were gone, they seemed to think it was
no use to keep on fighting with nobody to look on, and they took after the
fellows.

The big fellows holloed to the little fellows to come on, and the little
fellows began crying. They caught their feet in the roots and dead
branches and kept falling down, and some of the big fellows that were
clever, like Hen Billard and Archie Hawkins, came back and picked them up
and started them on again.

Nobody stopped to ask himself or any one else why they should be afraid of
Bunty if he had done with his melon patch, but they all ran as if he had
caught them stealing his melons, and had a right to shoot them, or set his
dog on them.

They got through the woods to the shore of the river, and all the time
they could hear Bunty Williams roaring and shouting, and Bunty Williams's
bulldog barking, and it seemed as if he were right behind them. After
they reached the river they had to run a long way up the shore before they
got to the ripple where they could wade it, and by that time they were in
such a hurry that they did not stop to turn up their trousers' legs; they
just splashed right in and splashed across the best way they could. Some
of them fell down, but everybody had to look out for himself, and they did
not know that they were all safe over till they counted up on the other
side.

Everybody was there but Jim Leonard, and they did not know what had become
of him, but they were not very anxious. In fact they were all talking at
the tops of their voices, and bragging what they would have done if Bunty
had caught them.

Piccolo Wright showed how he could have tripped him up, and Archie Hawkins
said that snuff would make a bulldog loosen his grip, because he would
have to keep sneezing. None of them seemed to have seen either Bunty's
shotgun or his bulldog, but they all believed that he had them because
Jim Leonard said so, just as they had believed that Bunty had got done
with his melon patch, until all at once one of them said, "Where is Jim
Leonard, anyway?"

Then they found out that nobody knew, and the little fellows began to
think that maybe Bunty Williams had caught him, but Hen Billard said: "Oh,
he's safe enough, somewheres. I wish I had him here!"

Archie Hawkins asked, "What would you do to him?" and Hen said: "I'd show
you! I'd make him go back and find out whether Bunty really had a bulldog
with him. I don't believe he had."

Then all the big boys said that none of