ne of the men, and this was followed by a roar. "We
wouldn't hurt the ganger, and we're going to pay out him as did."

There was a tremendous yell at this, and the men nourished their weapons
in a way that looked serious for the culprit if he should be discovered.

"Ay, but yow've got to find out first who it was," said Hickathrift.

"Yes, and we're going to find out too," cried one rough-looking fellow
standing forward. "How do we know as it warn't you?"

"Me!" cried Hickathrift, staring blankly.

"Ay, yow," roared the great rough-looking fellow, a man not far short of
the wheelwright's size. "We've heered all on you a going on and pecking
about the dree-ern being made. We know yow all hates our being here, so
how do we know it warn't yow?"

The man's fierce address was received with an angry outburst by the men,
who had come out on purpose to inflict punishment upon some one, and in
their excitement, one object failing, they were ready to snatch at
another.

It was perhaps an insensate trick; but there was so much of the frank
manly British boy in Dick Winthorpe that he forgot everything in the
fact that big Hickathrift, the man he had known from a child--the great
bluff fellow who had carried him in his arms and hundreds of times made
him welcome in that wonderland, his workshop, where he was always ready
to leave off lucrative work to fashion him eel-spear or leaping-pole, or
to satisfy any other whim that was on the surface--that this old friend
was being menaced by a great savage of a stranger nearly as big as
himself, and backed by a roaring excited crowd who seemed ready for any
outrage.

Dick did not hesitate a moment, but with eyes flashing, teeth clenched,
and fists doubled, he leaped down from the stone, rushed into the midst
of the crowd, closing round the wheelwright, and darting between the
great fellow and the man who had raised a pick-handle to strike, seized
hold of the stout piece of ash and tried to drag it away.

"You great coward!" he roared--"a hundred to one!"

It was as if the whole gang had been turned to stone, their
self-constituted leader being the most rigid of the crowd, and he stared
at Dick Winthorpe as a giant might stare at the pigmy who tried to
snatch his weapon away.

But the silence and inert state lasted only a few seconds, before the
black-bearded fellow's angry face began to pucker up, his eyes half
closed, and, bending down, he burst into a hearty roar of laught