I think he was a little sorry, for he turned scornfully toward me and said, "She was worth two of you; why didn't you go instead ?" Still I kept quiet till he walked up to me and kicked at me.

My heart was nearly broken, and I could stand no more.

I flew at him and gave him a savage bite on the ankle.
"Oho," he said, "so you are going to be a fighter, are you?
I'll fix you for that." His face was red and furious.

He seized me by the back of the neck and carried me out to the yard where a log lay on the ground.
"Bill," he called to one of his children, "bring me the hatchet." He laid my head on the log and pressed one hand on my struggling body.
I was now a year old and a full-sized dog.

There was a quick, dreadful pain, and he had cut off my ear, not in the way they cut puppies' ears, but close to my head, so close that he cut off some of the skin beyond it.