Briefly, Grant had inadvertently stepped on a sleeping dog's
paw--a dog of the mongrel breed which infests Indian camps, and
which had attached itself to the blanketed buck inside. The dog
awoke with a yelp, saw that it was a stranger who had perpetrated
the outrage, and straightway fastened its teeth in the leg of
Grant's trousers. Grant kicked it loose, and when it came at him
again, he swore vengeance and mounted his horse in haste.

He did not say a word. He even smiled while he uncoiled his
rope, widened the loop, and, while the dog was circling warily
and watching for another chance at him, dropped the loop neatly
over its front quarters, and drew it tight.

Saunders, a weak-lunged, bandy-legged individual, who was
officially a general chore man for Pete, but who did little
except lie in the shade, reading novels or gossiping, awoke then,
and, having a reputation for tender-heartedness, waved his arms
and called aloud in the name of peace.

"Turn him loose, I tell yuh! A helpless critter like that--you
oughta be ashamed--abusin' dumb animals that can't fight back!"

"Oh, can't he?" Grant laughed grimly.

"You turn that dog loose!" Saunders became vehement, and paid the
penalty of a paroxysm of coughing.

"You go to the devil. If you were an able-bodied man, I'd get
you, too--just to have a pair of you. Yelping, snapping curs,
both of you." He played the dog as a fisherman plays a trout.