watching the battle. Then he hurriedly laid down his gun, useless now because he could not shoot one combatant without hitting the other, and made a leap for the end of the Airedale's leash, switching and jumping about over the ground like a black serpent engaged in some strange dance.
Sandy Jim's last word to him had been an earnest injunction not to let the dog come to close quarters with the lynx. Knowing his dog's fierce and indomitable spirit and aware also that the lynx was an extraordinarily large and powerful specimen, Mayfield realized that, though the Airedale might win in the end, the victory would be dearly bought. So tough is a lynx's skin, especially about the region of the throat, that a dog's teeth can tear it only with great difficulty, and in most single combats the dog wins, if he wins at all, by dint of the throttling pressure of his jaws constricting his foe's windpipe. This is likely to be a comparatively slow process, and in the meantime the dog may be slashed almost to ribbons by the lynx's long curved claws.
This was what was happening now. Again, as in that other battle in the glade at dawn, Byng was on his back, his enemy on top of him; and again his hind legs were working like steam piston rods, drawing blood at nearly every upward trust. Badly hampered though he was by the trap clinging to his forepaw, he was fighting furiously and effectively
