With the collie, as with his ancestor, the wolf, this dive for the leg of an enemy is a favorite and tremendously effective trick in battle.

Lad found his hold, just above the right pastern.

And he exerted every atom of his power to break the bone or to sever the tendon.
In all the Bible's myriad tragic lines there is perhaps none other so infinitely sad,--less for its actual significance than for what it implies to every man or woman or animal, soon or late,--than that which describes the shorn Samson going forth in jaunty confidence to meet the Philistines he so often and so easily had conquered: "He wist not that the Lord was departed from him!" To all of us, to whom the doubtful blessing of old age is granted, must come the black time when we shall essay a task which once we could accomplish with ease;--only to find its achievement has passed forever beyond our waning powers.

And so, this day, was it with Sunnybank Lad.
Of yore, such a grip as he now secured would have ham strung or otherwise maimed its victim and left her wallowing helpless.

But the dull teeth merely barked the leg's tough skin.