ted Joses, the picturesque phrase popping out of him
like a cork from a heady bottle of champagne.

He struggled to his feet, picked up a stone, and slung it at the
charging dog.

Billy Bluff meant business; and it was well for his enemy that the stone
struck him on the fore-paw. The blow steadied, but it did not stop, the
dog. He gave a little gurgle and came again on three legs in silent
fury.

Joses made for the cliff, where a fall had constituted a steep ramp. He
scrambled up it, an avalanche of chalk slipping away from beneath his
feet and half burying the pursuing dog.

He panted up to the top of the ramp, and stood with his back to the
cliff, looking down on his attacker.

Billy Bluff could not make his footing good upon the shale.

He lay at the foot of the cliff, one eye on his prey, licking his
damaged paw, and swearing beneath his breath. And it was clear he did
not mean to budge.

Joses turned his face to the cliff. He got his hands on the top, and
lifting himself, could just peer over the edge of the cliff and see the
green and the gorse beyond. Unaided, he could do no more.

Happily help was at hand.

A man on a chestnut pony was standing on the turf not twenty yards away.

"Give me a hand up, will you?" he panted. "That ---- of a dog!"

The young man approached.

"By all means," he said, in a deep, familiar voice.

It was Silver.

Joses did not mind that. He was not at all above taking a hand from an
enemy in an emergency.

And young Silver seemed surprisingly kind. Big men usually were.

The young man got off his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave
the perspiring tout his hand. With a heave and a lurch Joses scrambled
to the top.

How strong the fellow was! No horse would ever get away with _him_.

"Good of you," panted the fat man, rising to his feet.

"Not at all," replied Silver. "It was less trouble to pull you up than
to come down to you."

There was a note in his quiet voice Joses did not like.

"What you mean?" he asked.

"I'm going to give you a hiding," observed the other mildly.

Joses looked aghast at his rescuer and snorted. He shot forward his
shaggy face, and the action seemed to depress his chest and obtrude his
stomach.

"Whaffor?" he asked, in tones that betrayed the fact that such
experiences were not entirely new to him.

"I don't know," said Silver in his exasperatingly lazy way. "I feel I'd
rather like to."

He seemed quietly amused, much