E

"Look out!" shouted Frank, who was trying to find some sort of weapon
himself, armed with which he could hasten to the aid of his chum.

But Andy kept his senses well about him. Perhaps had he been alone,
and there opened a favorable chance whereby he could put a convenient
fence between himself and those grim square jaws of the ugly dog, he
would have been only too glad to do so. But that was utterly out of
the question now. The girl must be defended, come what might.

He fortunately remained fairly cool, which was a good point in his
favor. Just then, singular to say, Andy seemed to remember what he had
read about what Old Putnam said to his Colonials at the battle of
Bunker Hill: "Wait till you can see the whites in their eyes, boys!"
He held himself back until he was positive that he could land a blow on
that massive head of the prize bulldog.

Whack!

The wonder was that Andy did not crush the beast's skull in with the
monkey wrench. He surely would, had he struck with all his strength;
but being afraid that if he missed connections he might lose his
balance, and be seized by the brute, he only "tapped for a single," as
he afterwards remarked.

It staggered the beast at any rate, and drove him back a foot, stopping
his onward rush.

"Good! give him another like that, Andy! I'm coming right along!"
whooped Frank who had managed to lay hold on some sort of tool which he
carried for emergencies, and was jumping forward as fast as he could
move.

The dog tried a second time to seize the daring boy in those cruel
white fangs. He presented a terrible sight just then; for there was
blood showing on his white hair, where the edge of the monkey wrench
had struck.

"You will, will you?" gasped the boy, who had thrown himself into a
position of readiness once more, with his novel weapon upraised.

This time the dog tried to duck the descending blow. Had his ruse been
successful undoubtedly Andy would have found his ankle fast in the grip
of those terrible teeth before he could recover. But again he had
figured on such a move; and as he swung the tool downward he jumped
forward a pace himself. It was "meeting the ball before the break
came," as they would have it in baseball language.

Crunch!

That was surely a good sound crack. The force had been visibly
increased too, so that the brute was knocked completely over into a
kicking heap.

"Try it again, if you want to!" shouted the now aroused An