperament than Scuffy's, life would not have seemed worth living.
The survey was perfectly satisfactory to Jacob; and he was turning away, highly gratified by its results, when his eye fell on the sleeve of his coat. "Ha," said Jacob, "getting scuffy, by all that's annoying. Had no idea. Won't do, won't do that's clear. Can never go through the streets with Julia and her fair bevy of acquaintances in such a coat as this never, never, never."
Scuffy raced at him first on one side and then on the other, bounding in and out like a rubber ball, dashing across his front and running clear around the circling bear, nipping even an occasional mouthful of hair from his haunches. He made noise enough for a pack of dogs and simulated a fury that gave the bear the surprise of his life.
He shouted a warning to Bucks, who, not understanding, plunged straight over the declivity and sprawled into the wash-out with the bear after him. Catching his rifle, the boy scrambled to his feet with his pursuer less than twenty feet away. Between the two there was only open ground, and the bear was scrambling for Bucks when Scuffy sprang down the shale bank and confronted the enemy.
To accept life under such conditions indicated that Scuffy was a philosopher, and he accepted the conditions cheerfully, filching what he could of sustenance from the common pot and licking his troublesome wounds at night after his truculent companions had gone to sleep.
The scout turned to Bucks as he stood dazed by his narrow escape. Stanley, above, shouted. And Bill Dancing, carrying his empty rifle, and with his face bleeding from the briers, made his way down the opposite side of the wash. Scuffy, mounting the body of his dead foe, barked furiously. The little dog was the real hero of the encounter.
The dogs encircled him with a ring of ferocious teeth, running in from behind whenever they could to nip the huge beast in the haunches or on the flank. But the surprise of the encounter was Scuffy. "Look," cried Bill Dancing, under whose wing Bucks had taken his post. "Look at him! Why, the pup is a world-beater!"
One day, shortly after Scuffy had been put upon the pay-roll, Scott came in from a trip after venison with word that there were black bears in the hill canyons. The thought of bear's meat aroused every one, and Stanley suggested a bear hunt. Scott had to send down to Stanley's ranch at Medicine Bend for his dogs and some delay followed.
His father gave him a seemingly inadequate allowance. Yet Thomas Stevenson was not a miserly man. He begged his son to go to his tailor's, for he disapproved of the youth's scuffy, mounte-bankish appearance. He supplied him with an allowance for travel in fact, R. L. S. had all his bills paid, and his own study in a very hospitable home.
Word Of The Day