world) tried to steal them both. Vixen, of course, knew better
than to take food from soldiers, and, besides, she had just
finished her breakfast. So she trotted back with a large piece of
the mutton that they issue to our troops, laid it down on my
verandah, and looked up to see what I thought. I asked her where
Garin was, and she ran in front of the horse to show me the way.

About a mile up the road we came across our artilleryman sitting
very stiffly on the edge of a culvert with a greasy handkerchief
on his knees. Garin was in front of him, looking rather pleased.
When the man moved leg or hand, Garin bared his teeth in silence.
A broken string hung from his collar, and the other half of, it
lay, all warm, in the artilleryman's still hand. He explained to
me, keeping his eyes straight in front of him, that he had met
this dog (he called him awful names) walking alone, and was going
to take him to the Fort to be killed for a masterless pariah.

I said that Garin did not seem to me much of a pariah, but that
he had better take him to the Fort if he thought best. He said he
did not care to do so. I told him to go to the Fort alone. He
said he did not want to go at that hour, but would follow my
advice as soon as I had called off the dog. I instructed Garin to
take him to the Fort, and Garm marched him solemnly up to the
gate, one mile and a half under a hot sun, and I told the
quarter-guard what had happened; but the young artilleryman was
more angry than was at all necessary when they began to laugh.
Several regiments, he was told, had tried to steal Garm in their
time.

That month the hot weather shut down in earnest, and the dogs