ined, with a
bulldog and a hulking, overgrown boy for company. She sat on the back
porch, peeling potatoes, and there was no welcome in the look she gave
them.

"Be off with you!" she shrilled at them. "You'll get no hand-outs
here! You're worse'n tramps, you boys be, running over honest people's
land, and stealing fruit. Be off now, or I'll set the dog onto ye!"

"We only want to borrow some shovels, ma'am," explained Dick Crawford,
politely, trying to hide a smile at her vehement way of expressing
herself.

"What next?" she cried. "Shovels, is it? And a fine chance we'd have
of ever seeing them ag'in if we let you have them, wouldn't we? Here,
Tige! Sic 'em, boy, sic 'em!"

The dog's hair rose on his back, and he growled menacingly as he
advanced toward them. But there Jack Danby was in his own element.
There had never been an animal yet, wild or tame, that he had ever
seen, with which he could not make friends. He dropped to one knee
now, while the others watched him, and spoke to the dog. In a moment
the savagery went out of the bulldog, who, as it seemed, was really
little more than a puppy, and he came playfully up to Jack, anxious to
be friendly.

"The dog knows, you see," said Dick. "A dog will never make friends
with anyone who is unworthy, ma'am. Don't you think you could follow
his example, and trust us?"

"You'll get no shovels here," said the woman, with a surly look.

"Oh, I don't know!" said little Tom Binns, under his breath. His eyes
had been busy, darting all around, and he had seen a number of shovels,
scattered with other farm implements, under a pile of brushwood. He
leaped over to this pile now, suddenly, before the loutish boy who was
helping with the potatoes could make a move to stop him, and in a
moment he was dancing off, his arms full of shovels. Dick Crawford saw
what had happened, and could not help approving.

"Thank you," he said to the enraged woman, who rose and seemed about to
take a hand herself, physically. "I'm sorry we had to help ourselves,
but it's necessary to save your home, though your own men don't seem to
think so."

They were off then, with the woman shouting after them, and trying to
induce the dog, who stood wagging his tail, to give chase.

"I don't like to take things that way," said Dick, "but if ever the end
justified the means, this was the time. We had to have those shovels,
and it's just as I told her--it's for their sake that we took