Dog
and relentlessly whistled him along. We were almost home, having passed
through the village square, Sigurd lagging far in the rear, when a
notorious bloodhound, out for his weekly constitutional, broke away
from the steel chain by which his master was holding him and charged on
our big puppy. Sigurd ran for his life, but the fleeter hound was close
upon him. There were knots of men loafing about the square and, waiting
for the next trolley car, there stood among them an old dame gayly
attired in the colors of her native Erin. Sigurd's limited range of
experience had led him to regard men either as secondary creatures who
did what they were bid by the all-potent Lady of Cedar Hill or as
parlor and piazza, ornaments enveloped in an unpleasant odor of
tobacco. His peril called for strong protection, so, as we were still
too distant, he took refuge behind the voluminous sea-green skirts of
that decent Irish body and, dodging skillfully as she twirled and
whirled, kept her as a buffer between himself and his enemy. Screeching
to all the saints for deliverance, she was still striving in vain to
escape from her awful position, when the owners of the dogs came
panting up. The bloodhound's master collared him, none too soon, and
beat him so savagely with the chain that we turned away from the sight
to sympathize with Sigurd's involuntary defender and help her adjust
her grass-green bonnet and veil. As for Sigurd, he had flashed out of
the picture, but we found him at home, lying inert, exhausted, refusing
water and biscuit, indifferent to bones. He sniffed regretfully at his
Sunday dinner, but left it untasted.

An hour or two before dawn, simultaneously awakened by the sound of
desperate coughing, Joy-of-Life and I met on the stairs and hurried
down to find a croupy puppy, who, in his emergency, had again bitten
his leash in two and climbed into his favorite--because forbidden--easy
chair. As we leaned over him, Sigurd put up a paw to each of us, his
suffering eyes expectant of relief. But we could devise no effectual
help, and the veterinary, called in as early as we dared, regarded the
invalid as a dangerous animal and handled him so roughly that, the
moment Sigurd found himself released, he slipped out of the house and
across the road to Nellie. Sorely disappointed in us, he tried to hide
his yellow towering bulk on the other side of that grizzled little
spaniel and waited, an exile from home, until the doctor had driven