e empty trough was still there, but when the pig
collided with it, it shot into the middle of the apparently empty yard.
The pig followed it, scrouging under the fence, and squealing
intermittently.

"There!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil. "Why not keep him in that yard and make
his owner pay to get him home again?"

"Oh! I couldn't ask poor Mr. Murphy for money," said Ruth, giving an
anxious glance at the little cottage over the fence. She expected every
moment to hear the cobbler coming to the rescue of his pet.

And the pig did not propose to remain impounded. He dashed to the
boundary fence and found an aperture. Through it he caught a glimpse of
home and safety.

But the hole was not quite deep enough. Head and shoulders went through
all right; but there his pigship stuck.

There was a scurrying across the cobbler's yard, but the Kenway girls
and their new friend did not hear this. Instead, they were startled by a
sudden rattling of hoofs in a big drygoods box that stood inside the
poultry pen.

"What's that?" demanded Neale O'Neil.

"It's--it's Billy Bumps!" shrieked Agnes.

Out of the box dashed the goat. The opening fronted the boundary fence,
beneath which the pig was stuck. Perhaps Billy Bumps took the rapidly
curling and uncurling tail of the pig for a challenging banner. However
that might be, he lowered his head and catapulted himself across the
yard as true as a bullet for the target.

Slam! the goat landed just where it seemed to do the most good, for the
remainder of the pig shot through the aperture in the board fence on the
instant. One more affrighted squeal the pig uttered, and then:

"Begorra! 'Tis ivry last brith in me body ye've knocked out," came from
the other side of the fence.

"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, as the sisters clung together, weak from
laughter. "That pig can't be French after all; for that's as broad an
Irish brogue as ever I heard!"

CHAPTER IV

NEALE O'NEIL GETS ESTABLISHED

Perhaps Billy Bumps was as much amazed as anybody when he heard what
seemed to be the pig expressing his dissatisfaction in a broad Irish
brogue on the other side of the fence.

The old goat's expression was indeed comical. He backed away from the
hole through which he had just shot the raider head-first, shook his own
head, stamped, and seemed to listen intently to the hostile language.

"Be th' powers! 'Tis a dirthy, mane thrick, so ut is! An' th' poor pig
kem t'roo th' hole like it was s