the plough and ran up and pelted Anderson's cows with stones and
glass-bottles, and pursued them with a pitch-fork till, in a mad rush to
get out, half the brutes fell over the fence and made havoc with the wire.
Dad spent an hour mending it; then went to the verandah and savagely asked
Mother if she had lost her ears. Mother said she had n't. "Then why the
devil could n't y' hear me singin' out?" Mother thought it must have been
because Dan was playing the concertina. "Oh, DAMN his concertina!" Dad
squealed, and kicked Joe's little kitten, that was rubbing itself fondly
against his leg, clean through the house.

Dan found the selection pretty slow--so he told Mother--and thought he
would knock about a bit. He went to the store and bought a supply of
ammunition, which he booked to Dad, and started shooting. He stood at the
door and put twenty bullets into the barn; then he shot two bears near the
stock-yard with twenty more bullets, and dragged both bears down to the
house and left them at the back-door. They stayed at the back-door until
they went very bad; then Dad hooked himself to them and dragged them down
the gully.

Somehow, Dad began to hate Dan! He scarcely ever spoke to him now, and at
meal-times never spoke to any of us. Dad was a hard man to understand.
We could n't understand him. "And with DAN at home, too!" Sal used to
whine. Sal verily idolised Dan. Hero-worship was strong in Sal.

One night Dad came in for supper rather later than usual. He'd had a hard
day, and was done up. To make matters worse, when he was taking the
collar off Captain the brute tramped heavily on his toe, and took the nail
off. Supper was n't ready. The dining-room was engaged. Dan was showing
Sal how the Prince of Wales schottische was danced in the huts Out Back.
For music, Sal was humming, and the two were flying about the room. Dad