"Oho," he said, "so you are going to be a fighter, are you? I'll fix you
for that." His face was red and furious. He seized me by the back of the
neck and carried me out to the yard where a log lay on the ground.
"Bill," he called to one of his children, "bring me the hatchet."

He laid my head on the log and pressed one hand on my struggling body. I
was now a year old and a full-sized dog. There was a quick, dreadful
pain, and he had cut off my ear, not in the way they cut puppies' ears,
but close to my head, so close that he cut off some of the skin beyond
it. Then he cut off the other ear, and, turning me swiftly round, cut
off my tail close to my body.

Then he let me go and stood looking at me as I rolled on the ground and
yelped in agony. He was in such a passion that he did not think that
people passing by on the road might hear me.





* * * * *





CHAPTER III

MY KIND DELIVERER AND MISS LAURA