“Mad dog! mad dog! run for your lives, everybody!”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MAD DOG PANIC.
No more dreadful cry can be imagined than the one the four scouts now heard rising all around them. It made many faces turn deathly white, and there was a hasty flight on the part of the more timid in order to gain the shelter of the adjoining walls of the booths.
Some boys and men also remained, and commenced to pelt the wretched cur still further with stones, sticks, or anything they could lay hands on, meanwhile keeping up more or less wild shouting.
“The fools!” exclaimed Rob, indignantly; “that dog is no more mad than I am; but they’re doing everything they can to make him so. He’s already scared half out of his head with all those things being shied at him. He snarls and snaps because he’s at bay, and the old wolf nature shows then. All he wants is to get back home somehow!”
The clamor grew in violence as new voices joined in. Those who came running up, always eager to see whatever was going on, began to hurl things at the cringing yellow cur flattened against the wall; though when the poor beast once started toward them it was amazing to see how the mob melted away, men falling over each other in their frantic fear of being bitten.
Rob was growing more and more indignant. He tried to speak to some of those nearest him, but he might as well have tried to stop the flow of Niagara for all the effect his words of expostulation had upon the shouters.
Women and children were shrieking in fright, even though they were apparently safe in the various buildings that lined the sunny street of the Zone.
“I just can’t stand for this racket!” the others heard Rob say, as he suddenly left them and sprang forward.
Immediately loud voices called out, some warning him not to be rash, and others applauding his daring, for it is always so easy to stand back and clap hands when some one is taking the chances.