r, but he could hear her
voice tremble--"he did _not_ know whose dog it was!"

"He didn't? He didn't?" yelled the old man. "An' him a boy that knows
ever' dog for ten miles around! Right in front of my house, I tell
you--that's where he picked him up--that's where he tolled him off!
Didn't I tell you, woman, I seen him pass? Didn't I tell you I found the
block down the road? Didn't know whose dog it was? Ridiculous,
ridiculous! Call him, ask him, face him with it. Likely he'll lie--but
you'll see his face. Call him, that's all I ask. Call him!"

"Davy!" called Mrs. Allen. "Davy!"

Just a moment the boy hesitated. Then he went around the house. The
hound stuck very close to him, eyes full of terror, tail tucked as he
looked at the old man.

"There he is--_with my dog_!" cried the old man. "You didn't know whose
dog it was, did you, son? Eh? You didn't know, now, did you?"

"Yes!" cried the boy. "I knowed!"

"Hear that, Mrs. Allen? Did he know? What do you say now? He stole my
dog, didn't he? That's what he done, didn't he? Answer me, woman! You
come here!" he yelled, his face livid, and started, whip raised, toward
boy and dog.

There were some smooth white stones the size of hen eggs arranged
around a flower bed in the yard, and Davy stood near these stones--and
now, quick as a flash, he stooped down and picked one up.

"You stop!" he panted, his face very white.

His mother cried out and came running toward him, but Thornycroft had
stopped. No man in his right mind wants to advance on a country boy with
a rock. Goliath tried it once.

"All right!" screamed the old man. "You steal first--then you try to
assault an old man! I didn't come here to raise no row. I just come here
to warn you, Mrs. Allen. I'll have the law on that boy--I'll have the
law on him before another sun sets!"

He turned and hurried toward the buggy. Davy dropped the rock. Mrs.
Allen stood looking at the old miser, who was clambering into his buggy,
with a sort of horror. Then she ran toward the boy.

"Oh, Davy! run after him. Take the dog to him. He's terrible, Davy,
terrible! Run after him--anything--anything!"

But the boy looked up at her with grim mouth and hard eyes.

"I ain't a-goin' to do it, Ma!" he said.

It was after supper that very night that the summons came. Bob Kelley,
rural policeman, brought it.

"Me an' Squire Kirby went to Greenville this mornin'," he said, "to
look up some things about court in the mornin'. Th