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Page 33
Meanwhile Lloyd, already well on her way, was having an exciting tussle
with Rox. The horse had begun by making an exhibition of himself for all
who could see, but in the end he had so worked upon his own nerves that
instead of frightening others he only succeeded in terrifying himself.
He was city-bred, and the sudden change from brick houses to open fields
had demoralised him. He began to have a dim consciousness of just how
strong he was. There was nothing vicious about him. He would not have
lowered himself to kick, but he did want, with all the big, strong heart
of him, to run.
But back of him there--he felt it thrilling along the tense-drawn
reins--was a calm, powerful grip, even, steady, masterful. Turn his head
he could not, but he knew very well that Lloyd had taken a double twist
upon the reins, and that her hands, even if they were gloved in white,
were strong--strong enough to hold him to his work. And besides this--he
could tell it by the very feel of the bit--he knew that she did not take
him very seriously, that he could not make her afraid of him. He knew
that she could tell at once whether he shied because he was really
frightened or because he wanted to break the shaft, and that in the
latter case he would get the whip--and mercilessly, too--across his
haunch, a degradation, above all things, to be avoided. And she had
called him an old pig once already that morning.
Lloyd drove on. She keenly enjoyed this struggle between the horse's
strength and her own determination, her own obstinacy. No, she would not
let Rox have his way; she would not allow him to triumph over her for a
single moment. She would neither be forced nor tricked into yielding a
single point however small. She would be mistress of the situation.
By the end of half an hour she had him well in hand, and was bowling
smoothly along a level stretch of road at the foot of an abrupt rise of
land covered with scrub oak and broken with outcroppings of granite of a
curious formation. Just beyond here the road crossed the canal by a
narrow--in fact, a much too narrow--plank bridge without guard-rails.
The wide-axled dog-cart had just sufficient room on either hand, and
Lloyd, too good a whip to take chances with so nervous a horse as Rox,
drew him down to a walk as she approached it. But of a sudden her eyes
were arrested by a curious sight. She halted the cart.
At the roadside, some fifty yards from the plank bridge, were two dogs.
Evidently there had just been a dreadful fight. Here and there a stone
was streaked with blood. The grass and smaller bushes were flattened
out, and tufts of hair were scattered about upon the ground. Of the two
dogs, Lloyd recognised one upon the instant. It was Dan, the "liver'n
white" fox-hound of the farmhouse--the fighter and terror of the
country. But he was lying upon his side now, the foreleg broken, or
rather crushed, as if in a vise; the throat torn open, the life-blood in
a great pool about his head. He was dead, or in the very throes of
death. Poor Dan, he had fought his last fight, had found more than his
match at last.
Lloyd looked at the other dog--the victor; then looked at him a second
time and a third.
"Well," she murmured, "that's a strange-looking dog."
In fact, he was a curious animal. His broad, strong body was covered
with a brown fur as dense, as thick, and as soft as a wolf's; the ears
were pricked and pointed, the muzzle sharp, the eyes slant and beady.
The breast was disproportionately broad, the forelegs short and
apparently very powerful. Around his neck was a broad nickelled collar.
But as Lloyd sat in the cart watching him he promptly demonstrated the
fact that his nature was as extraordinary as his looks. He turned again
from a momentary inspection of the intruders, sniffed once or twice at
his dead enemy, then suddenly began to eat him.
Lloyd's gorge rose with anger and disgust. Even if Dan had been killed,
it had been in fair fight, and there could be no doubt that Dan himself
had been the aggressor. She could even feel a little respect for the
conqueror of the champion, but to turn upon the dead foe, now that the
heat of battle was past, and (in no spirit of hate or rage) deliberately
to eat him. What a horror! She took out her whip.
"Shame on you!" she exclaimed. "Ugh! what a savage; I shan't allow you!"
A farm-hand was coming across the plank bridge, and as he drew near the
cart Lloyd asked him to hold Rox for a moment. Rox was one of those
horses who, when standing still, are docile as a kitten, and she had no
hesitancy in leaving him with a man at his head. She jumped out, the
whip in her hand. Dan was beyond all help, but she wanted at least to
take his collar back to Mrs. Applegate. The strange dog permitted
himself to be driven off a little distance. Part of his strangeness
seemed to be that through it all he retained a certain placidity of
temper. There was no ferocity in his desire to eat Dan.
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