Annie's gift. "Come, now, make it a dollar, my beauty. I'll call it all
square for a dollar."

The whine grew louder as he spoke; and the wheedling grin on his
disgusting face changed into an expression so menacing that Annie drew
back with a shudder, and was about returning her little portemonnaie to
her pocket.

"No, you don't, honey!"

The words were uttered in a hoarse and husky voice, and were accompanied
by a sudden grip of poor Annie's arm with one hand, while with the other
he snatched greedily at the morocco case.

Did she scream?

How could she help it? Or what else could she have done, under the
circumstances?

She screamed vigorously, whether she would or no, and at the same moment
dropped her pocket-book in the grass beside the path, so that it
momentarily escaped the vagabond's clutches.

"Shut up, will you!"

Other angry and evil words, accompanied by more than one vicious threat,
followed thick and fast, as Annie struggled to free herself, while her
assailant peered hungrily around after the missing prize.

It is not at all likely he would have attempted any thing so bold as
that, in broad daylight, if he had not been drinking too freely; and the
very evil "spirit" which had prompted him to his rash rascality unfitted
him for its immediate consequences.

These latter, in the shape of Dab Kinzer and the lower joint of a stout
fishing-rod, had been bounding along up the road from the landing, at a
tremendous rate, for nearly half a minute.

A boy of fifteen assailing a full-grown ruffian?

Why not? Age hardly counts in such a matter; and then it is not every
boy of even his growth that could have brought muscles like those of Dab
Kinzer to the swing he gave that four-foot length of seasoned ironwood.

Annie saw him coming; but her assailant did not until it was too late
for him to do any thing but turn, and receive that first hit in front
instead of behind. It would have knocked over almost anybody; and the
tramp measured his length on the ground, while Dabney plied the rod on
him with all the energy he was master of.

"Oh, don't, Dabney, don't!" pleaded Annie: "you'll kill him!"

"I wouldn't want to do that," said Dab, as he suspended his pounding;
but he added, to the tramp,--

"Now you'd better get up and run for it If you're caught around here
again, it'll be the worse for you."

The vagabond staggered to his feet, and he looked savagely enough at
Dab; but the latter looked so ver