e and fought him until he lay limp and quiet and
Freckles had no strength left to lift an arm. Then he arose and stepped
back, gasping for breath. With his first lungful of air he shouted:
"Time!" But the figure of Wessner lay motionless.

Freckles watched him with regardful eye and saw at last that he was
completely exhausted. He bent over him, and catching him by the back of
the neck, jerked him to his knees. Wessner lifted the face of a whipped
cur, and fearing further punishment, burst into shivering sobs, while
the tears washed tiny rivulets through the blood and muck. Freckles
stepped back, glaring at Wessner, but suddenly the scowl of anger and
the ugly disfiguring red faded from the boy's face. He dabbed at a cut
on his temple from which issued a tiny crimson stream, and jauntily
shook back his hair. His face took on the innocent look of a cherub,
and his voice rivaled that of a brooding dove, but into his eyes crept a
look of diabolical mischief.

He glanced vaguely around him until he saw his club, seized and twirled
it as a drum major, stuck it upright in the muck, and marched on tiptoe
to Wessner, mechanically, as a puppet worked by a string. Bending over,
Freckles reached an arm around Wessner's waist and helped him to his
feet.

"Careful, now" he cautioned, "be careful, Freddy; there's danger of you
hurting me."

Drawing a handkerchief from a back pocket, Freckles tenderly wiped
Wessner's eyes and nose.

"Come, Freddy, me child," he admonished Wessner, "it's time little boys
were going home. I've me work to do, and can't be entertaining you any
more today. Come back tomorrow, if you ain't through yet, and we'll
repate the perfarmance. Don't be staring at me so wild like! I would eat
you, but I can't afford it. Me earnings, being honest, come slow, and
I've no money to be squanderin' on the pailful of Dyspeptic's Delight it
would be to taking to work you out of my innards!"

Again an awful wrenching seized McLean. Freckles stepped back as
Wessner, tottering and reeling, as a thoroughly drunken man, came toward
the path, appearing indeed as if wildcats had attacked him.

The cudgel spun high in air, and catching it with an expertness acquired
by long practice on the line, the boy twirled it a second, shook back
his thick hair bonnily, and stepping into the trail, followed Wessner.
Because Freckles was Irish, it was impossible to do it silently, so
presently his clear tenor rang out, though there were