Then the fort had no choice but to capitulate, and the day was won by the besiegers.
"You all fought jolly well," said the holder of the fort, calmly sitting upright in the middle of the stream and removing his helmet, thereby disclosing to view the face of the boy who had come to Jumbo's rescue. "It has been warm work from first to last. It is quite jolly to sit here and get cool."
Then Hal, jubilant at the success which had attended his manoeuvre, emerged from the hawthorn bushes in which he had been concealed, and congratulated his late enemy on the splendid stand which the fort had made.
"It ought not to have been taken," Dodds said. "But that hose upset me completely; it came as such a tremendous surprise."
"I say," said Jim, who was standing on the bank panting from his exertions, "are you really Dodds?"
"That's my name," said the boy with a polite flourish of his helmet; "and I hear," glancing round at them all with an amused twinkle in his eyes, "that none of you like me."
"Oh, but we didn't know that you were Dodds," Drusie hastened to explain. "It was Dodds we did not like, not you."
"Well, as I am Dodds, you can't like me if you don't like him," the boy said with a laugh, in which they all were obliged to join, as they realized that they had really been liking Dodds all the time without knowing it.
"Well, as I am cool now," Dodds said, getting up and wading to the bank, "I think I'll go and put on some dry things. And I should think that you had better do the same. And then, isn't there a birthday feast to be eaten? I rather think I heard something about it too. You know, I was fishing here one day, and you were all in the fort talking about the fight, and wondering if Hal meant to hold it, and it struck me that it would be rather a good idea if I held it in his place. And so I just did. And jolly good fun it has been too.—Don't you think so, Hal? or do you still think that playing with kids is slow work?"
At that Hal began to grow red, and Drusie, who knew that he was sorry for that and for many other foolish things that he had said, interposed quickly.