ry deliberately.

"Say," shouted a voice, "I'm coming over!"

Bobby looked up once more. One of the heads had given place to a very
sturdy back and legs suspended on the Orde side of the fence. The legs
wriggled frantically, the toes scratched at the boards.

"Aw, drop!" said another voice, and the second head produced a hand and
arm which proceeded calmly to rap the knuckles of the one who dangled.
The latter let go. Finding himself uninjured by the three-foot fall, he
looked up wrathfully at his late assailant. That youth was in the act of
swinging his own legs over. The first-comer, with a gurgle of joy,
seized the other by both feet and tugged with all his strength. His
victim kicked frantically, tried to hang on, had to let go and came down
all in a heap on top of his tormentor. Immediately they clinched and
began to roll over and over. Bobby stared, vastly astonished.

Before he could collect his thoughts a third figure was dangling down
the boards. This one was feminine. It displayed a good deal of long
black leg, of short dull plaid skirt, a reefer jacket, two pigtails and
a knit blue tam-o'-shanter. Further observation was impossible, for it
dropped without hesitation and the moment it struck ground pounced on
the two combatants. Bobby saw those gentlemen seized, shaken and slapped
with hurricane vigour. The next he knew, three flushed visitors were
descending on him with ingratiating grins.

The first, he of the pounded knuckles, was a short, sturdy, very
fair-haired youth with a wide red-lipped mouth, wide and winning blue
eyes and a bit of a swagger in his walk. He was about Bobby's age. The
second, he of the pulled feet, was brown-haired, slightly stooped,
rather nervous-faced, but with the drollest twinkle to his brown eyes
and the quaintest quirk to his sensitive lips. He was about twelve years
old. The third, the girl, was tawny-haired, gray-eyed. Her face was
almost the exact shape of the hearts on valentines; her nose turned up
just enough to be impudent; her freckles, for she was indubitably
freckled, were just wide enough apart to emphasize the inquiring,
unabashed self-reliance of her eyes. Her figure was long and lank but
moved with a freedom and a confidence that indicated her full control of
it. She was probably just short of her 'teens.

"Gorry!" said the first boy, "is that gun yours?"

"Let's see it," said the second.

"It's a beauty, isn't it? Look at the gold mounting," said the girl