Short Stories
wickedness, the like of which never before attached itself to man
and dog.
Batard did not know his father--hence his name—but, as
John Hamlin knew, his father was a great grey timber wolf. But
the mother of Batard, as he dimly remembered her, was snarling,
bickering, obscene, husky, full-fronted and heavy-chested, with
a malign eye, a cat-like grip on life, and a genius for trickery and
evil. There was neither faith nor trust in her. Her treachery alone
could be relied upon, and her wild-wood amours attested her
general depravity. Much of evil and much of strength were there
in these, Batard's progenitors, and, bone and flesh of their bone
and flesh, he had inherited it all. And then came Black Leclere, to
lay his heavy hand on the bit of pulsating puppy life, to press
and prod and mould till it became a big bristling beast, acute in
knavery, overspilling with hate, sinister, malignant, diabolical.
With a proper master Batard might have made an ordinary, fair-
ly efficient sled-dog. He never got the chance: Leclere but con-
firmed him in his congenital iniquity.
The history of Batard and Leclere is a history of war—of five
cruel, relentless years, of which their first meeting is fit sum-
mary. To begin with, it was Leclere's fault, for he hated with un-
derstanding and intelligence, while the long-legged, ungainly
puppy hated only blindly, instinctively, without reason or meth-
od. At first there were no refinements of cruelty (these were to
come later), but simple beatings and crude brutalities. In one of
these Batard had an ear injured. He never regained control of the
riven muscles, and ever after the ear drooped limply down to
keep keen the memory of his tormentor. And he never forgot.
His puppyhood was a period of foolish rebellion. He was al-
ways worsted, but he fought back because it was his nature to
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