"The brute!" exclaimed Bob furiously. "The cowardly brute! It must have been Tom Smith! Oh, poor Stray!—poor Stray!"
[CHAPTER VII]
BOB LAID UP
HAPPILY Stray proved not to be seriously hurt, and in a few days his wound was healing nicely. Jackie, though he had seen the stone thrown, could only give a very hazy description of the thrower, who, it seemed, had run away the instant he had seen he had hit the dog. Bob would have gone to Tom Smith in hot haste and accused him of having done the cruel deed, but Mrs. Winter had prevented his doing so, by pointing out that they had no proof that Tom was the culprit.
Bob felt sure that Tom Smith was the stone-thrower nevertheless. He did not see him again till after the school holidays, when, one morning on his way to school, he passed him in the street.
"What about that dog of yours now?" Tom shouted after him with a jeering laugh, thus showing that Bob had not misjudged him.
Bob wheeled around sharply, his heart hot with indignation; and went back, his eyes ablaze with anger.
"Look here," he said, "I want a word with you. The dog's not mine, he belongs to one of my aunt's lodgers—but that doesn't matter to you. What I've got to say is this, if you ever throw a stone at him again, I'll go to the police about you and get you punished."
"Do you think I'm afraid of the police?" sneered Tom.
"Yes, I do," Bob answered. "I saw you slink away the other night— you were bullying a boy younger than yourself—when you saw a policeman coming. There's a law to stop people who are cruel to dumb animals. I've heard about it from my father, who can't bear to see animals of any kind badly treated. You're a big coward, Tom Smith, that's what you are!"