feet.

Then Pete was up, while Sam smoked and laughed heartily.

"Here, that's mine," cried Pete; "give it to me."

"No," cried Tom, thrusting the wire into his pocket; "you've no business
with a thing like that."

"Give it to me," growled Pete, "or I'll half smash yer."

"_You_ touch me if you dare!" cried Tom fiercely.

"Bravo! ciss! Have it out!" cried Sam, clapping his hands and hissing,
with the effect of bringing the dog trotting up, after doing a little
hunting on its own account.

"You give me that bit of string back, or I'll set the dog at yer," cried
Pete.

"I shall give it to Captain Ranson's keeper," cried Tom; and Pete took a
step forward.

"Fetch him then, boy!" cried Pete, clapping his hands, and a fray seemed
imminent, when Tom unclasped the hands he had clenched, rushed away a
few yards, and Sam stood staring, ready to cheer Pete on to give his
cousin a good hiding as he mentally termed it, for his cousin seemed to
him to have shown the white feather and run.

Then he grasped the reason. Tom had not gone many yards, and was
dancing and stamping about in the middle of some smoke rising from among
the dead furze, and where for a few moments a dull flame rose amidst a
faint crackling, as the fire began to get hold.

"Here, Sam! Pete!" he shouted, "come and help."

But Sam glanced at his bright Oxford shoes and well-cut trousers, and
stood fast, while a malignant grin began to spread over Pete Warboys'
face, as the dog cowered shivering behind him, with its thin tail tucked
between its legs.

Pete thrust both hands down into his pockets, but did not stir to help,
and Tom, after stamping out the fire in one place, had to dash to
another; this being repeated again and again in the exciting moments.
Then he mastered it, and a faint smoke and some blackened furze was all
that was left of what, if left to itself, would have been a great common
fire.

"All out?" said Sam, as his cousin came up hot and panting. "Why, what
a fuss about nothing."

"Fuss!" cried Tom excitedly; "why, if it had been left five minutes the
fir-wood must have caught."

"Bah! green wood won't burn."

"Oh, won't it?" cried Pete. "It just will. Here, you give me my bit o'
string, or I shall go and say I see yer set the furze alight o'
purpose."

"Go and say so then," cried Tom. "No one will believe you. Come along,
Sam."

Tom gave one more look at the blackened furze, and then turned to his
cousin.

"Look