one.
Out toppled Tess and Dot upon the soft earth.

Billy Bumps went on and collided with Jock, much to that animal's
surprise and pain. The bulldog uttered a single yelp as the goat got him
between his hard horns and the treetrunk.

"You stop that, Billy!" roared Sam, struggling to his feet. "Let my dog
alone."

But Jock was not likely to give the goat a second chance. He limped
away, growling and showing his teeth, while Billy Bumps tried to free
himself of the harness so as to give pursuit.

"Don't you hurt Billy!" Tess screamed at Sam, getting to her feet and
helping Dot to rise.

"I'd like to knock him!" cried Sam.

"You ought to keep your dog out of our yard!" declared Tess. Dot was
crying a little and the older girl was really angry.

"I'll set him onto that Billy Bumps next time I get a chance," growled
Sam.

"You dare!" cried Tess.

But Jock was already outside of the yard. When Sam whistled for him, he
only wagged his stump of a tail; he refused to return to a place where,
it was plain to his doggish intelligence, he was not wanted. Besides,
Jock had not yet gotten a full breath since the goat butted him.

Sammy picked up a clothes-pole and started to punish Billy Bumps as he
thought fit. Just then the goat got free from the cart and started for
Master Pinkney. The latter dropped the pole and got to the gate first,
but only just in time, for Billy crashed head-first into it, breaking a
picket, he was so emphatic!

"You wait! I'll kill your old goat," threatened Sammy, shaking his fist
over the fence. "You see if I don't, Tess Kenway," forgetting, it
seemed, that it had been he who had presented the goat to the Corner
House girl.

Billy trotted back proudly to the girls to be petted, as though he had
done a very meritorious act. Perhaps he had, for Sandyface at once came
down from the tree, to sit on the porch in the sunshine and "wash her
face and hands"; she doubtless considered Billy Bumps very chivalrous.

The great hullabaloo brought most of the family to the scene, as well as
Neale from over the back fence. But the fun was all over and Sammy and
his bulldog were gone when the questioners arrived.

Dot explained volubly: "Billy Bumps wouldn't see poor Sandy abused--no,
he wouldn't! That's why he went for that horrid dog."

"Why," said Ruth, laughing, "Billy must be a regular knight."

"'In days of old, when knights were bold!'" sang Neale.

"I've an improvement on _that_," Agnes said,