that "dogs delight to bark and bite" is, perhaps, too
sweeping, but then it was made by a poet and poets have an acknowledged
licence--though not necessarily a dog-licence. Certain it is, however,
that this dog--a mongrel cur--did bark with savage delight, and display
all its teeth, with an evident desire to bite, as it chased a delirious
tortoise-shell kitten towards the river.

It was a round, soft, lively kitten, with the hair on its little body
sticking straight out, its heart in its mouth, and horror in its lovely
eyes. It made straight for the tree under which the dinner was going
on. Both boys started up. Enemies in front and rear! Even a human
general might have stood appalled. Two courses were still open--right
and left. The kitten turned right and went wrong, for that was the
river-side. No time for thought! Barking cur and yelling boys! It
reached the edge of the pool, spread out all its legs with a caterwaul
of despair, and went headlong into the water.

Shank Leather gazed--something like glee mingled with his look of
consternation. Not so our hero. Pity was bursting his bosom. With one
magnificent bound he went into the pool, caught the kitten in his right
hand, and carried it straight to the bottom. Next moment he re-appeared
on the surface, wildly beating the water with one hand and holding the
kitten aloft in the other. Shank, to do him justice, plunged into the
river up to his waist, but his courage carried him no further. There he
stuck, vainly holding out a hand and shouting for help.

But no help was near, and it seemed as if the pair of strugglers were
doomed to perish when a pitiful eddy swept them both out of the deep
pool into the foaming rapid below. Shank followed them in howling
despair, for here things looked ten times worse: his comrade being
tossed from billow to breaker, was turned heels over head, bumped
against boulders, stranded on shallows, overturned and swept away
again--but ever with the left arm beating wildly, and the right hand
with the kitten, held high in air.

But the danger, except from being dashed against the boulders, was not
really as great as it seemed, for every time that Brooke got a foothold
for an instant, or was driven on a rock, or was surged, right-end-up, on
a shoot of water, he managed to gasp a little air--including a deal of
water. The kitten, of course, had the same chances, and, being passive,
perhaps suffered less.

At the foot of th