So I resolved to acquire a dog, and bought one from a prospector, who was stony-broke and would have sold his soul for a drink.

It was an enormous Boer hunting-dog, a mongrel in whose blood ran mastiff and bulldog and foxhound, and Heaven knows what beside.

In colour it was a kind of brindled red, and the hair on its back grew against the lie of the rest of its coat.

Some one had told me, or I may have read it, that a back like this meant that a dog would face anything mortal, even to a charging lion, and it was this feature which first caught my fancy.
The price I paid was ten shillings and a pair of boots, which I got at cost price from stock, and the owner departed with injunctions to me to beware of the brute's temper.

Colin--for so I named him--began his career with me by taking the seat out of my breeches and frightening Mr Wardlaw into a tree.