The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

down the slope and showing no sign of hesitation or second thoughts, he too came out from their hiding-place and followed. He overtook him splashing through Cove Beck, above the steep crags north-west of the tarn.
    "Snitter, wait, I tell you! I don't understand!"
    "Neither do I, altogether. My master used to throw sticks, but it's all the same. When you go out of doors with a master, he always likes you to run about and do things. This man must have sheep instead of sticks, that's all."
    At this moment a yow which they had not seen got up a little distance ahead of them and began to trot quickly away. Instantly Snitter set off in pursuit, barking loudly, and after a few moments Rowf copied him. The yow broke into a sheep-gallop, covering the uneven ground with leaps and quick turns and leaving hanks of its undipped fleece trailing as it pushed through the patches of furze. Snitter, catching the coarse, warm smells of wool and sheep-dip, became even more excited, snapping and barking in the heat of pursuit. He put up another yow and as he overtook it found Rowf at his shoulder, charging into action like a hound in full cry. His voice rang over the fell.
    "Rowf! Grrrrr-owf, rowf! We'll show 'em! We'll show 'em! Rowf, rowf!"
    Both yows turned suddenly and ran back by the way they had come, blundering past the dogs with a quick clitter-clatter of narrow, agile hooves. Snitter was off again, this time biting at their very heels. Away below, on the nearer shore of the tarn now, but separated from them by the sheer crags, he caught a glimpse of the man, his cloth cap pushed back on his fell of hair, waving a long thumb-stick and apparently yelling encouragement. His teeth nipped the hindmost yow just above the hock and for a moment he tasted blood before she kicked backwards and her hoof took him in the muzzle. Dazed, he sat back on his haunches, panting.
    "Hey! What th' 'ell doost think th'art playin' at? Art stark bluidy mad or what?"
    Snitter looked up. Just above him, on a peat-bank, one of the black-and-white sheep-dogs was standing, glaring down with an expression of mingled bewilderment and blazing fury. It smelt as angry as any dog Snitter had ever encountered in his life. Frightened and confused, he said, "It's all right—we
    — er—we don't mean you any harm—you see, we need a master—we're straying—we were just joining in—"
    Rowf was beside him now, silent and waiting. "Art out of thy minds, chasing yows oop an'
    down fell, snappin' an' bitin'? Wheer's thy farm at? Wheer's thy masster? Tha's nipped yon yow, too, tha basstard—it's bleeding, is yon—"
    The sheep-dog became inarticulate with rage and incomprehension. So overwhelming was his indignation that, like thunder or the smell of a bitch, it swept everything else from Snitter's mind. The excitement of the chase, his confidence in the friendliness of the man down by the tarn, his hopes of adoption—these vanished as he found himself confronting—as unexpectedly as Rowf had been confronted by Low Water—the outraged, incredulous anger of the sheep-dog. There could be no question of talk or argument. It was like a bad dream. Whatever innocent fault they had committed, it must be something worse than vomiting on a carpet or biting a child; and evidently the sheep-dog was merely the sharp end of a whole world's wedge of anger.
    Snitter lay still as a stone while the dog came down and sniffed him over.
    "I—I'm sorry—sir—you see—we—we didn't know—"
    "Lay off!" cried Rowf angrily to the sheep-dog. "You let him alone! You don't own this place—"
    "Doan't oan it? Then I'd like to know who bluidy dooz. Hey, Wag," cried the dog to his colleague, who now came running towards them, "it says we doan't oan this fell 'ere!"
    "Bluidy cheek!" The second dog bristled. He looked, thought Snitter, a most ugly customer, smelling strongly of a more-or-less permanent disposition to attack. "What they reckon theer oop to, then?"
    "Cheek yourself!" Rowf, the biggest