and soft.

"Who's coming?" said Meg, looking up the road suddenly. "Look, Bobby,
isn't that Tim Roon?"

Bobby glanced up from his favorite occupation of cracking stones.

"Yes, it is," he replied. "Wonder where he's going?"

His hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his head, Tim Roon
came toward them, whistling loudly. When he was near enough to see the
two children, he stopped.

"Hello, smarties!" was his greeting. "How's teacher's pet?"

"I'm not teacher's pet," retorted Bobby indignantly.

"Nobody said you were," answered Tim Roon. "Can't a person speak to
your sister, without you taking it all on yourself?"

Bobby flushed angrily.

"You needn't speak to my sister unless you can talk right," he said
rapidly. "Come on, Meg, call Philip, and we'll go."

The dog was hunting in the marsh and came bounding out at Meg's first
call.

"Just a mutt." Tim Roon summed up poor Philip disagreeably. "You ought
to see the dog my father's got. What's your hurry, anyway? You can't
go till I'm ready to let you."

He stood directly in the path, on the only dry spot. If Meg or Bobby
tried to go around him, they must step into thick, black mud.

"Teacher's pet!" mocked Tim Roon, pointing a dirty forefinger at Meg.
"She didn't know she had to tell she whispered! But I notice you could
laugh at Charlie Black when he sat on the candy."

Meg did not see what that had to do with her whispering, and perhaps
Tim Roon couldn't have told either. He was merely doing his best to be
unkind and unpleasant, and succeeding as well as such ill-natured folk
usually do.

"You get out of the way, Tim Roon!" cried Bobby. "Go ahead, Meg, I'll
punch him if he touches you."

Tim was older and larger than Bobby, but the latter had no intention
of allowing him to annoy his sister.

Meg tried to push her way past the short, sturdy body of Tim, who
blocked her path. A quick twist of a vicious, sharp, little elbow
jostled her into the mud, and she stepped in over one of her low
shoes.

"You will, will you," snarled Bobby, angrier than he had ever been in
his life. "You just wait--knocking a girl like that!"

Tim squared off, as he had seen fighters in pictures do, and Bobby
lowered his head for a rush. But Philip, who had been an interested
spectator, decided that the time had come for him to be of use. With a
sharp bark, he lunged straight for Tim's legs, his sharp, even teeth
showing on either side of his red tongue. Tim saw him