through
and was seen tearing like a mad creature in the middle of the patch.

Everyone sought places of safety, the small children clinging to their
elders with frightened cries, while one or two of the more courageous
young men who tried to head the animal and turn him back to his pasture
were compelled to fly, to escape injury.

The three girls stood for a moment as if paralyzed; then Laura grasped
Ivy's arm.

"Quick, quick, to the fence! He's coming straight upon us!"

"It's my red dress," gasped Ivy.

Alene glanced round. She saw they were not far from the fence but that
it would be necessary to skirt a row of thick-grown bushes in order to
reach it. Could they do so in time?

In the meantime Mat and Hugh, returning leisurely along the lane, were
startled into activity by the sight that met their view. Their gaze at
once sought the place where they had left the girls. It was deserted;
but not far away, Ivy's dress made a bright spot that immediately held
their glance, and the bull apparently had singled it out for attack;
his mad flight led straight in the path of the girls.

The boys, with one impulse, made a dash across the fence; with clenched
hands and set teeth they stumbled onward; but alas, they were too far
away to render any help!

CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE RESCUE

And then an unlooked-for actor appeared upon the scene; a boyish
figure, supple and well built, sprang, as if miraculously, out of a
dense clump of bushes, just beyond the terror-stricken girls.

With a ringing shout he darted straight in front of the infuriated
brute, and flung his coat defiantly in its eyes. Angry and snorting,
it tossed the coat aside and started after its tormentor.

The trembling girls, thus suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from their
peril, found new anxiety for the safety of their brave deliverer.

With bated breath they watched him as, having succeeded in diverting
the attention of the enemy, he half circled the field with the maddened
creature in hot pursuit, so close at times that he felt its hot breath
on his neck.

Always heading in one direction, toward the open gate of the pasture
field, the boy led the race, and finally breathless and almost
exhausted, he gained the goal.

Through the gate he ran and gave, as he cleared it, a sudden jump to
one side, while the momentum of the bull carried it forward and beyond
him. A moment later he stood in the friendly grass of the berry-patch,
with