"I'll set him onto that Billy Bumps next time I get a chance," growled Sam.
"You dare!" cried Tess.
But Jock was already outside of the yard. When Sam whistled for him, he only wagged his stump of a tail; he refused to return to a place where, it was plain to his doggish intelligence, he was not wanted. Besides, Jock had not yet gotten a full breath since the goat butted him.
Sammy picked up a clothes-pole and started to punish Billy Bumps as he thought fit. Just then the goat got free from the cart and started for Master Pinkney. The latter dropped the pole and got to the gate first, but only just in time, for Billy crashed head-first into it, breaking a picket, he was so emphatic!
"You wait! I'll kill your old goat," threatened Sammy, shaking his fist over the fence. "You see if I don't, Tess Kenway," forgetting, it seemed, that it had been he who had presented the goat to the Corner House girl.
Billy trotted back proudly to the girls to be petted, as though he had done a very meritorious act. Perhaps he had, for Sandyface at once came down from the tree, to sit on the porch in the sunshine and "wash her face and hands"; she doubtless considered Billy Bumps very chivalrous.
The great hullabaloo brought most of the family to the scene, as well as Neale from over the back fence. But the fun was all over and Sammy and his bulldog were gone when the questioners arrived.
Dot explained volubly: "Billy Bumps wouldn't see poor Sandy abused—no, he wouldn't! That's why he went for that horrid dog."
"Why," said Ruth, laughing, "Billy must be a regular knight."
"'In days of old, when knights were bold!'" sang Neale.