uld kill anything but an ox with this," observed
Reade, eyeing his bludgeon.

"Look out!" called Danny Grin, as if in alarm.

In a twinkling Tom dropped his club, dashed at a young oak tree
and began to climb, thinking that the dog had suddenly appeared.

"Stop that nonsense, Dan---and everyone of you!" called Dick sharply.
"Let no one knowingly give any false alarms, or we might disregard
a real warning when it comes."

Tom sheepishly dropped to the ground, picked up his cudgel, then
gazed at Dalzell with a look that had "daggers" in it.

"I'll owe you one for that, Danny Grin," Reade remarked, "and
I'm always careful about paying my debts."

"Now that we have our clubs," suggested Dick, "let's get back
to the road and discuss what we're going to do."

"Surely," hinted Dave, "we can find some other road and keep on
our way."

"Undoubtedly," Greg nodded. "But the mad dog might cross through
the woods and be found waiting for us on that other road. Or,
he may now be headed for the second lake, or even be there now."

"Let's vote on what we're going to do," urged Hazelton. "Dick,
what do you say?"

"I don't know what to say," their young leader answered. "I don't
like to see our party cheated out of our vacation. Neither do
I care to take too many chances of having our vacation changed
into a tragedy. I've never had hydrophobia, but I've a strong
notion that it wouldn't be pleasant. I know just how you fellows
feel. You hate to lose your fun."

"We do hate to lose our fun," agreed Darry.

"And yet you don't want to have an encounter with a dog that has
hydrophobia."

"We don't," approved Tom Reade. "Dick, you have a truly wonderful
intellect when it comes to successful guessing."

"There's a cloud of dust up the road to the west," discovered
Greg Holmes.

In an instant all eyes were turned that way.

"Can that be the dog?" asked Darry. "Something is traveling this
way and stirring up a lot of dust."

Whatever the moving object was, it appeared to be half a mile
away up the straight, dust-covered road.

"Until we find out what it is," Dick suggested, "I believe that
tree climbing will prove healthful exercise."

Quickly they moved the push cart a little to one side of the road.
Then they ran for trees, but every member of Dick & Co. retained
his hold on his bludgeon.

The dust cloud was coming nearer. From the elevation of his perch
in a tree Dick soon discovered and announced:

"It