he liberty he took, though I think it would have been
quite as well, if he had asked Mr. Marble's consent in the first
place. But we will let that pass. Jake had a different way of doing
things.

As I said, he took up the bottle to drink. But the moment he did so,
Ranter, Mr. Marble's old dog, who lay under the tree, where he had
been stationed to keep watch, thinking his master's property was in
danger, flew at the boy, and caught him by the arm. Poor Jake! he
yelled lustily, you may be sure. But it did no good. Ranter held him
in his jaws, as tight as if he were a woodchuck or a rabbit, instead
of a school-boy.

Mike was spreading hay, at the time, some twenty yards off, or more
and hearing the boy crying for help, and looking in the direction from
which the voice came, he saw Jake fast in the clutches of the dog. In
an instant he shouted, as loud as he could scream, "Here, Ranter!
here, Ranter!" and in another instant, Ranter let go of the poor boy,
and bounded away towards his young master.

Jake, as you may suppose, and as Mike found, when he went to him, was
very badly bitten. The blood ran from his arm quite as freely as it
did from Mike's nose, some time before that.

"Did Ranter hurt you much?" asked Mike, kindly.

"Very badly, I'm afraid," said Jake, almost frantic with pain and
fright.

Mike said he was sorry, and expressed his wonder that Ranter could be
so cruel. Then he ran and called his father, who was busy in another
part of the meadow, when the accident happened, and who did not hear
Jake's call for help. Mr. Marble had the boy taken to his house,
where his wound was nicely dressed, and where the utmost care was
taken of him by the whole family, among whom Mike was the foremost. It
was two or three days before it was thought prudent to remove the
sufferer to his father's house; and during that time there was no one,
not even Jacob's own mother, who was more kind and attentive to him
than Mike Marble.

The time came when the wounded boy was able to go home. An hour or two
before the wagon was to come for him, he was sitting in an easy
chair, with the wounded arm lying on a pillow, and Mike, as usual, was
at his side. There happened to be no one else in the chamber besides
the two boys.

"Mike," said the other, "I want to say something to you."

"What is it?" asked Mike.

"I don't know how to say it," was the answer.

And there was a pause. Jacob had undertaken a task which was entirely
n