ve they hurt you, boy?"

"No," was the reply; "but I hurt myself a good deal against their thick
heads. But I say, Serge, do you think that was fair?"

"Fair? Of course it was!"

"But it seemed so one-sided, and as if I had it all my own way. They
couldn't fight because they were afraid of you."

"Of you, you mean, boy, when it was man to man."

"No," said Marcus; "they'd have fought better if you and the dog hadn't
been here."

"Yes, and they could all have come on you at once. A set of mongrel
young hounds--half savages, that's what they are. You didn't thrash
them half enough."

"Quite as much as I wanted to," cried the boy, "for my knuckles are as
sore as sore. But oh, I say, Serge, it was comic!"

"They didn't think it was, my lad."

"I mean, to see you hooking them out one after another with your old
crook, yelling and squealing like pigs."

"Humph!" grunted the old soldier, with his grim face relaxing. "Well,
it has given them a pretty good scaring, and I don't suppose that they
will come after our grapes again."

"Yah-h-ah!" came in a defiant chorus from a distance, where the young
marauders had gathered together, and the dog sprang upon his feet,
growling fiercely, before bursting into a deep, baying bark.

"Hear that?" cried Marcus.

"Hear it, yes! And it would not take much to make me set old Lupe after
them. He'd soon catch them up, and then--"

"Yah-h-ah!"

"Fetch them down, boy!" shouted the old soldier, and, with a fierce
roar, the dog dashed off in a series of tremendous bounds, but only to
be checked by a shrill whistle from Marcus, which stopped the fierce
beast and brought him trotting slowly back, to crouch down at his young
master's feet.

"Why did you do that, lad?" cried the old soldier, staring.

"Because I didn't want Lupe to get amongst them, worrying and tearing.
What would my father have said?"

The old soldier let his crook fall into the hollow of his left arm and
pushed off his battered straw hat, to let it slide down between his
shoulders, where it hung by its string, while, with his grim sun-tanned
face as full of wrinkles as a walnut shell, he slowly swept the drops of
moisture from his brow.

"Hah, yes," he said; "I didn't think of that. He wouldn't have liked
it. He's got so soft and easy with people since he took to volumes and
skins covered with writing. Why, his sword would be all rusty if it
wasn't for me. It's all waste of time, for he'll neve