Shep charged, barking violently. He meant to stop out of reach of the man's feet in case he showed a disposition to kick. But, making a great leap, the stranger clutched a stout lower limb of the tree, and swung himself up out of the reach of harm with the most amazing celerity, the dog snapping at his heels as they receded skyward.
Perched astride the limb, with his feet drawn up, the refugee shook his fist at the raging animal, which, inflamed by success, made another great jump into the air and fell back on the ground, his age-enfeebled legs collapsing beneath him.
Still kneeling, the girl burst into a peal of laughter.
Chapter II.
ROMANCE JUSTIFIED.
GO to it!" said the exasperated man in the tree. "Get in your laugh while the laughing's good. If your confounded dog had succeeded in chewing some chunks out of me, I suppose you'd simply have collapsed with merriment."
"Oh, dear!" gasped Miss Wiggin, trying to suppress her mirth. "If you only realized how ridiculous it is! Old Shep couldn't hurt a sick kitten."
"Huh!" grunted the stranger skeptically. "Perhaps not, but he certainly showed a strong desire to plant a few teeth in any part of my person that he could reach."
Miss Wiggin continued to laugh. "It would have to be a few teeth, as he's lost almost all that he ever had, and he's so old that he's half deaf and getting blind. That's why he didn't warn me that you were coming. If you hadn't shown that you were scared, he'd never have made an offer to touch you."
"How was I to know that?" demanded the man on the limb, flushing. "On such short notice I couldn't tell whether he was a senile and harmless old dog or a young and savage one bent on making a meal off my person."
"You're an awful coward, aren't you?" asked the girl, rising to her feet and regarding him with open contempt.
She was slender, willowy, and graceful. He considered that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he wondered how, even with the sunbonnet hiding her face, he had made the blunder of mistaking her for a middle-aged woman. He felt his heart thumping queerly. He also felt his face burning beneath her unmasked disdain.
"Let me explain," he pleaded hastily.
"It isn't necessary," she cut him short. "I don't suppose there are any Reginalds to be found outside the pages of fiction."
"The Daphnes," he returned, "are myths."
She tossed her head. "Besides being a 'fraid cat," she retorted, "you're just about the most impolite person I ever met. What were you doing prowling around in this field, anyhow?"
"Being in haste to secure a conveyance to Albion for two gentlemen whose motor has broken down back yonder on the road, I was making a short cut to town and avoiding the most of the hill. The gentlemen must catch the three-forty train at Albion. It is now," he stated, balancing himself on the limb and taking out his watch, "seven minutes past two."
"And twenty-three miles to Albion. Your gentlemen will have to hurry."
"They may make it if I can get an automobile in town."
Again she laughed. "Automobiles aren't popular in Greenbush. Peter Beedy is the only citizen who owns one. He's been arrested and fined four times for exceeding the speed limit of eight miles an hour. The last time that happened he was so mad he swore he'd never start the machine again, and he had it towed to his barn and stored away."
