"But suppose you turned your ankle, or fell down and tore your dress?" suggested Nellie. "I believe hockey on the ice is too rough."
"No game needs to be rough," declared Laura. "That isn't the spirit of athletics. Didn't we learn how to play basketball without being rough?"
"Even Hessie Grimes learned that," chuckled Bobby.
At that moment a gun was fired back in the thicker woods, and then out of the brush the girls saw an animal charging directly for the pond. Patrick saw it, too, and leaped up from before the fire and ran toward the beast.
"It's a big hog!" cried Bobby.
"That's the one they want to catch," said Eve. "She is ugly, too, I believe." Then she raised her voice in warning to Patrick: "Look out, Patrick! She is real cross."
"Faith!" returned the Irishman, half squatting down in the path of the charging sow. "It's not afraid I be of the likes of a pig. 'Tis too many of their tails I've twisted in ould Ireland, to run from wan in Ameriky"
Just then the animal spied him and went for Patrick, full tilt. There wasn't time for the Irsihman to dodge; but he did spread his legs, and the angry mother-hog ran between them.
