Less see ye?"
The Boy stepped down to the dog's side.
"Look out, ye fool, don't let yer foot slip in thar!" his father
warned.
The Boy knelt beside the dog, patted his back and began to talk to him
in low tense tones:
"Fetch 'im out, Bone! Go after 'm! Sick 'em, boy, sick 'em!"
Closer and closer the brave old fighter edged his way, only a low mad
growl answering to the Boy's urging. His eyes were blazing now in the
red rays of the rising sun like two balls of fire. With a sudden savage
plunge he hurled himself into the den and quick as a flash of lightning
his short hairy neck gave a flirt, and a coon as large as one of the
hounds whizzed ten feet into the air, and, with his white teeth shining,
struck the ground, lighting squarely on his feet. A hound dashed for him
and one slap from the long sharp claws sent him howling and bleeding
into the canes.
But old Boney had watched him in the air, and, circling the pack that
faced the coon, with a quick leap had downed him. Then every dog was
with him and the battle was on. Eight dogs to one coon and yet so sharp
were his claws, so keen the steel-like points of his teeth, he sometimes
had four dogs rolling in agony beside the growling mass of fur and teeth
and nails.
The fight had scarcely begun when one of the remaining coons leaped out
of the den.
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