But Sube was too far gone to respond. He was very near that blissful country which prize-fighters call "Out."
The stablemen enjoyed the fight immensely. And the result was quite to their liking. Dick Bissell was their kind. They wanted him to win even if he was fighting a boy scarcely half his size. But they enjoyed the "little feller's bu'st o' speed" and taking their cue from Dick, interjected a few taunts from the sidelines about what Nancy would think of him if he got licked.
Sube had plenty of friends at the ringside, but they dared not interfere because of what might happen to them when Dick Bissell caught them alone. And doubtless if they had taken a hand the stablemen would have driven them off.
But there was one friend who did not falter. He was a little late in reaching the place of battle, but when he came, he came like a thunderbolt. He struck Dick amidships with the full force of his seventy pounds, knocking the astonished boy halfway across the barn.
Then with a show of flashing teeth and a few great guttural oaths he cleared the barn of human incumbrances, and then—he went humbly to his master craving indulgence for having again been guilty of disobedience.
Sube struggled to his feet, groggily murmuring, "Good boy, Sport." And with a boy's first instinct on emerging from a fight began to hunt for his cap. Sport quickly found it and brought it. Then Sube noticed for the first time that he was alone, and that the big barn door was closed. But he had no idea that it had been barred in the interest of public policy to keep what the stablemen regarded as a mad dog from running at large.
The back door was open. And towards it he staggered, bleeding and disheveled. He made his way into the clump of willows, where he lay for a time and rested while Sport licked affectionately at his hand whenever it came near enough for his rosy tongue to reach.
As he took a circuitous route homeward a little later he became conscious of a dull ache in his ear. Then he discovered that his lip was swollen. In another moment he became painfully aware that something had happened to one of his cheeks. Next a skinned knuckle attracted his attention.
He considered these injuries too valuable to be wasted, and at once invented a new game to make use of them. He pretended that he was a wounded soldier returning from the wars, and gave himself up to such limps and groans as seemed to fit the fancy. He dragged himself up to the back door of his home, and after satisfying himself that the kitchen was empty, fell prostrate on the threshold, gasping:
"Water!—Water!—I must rinse these awful wounds!"