Short Stories
"A-h-ah! You beeg devil!" Leclere spluttered. "Ah fix you; Ah
fix you plentee, by GAR!"
Batard, the air biting into his exhausted lungs like wine,
flashed full into the man's face, his jaws missing and coming to-
gether with a metallic clip. They rolled over and over on the
snow, Leclere striking madly with his fists. Then they separated,
face to face, and circled back and forth before each other. Leclere
could have drawn his knife. His rifle was at his feet. But the
beast in him was up and raging. He would do the thing with his
hands—and his teeth. Batard sprang in, but Leclere knocked him
over with a blow of the fist, fell upon him, and buried his teeth
to the bone in the dog's shoulder.
It was a primordial setting and a primordial scene, such as
might have been in the savage youth of the world. An open
space in a dark forest, a ring of grinning wolf-dogs, and in the
centre two beasts, locked in combat, snapping and snarling rag-
ing madly about panting, sobbing, cursing, straining, wild with
passion, in a fury of murder, ripping and tearing and clawing in
elemental brutishness.
But Leclere caught Batard behind the ear with a blow from
his fist, knocking him over, and, for the instant, stunning him.
Then Leclere leaped upon him with his feet, and sprang up and
down, striving to grind him into the earth. Both Batard's hind
legs were broken ere Leclere ceased that he might catch breath.
"A-a-ah! A-a-ah!" he screamed, incapable of speech, shaking
his fist, through sheer impotence of throat and larynx.
But Batard was indomitable. He lay there in a helpless wel-
ter, his lip feebly lifting and writhing to the snarl he had not the
strength to utter. Leclere kicked him, and the tired jaws closed
on the ankle, but could not break the skin.
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