Part 10 (1/2)

Dogs, like horses, have very keen intuition They knohen the h they reat Queensland strike, when the shearers attacked and burnt Dagworth shed, soed The air was full of hu out waves of fear and excites They were not in the fighting; nobody fired at the left his master, left the sheep, and went away to the ho about the shed next day after the fight The noise of the rifles had not frightened them, because they ell-accusto happened constantly with horses in the South African War A loose horse would feed contentedly while ourfired at the horses became uneasy, and the loose ones would trot away The excites have an a sense of responsibility Sometimes, when there are sheep to be worked, an old slut who has young puppies o out or not On the one hand, she does not care about leaving the puppies, on the other, she feels that she really ought to go rather than allow the sheep to be knocked about by those learners Hesitatingly, with many a look behind her, she trots out after the horses and the other dogs An impassioned appeal from the head boundary rider, ”Go back hooes out to the yards, works, perhaps half the day, and then slips quietly under the fences and trots off home, contented

THE DOG--AS A SPORTSMAN

The sheep-dog and the cattle-dog are the works are the professionals and artists

A house-dog or a working-dog will only work for hisork for anybody, so long as he is treated like an artist A , and the dog ork for hih the conductor is strange to him, and the other members of the band are not up to the mark The musician's art is sacred to hi

It is a grand sight to see a really good setter or pointer working up to a bird, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to see if the un has not lost hi carefully over the cold scent, feathering eagerly when the bird is close, and at last drawing up like a statue Not Paganini hihly than does humble Spot or Ponto It is not aift, which he is bound to exercise

A pointer in need of a to fight, and so on, but when there is work to be done, the dog is lost in the artist How crestfallen he looks if by any chance he blunders on to a bird without pointing it! A fiddler who has played a wrong note in a solo is the only creature who can look quite so disco to the ant for wisdos are like other artists, in that they are apt to get careless of everything except their vocation They are siood watch dogs, and take little interest in chasing cats They look on a little dog that catches rats reat musician looks on a cricketer--it's clever, but it isn't Art

Hunting and fighting dogs are the gladiators of the ani is always of the same opinion as Mr

Jorrocks:--”All tireyhound will start out in the s, but as soon as he sees a hare start he _ets his sorrows in the excite-man, all over boils and blisters, will pull a desperate race without feeling any pain Such dogs are not easily excited by anything but a chase, and a burglar ht co any excitein” as the Chinese say That is one great reason for the success of the dog at whatever branch of his tribe's work he goes in for--he is so thorough Dogs who are forced to combine half-a-dozen professions neverone billet is theirtribe is the fighting dog His intense self-respect, his horror of brawling, his cool deter or bull-terrier is generally thein the world; but when he is put down in the ring he fights till he drops, in grih, his ears are in rags, and his neck a hideousin turn has to attack the other dog, and one can see fierce earnestness blazing in the eye of the attacker as he hurls hiht like that? It is not bloodthirstiness, because they are neither savage nor quarrelsoht, unless put into a ring It is si self-respect and stubborn pride which will not let thereyhound snaps at his opponent and then runs for his life, but the fighting dog stands to it till death

Just occasionally one sees the saood-te, and who, perhaps, gets pitted against a man a shade better than himself After a few rounds he knows he is over at the back of his brain that will not let him cave in Round after round he stands punishrimly comes up, till, possibly, his opponent loses heart, or a fluky hit turns the scale in his favour These men are to be found in every class of life

Many of the gautter-bred boys ill continue to fight long after they have endured enough punishment to entitle thelitter that shows in the bulldog's eyes as he li, or in the eye of the racehorse as he lies down to it when his opponent is outpacing hirit, pluck, vim, nerve force; call it what you like, and there is no created thing that has -phase that has never been quite understood

Every station-owner knows that sos are liable to take a sudden fit of sheep-killing Any kind of dog will do it, fros fro apparently arranged the whole affair beforehand They are very artful about it, too They lie round the house till dark, and then slink off and have a wild night's blood-spree, running down the wretched sheep and tearing their throats open; before dawn they slink back again and lie around the house as before Many and hbour's dogs for killing sheep which his oicked, innocent-looking dogs had slain

CONCERNING A STEEPLECHASE RIDER

Of all the ways in whichthere is none so hard and so precarious as that of steeplechase-riding in Australia It is bad enough in England, where steeplechases only take place in winter, when the ground is soft, where the horses are properly schooled before being raced, and where ive the horse a chance to blunder over safely

In Australia the round, over theobstacles--ironbark rails clamped into solid posts with bands of iron No wonder they are always corief, and are always in and out of hospital in splints and bandages

Sometimes one reads that a horse has fallen and the rider has ”escaped with a severe shaking”