he doctor was about to go to his rescue when Zip dove under the fence,
which knocked off the monkey, and he rolled over and over on the ground,
dazed for several seconds. He had hit his head on the fence so hard that
it had stunned him. The doctor took a step forward to pick him up when
again he heard that piercing scream, "Help! Help! Help!" that seemed to
come from the upper window of Miss Belinda's cottage.
"Gracious!" exclaimed the doctor. "Someone must be trying to kill Miss
Belinda!" and he started for the cottage, intending to break down the door
if it should be locked. Before he had gone two steps, the voice he heard
before called once more, "Help! Help! Beat it! Beat it!" and then, looking
up, he saw Polly.
"You rascal!" said the doctor, shaking his finger in a playful manner at
her. "You surely did fool me! But I must go and see if Zip has killed your
playfellow."
When he reached the gate, he found the monkey sitting up rubbing his head
with his forefoot and running slowly toward home on three legs. Seeing he
was all right, the doctor whistled for Zip to come, but no Zip appeared.
So after calling him once or twice more, the doctor concluded he did not
wish to come back for fear the monkey would get him again and try to take
a free ride.
"He probably has trotted home across lots," thought the doctor, "or else
he may be waiting for me part way home."
On hearing the doctor whistle, the monkey ran to the side of the road,
jumped up on the fence and ran along its top until he reached Miss
Belinda's yard. Once there, he ran up a tall tree to a place of safety,
where no dogs could reach him, and there the doctor left him, rubbing his
head.
As Zip trotted home across lots, he made up his mind that he would go to
Miss Belinda's every day until he had a chance to get even not only with
Polly, but with the monkey too. For I am sorry to say that Zip was a very
revengeful dog, and he never forgot an injury, at least not until he had
paid back in like coin anything he had suffered.
"You may rest assured," he said to himself, "that I shall take one at a
time, however, and look around well before tackling either one, to see
that the other is nowhere about."
Miss Belinda was out when all this happened, so was very much alarmed when
she returned to see Peter-Kins hopping around on two legs, holding his
head with his hands. And still more so when she took him in her arms and
saw that there was a big bump on his
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