“’They ‘ain’t got no grit.  What makes you think they can fight?’ I asked one day.

“‘Fight?’ says H’Anglish.  ’My deah man, they’re full-blooded.  Cost seventy pun each.  They’re dreadful creatures when they’re roused—­ they’ll tear a wolf to pieces like a rag—­kill bears—­anything.  Oh!  Rully, perfectly dreadful!’

“Well, it wasn’t a week later that he went over to the east line with me to mend a barb wire.  I had my pliers and a hatchet and some staples.  About a mile from the house we jumped up a little brown bear that scampered off when he seen us, but bein’ agin’ a bluff where he couldn’t get away, he climbed a cotton-wood.  H’Anglish was simply frothin’ with excitement.

“‘What a misfortune!  Neyther gun nor hounds.’

“‘I’ll scratch his back and talk pretty to him,’ says I, ’while you run back and get a Winchester and them ferocious bull-dogs.’

“‘Wolf-hounds,’ says he, with dignity, ’full-blooded, seventy pun each.  They’ll rend the poor beast limb from limb.  I hate to do it, but it ‘ll be good practice for them.’

“‘They may be good renders,’ says I, ‘but don’t forgit the gun.’

“Well, I throwed sticks at the critter when he tried to unclimb the tree, till finally the boss got back with his dogs.  They set up an awful holler when they see the bear—­first one they’d ever smelled, I reckon—­and the little feller crawled up in some forks and watched things, cautious, while they leaped about, bayin’ most fierce and blood-curdlin’.

“‘How you goin’ to get him down?’ says I.

“‘I’ll shoot him in the lower jaw,’ says the Britisher, ’so he cawn’t bite the dogs.  It ’ll give ’em cawnfidence.’

“He takes aim at Mr. Bear’s chin and misses it three times runnin’, he’s that excited.

“‘Settle down, H’Anglish,’ says I.  ’He ’ain’t got no double chins.  How many shells left in your gun?’ “When he looks he finds there’s only one more, for he hadn’t stopped to fill the magazine, so I cautions him.

“‘You’re shootin’ too low.  Raise her.’

“He raised her all right, and caught Mr. Bruin in the snout.  What followed thereafter was most too quick to notice, for the poor bear let out a bawl, dropped off his limb into the midst of them ragin’, tur’ble, seventy-pun hounds, an’ hugged ’em to death, one after another, like he was doin’ a system of health exercises.  He took ’em to his boosum as if he’d just got back off a long trip, then, droppin’ the last one, he made at that younger son an’ put a gold fillin’ in his leg.  Yes, sir; most chewed it off.  H’Anglish let out a Siberian-wolf holler hisself, an’ I had to step in with the hatchet and kill the brute though I was most dead from laughin’.

“That’s how it is with me an’ Glenister,” the old man concluded.  “When he gets tired experimentin’ with this new law game of hisn, I’ll step in an’ do business on a common-sense basis.”

“You talk as if you wouldn’t get fair play,” said Helen.