"Go it, old fellow. Don't you wish you could break loose, and get me? There's many an old score unsettled between us. My! but he's furious though! I'll stick this letter under the door, and skip out before he breaks his chain. There's nobody up in the house it seems, since everything's dark."
Lanky ran up the front steps and as speedily as possible pushed the answer to the latest challenge under the door, where it would surely be seen the first thing in the morning, when the maid opened up the vestibule.
Then turning, he started down again, meaning to hasten out of the gate; for that angry barking and snapping of the animal tearing at his chain in the rear yard did not please him at all.
He had just taken two strides away from the bottom step when he received a shock that was quite as bad as when that wire cable uptilted the ice-boat on the frozen bosom of the Harrapin.
Something moving with the speed of the wind came whirling around the side of the house. One look Lanky took, and gasped with alarm; for in the moonlight he had no difficulty in recognizing Brutus, the old dog that nursed a grudge against him!
CHAPTER VI
WHEN BRUTUS CHANGED HIS MIND
Lanky stood there as if rooted to the spot.
He saw the toothless old hound fly over to the vicinity of the gate as if expecting to find him there. Of course Brutus must immediately realize his mistake, and as age could not have dulled his sense of scent he would whirl around, to come bounding toward the steps.
Lanky's mind was busy, even if his limbs for those few seconds seemed to have become paralyzed. He could not run, for retreat was cut off; hence he must either stand and defend himself as best he might, or else hastily draw himself up into the low branches of the tree under which he happened to be standing at the moment.