The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come | Page 9

owner
of the dog--the little fellow--who, with the bellow of a yearling bull,
sprang at him. Again Chad's lips took a straight red line and being on
one knee was an advantage, for, as he sprang up, he got both
underholds and there was a mighty tussle, the spectators yelling with
frantic delight.
"Trip him, Tad," shouted Daws, fiercely.
"Stick to him, little un," shouted Tom, and his brothers, stoical Dolph
and Rube, danced about madly. Even with underholds, Chad, being
much the shorter of the two, had no advantage that he did not need, and,
with a sharp thud, the two fierce little bodies struck the road side by
side, spurting up a cloud of dust.
"Dawg--fall!" cried Rube, and Dolph rushed forward to pull the
combatants apart.
"He don't fight fair," said Chad, panting, and rubbing his right eye
which his enemy had tried to "gouge"; "but lemme at him--I can fight
thataway, too." Tall Tom held them apart.
"You're too little, and he don't fight fair. I reckon you better go on
home--you two--an' yo' mean dawg," he said to Daws; and the two
Dillons--the one sullen and the other crying with rage--moved away
with Whizzer slinking close to the ground after them. But at the top of
the hill both turned with bantering yells, derisive wriggling of their
fingers at their noses, and with other rude gestures. And, thereupon,
Dolph and Rube wanted to go after them, but the tall brother stopped
them with a word.
"That's about all they're fit fer," he said, contemptuously, and he turned
to Chad.

"Whar you from, little man, an' whar you goin', an' what mought yo'
name be?"
Chad told his name, and where he was from, and stopped.
"Whar you goin'?" said Tom again, without a word or look of
comment.
Chad knew the disgrace and the suspicion that his answer was likely to
generate, but he looked his questioner in the face fearlessly.
"I don't know whar I'm goin'."
The big fellow looked at him keenly, but kindly.
"You ain't lyin' an' I reckon you better come with us." He turned for the
first time to his brothers and the two nodded.
"You an' yo' dawg, though Mammy don't like dawgs much; but you air
a stranger an' you ain't afeerd, an' you can fight--you an' yo' dawg--an' I
know Dad'll take ye both in."
So Chad and Jack followed the long strides of the three Turners over
the hill and to the bend of the river, where were three long cane
fishing-poles with their butts stuck in the mud--the brothers had been
fishing, when the flying figure of the little girl told them of the coming
of a stranger into those lonely wilds. Taking these up, they strode
on--Chad after them and Jack trotting, in cheerful confidence, behind. It
is probable that Jack noticed, as soon as Chad, the swirl of smoke rising
from a broad ravine that spread into broad fields, skirted by the great
sweep of the river, for he sniffed the air sharply, and trotted suddenly
ahead. It was a cheering sight for Chad. Two negro slaves were coming
from work in a corn-field close by, and Jack's hair rose when he saw
them, and, with a growl, he slunk behind his master. Dazed, Chad
looked at them.
"Whut've them fellers got on their faces?" he asked. Tom laughed.

"Hain't you nuver seed a nigger afore?" he asked.
Chad shook his head.
"Lots o' folks from yo' side o' the mountains nuver have seed a nigger,"
said Tom. "Sometimes hit skeers 'em."
"Hit don't skeer me," said Chad.
At the gate of the barn-yard, in which was a long stable with a deeply
sloping roof, stood the old brindle cow, who turned to look at Jack, and,
as Chad followed the three brothers through the yard gate, he saw a
slim scarlet figure vanish swiftly from the porch into the house.
In a few minutes, Chad was inside the big log cabin and before a big
log-fire, with Jack between his knees and turning his soft human eyes
keenly from one to another of the group about his little master, telling
how the mountain cholera had carried off the man and the woman who
had been father and mother to him, and their children; at which the old
mother nodded her head in growing sympathy, for there were two fresh
mounds in her own graveyard on the point of a low hill not far away;
how old Nathan Cherry, whom he hated, had wanted to bind him out,
and how, rather than have Jack mistreated and himself be ill-used, he
had run away along the mountain-top; how he had slept one night under
a log with Jack to keep him warm; how he had eaten