“Take back my words?” growled Boxer. “What do you take me for?”
At this point a sudden and unexpected interruption came. The gong in the engine-house struck sharply. The three grays came rushing out of their stalls, and took their places in front of the engine. The harness was let down from the pulleys that held it, and fastened into place. The fire under the boiler was lighted, the driver was in his seat, the men on the engine, and with a clatter of hoofs out they dashed, Jack barking his maddest and bounding ahead in such excitement that all other thoughts were driven out of his head.
As for the two dogs who a moment before were ready to engage in mortal combat, they were so engrossed by the sudden interruption and the excitement, that for the time everything else was forgotten. To the farm-dog this was a novel sight, different from the way they did things in his quiet town, and not a particle of the scene escaped him. The bull-dog, with his natural pertinacity, was the first to return to the subject of their late quarrel; but the farm-dog’s owner, who had missed him, came back to hunt him up, and led him off, much to his disappointment and the bull-dog’s also.
“Wait till the next time!” he snarled as he was led away.
Boxer was not usually so ill-natured as he appeared in this episode, but it is true that he was of a peppery disposition, and not averse to picking a quarrel. He would have given anything to have been a fire-dog like Jack, and his disposition had become rather soured in consequence. He was a steadfast friend, on the whole, and would have given his life, if necessary, for his old friend Jack, whose good disposition made him beloved of all.
So Boxer departed for home, thinking hard all the way, for he was a conscientious dog in spite of his pugnacious temper, and, although he would not have acknowledged it, he secretly wished that he had not been so disagreeable to the farm-dog.
“What is the reason,” said Boxer to himself, “that when I so much desire friends, I do the very thing to turn them against me? I suppose it is because I was born so and can’t help it.”
If the farm-dog had seen the bull-dog on his return, playing with his master’s little children, he would never have recognized him as the same dog. They rolled over together on the floor, and no lap-dog could have been gentler or more considerate than the bull-dog with his massive jaws and grim expression. Thus it is with bull-dogs.