"You stop that!" shouted the red-haired boy in the tree. "Bobby hasn't done a thing—"
The dog growled and ran around the two struggling boys. Perhaps he was looking for a chance to bite his master's antagonist. At least, it looked so.
Bobby Blake, although never a quarrelsome lad, was no mollycoddle. Attacked as he had been, he struggled manfully to escape the bigger boy. He dropped the club, but he tore off Ap's hat and flung it into the creek.
"Go for it, sir! After it!" he screamed, and Rover heard him and saw the hat. That was one of the dog's accomplishments. He was a Newfoundland, and retrieving articles from the water was right in his line.
He barked and bounded to the edge of the steep bank. He evidently considered that, after all, his master and Bobby were only playing, and this part of the play he approved of.
The instant Bobby heard the splash of the big dog into the water, he twisted in Ap's grasp, tripped him, and fell on top of the larger boy.
"Oh! oh! oh!" gasped Ap. "You're hurtin' me—you're killin' me! I can't breathe—"
"Scubbity-yow!" yelled Fred, giving voice to his favorite battle-cry, and he dropped from the apple tree, running to Bobby's help.
But Bobby got up and released the bawling farm-boy at once. "Come on, Fred," he said. "Let's get out o' here."
"Why, you got the best of him!" cried Fred, in disgust. "Let's duck him! Let's throw him in after his old dog."