d
man, his hard, pinched face working, his buggy whip in his hand, came
down the walk and called Mrs. Alien out on the porch.

"I just come to tell you," he cried, "that your boy Davy run off with my
dog las' Friday evenin'! There ain't no use to deny it. I know all about
it. I seen him when he passed in front of the house. I found the block I
had chained to the dog beside the road. I heered Squire Jim Kirby
talkin' to some men in Tom Belcher's sto' this very mornin'; just
happened to overhear him as I come in. 'A boy an' a dog,' he says, 'is
the happiest combination in nater.' Then he went on to tell about your
boy an' a tan dog. He had met 'em in the road. Met 'em when? Last Friday
evenin'. Oh, there ain't no use to deny it, Mrs. Allen! Your boy
Davy--he _stole_ my dog!"

"Mr. Thornycroft"--Davy could not see his mother, 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 he
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