Under that colossal threatened impact he crouched down to the deck.
Above him, falling upon him like a bolt from the blue, was a winged hawk unthinkably vaster than the one he had encountered.

But in his crouch was no hint of cower.

His crouch was a gathering together, an assembling of all the parts of him under the rule of the spirit of him, for the spring upward to meet in mid career this monstrous, menacing thing.
But, the succeeding fraction of a moment, so that Jerry, leaping, missed even the shadow of it, the mainsail, with a second crash of blocks on traveller, had swung across and filled on the other tack.
Van Horn had missed nothing of it.

Before, in his time, he had seen young dogs frightened into genuine fits by their first encounters with heaven-filling, sky-obscuring, down-impending sails.

This was the first dog he had seen leap with bared teeth, undismayed, to grapple with the huge unknown.
With spontaneity of admiration, Van Horn swept Jerry from the deck and gathered him into his arms..