The hot sun poured down on the boy's face, and he had no cap. What cared he for that? On and on he went. Suddenly the horse stopped. Ben doubled up the reins to give him a cut, when “WHOA!” he roared so loud that the horse in very astonishment gave a lurch that nearly flung him headlong. But he was over the wheel in a twinkling, and up with a bound to a small thicket of scrubby bushes on a high hill by the road-side. Here lay a little bundle on the ground, and close by it a big, black dog; and over the whole, standing guard, was a boy a little bigger than Ben, with honest gray eyes. And the bundle was Phronsie!
“Don't wake her up,” said the boy, warningly, as Ben, with a hungry look in his eyes, leaped up the hill, “she's tired to death!”
“She's my sister!” cried Ben, “our Phronsie!”
“I know it,” said the boy kindly; “but I wouldn't wake her up yet if I were you. I'll tell you all about it,” and he took Ben's hand which was as cold as ice.
SAFE
“It's all right, Prince,” the boy added, encouragingly to the big dog who, lifting his noble head, had turned two big eyes steadily on Ben. “He's all right! lie down again!”
Then, flinging himself down on the grass, he told Ben how he came to rescue Phronsie.
“Prince and I were out for a stroll,” said he. “I live over in Hingham,” pointing to the pretty little town just a short distance before them in the hollow; “that is,” laughing, “I do this summer. Well, we were out strolling along about a mile below here on the cross-road; and all of a sudden, just as if they sprung right up out of the ground, I saw a man with an organ, and a monkey, and a little girl, coming along the road. She was crying, and as soon as Prince saw that, he gave a growl, and then the man saw us, and he looked so mean and cringing I knew there must be something wrong, and I inquired of him what he was doing with that little girl, and then she looked up and begged so with her eyes, and all of a sudden broke away from him and ran towards me screaming—'I want Polly!' Well, the man sprang after her; then I tell you—” here the boy forgot his caution about waking Phronsie—“we went for him, Prince and I! Prince is a noble fellow,” (here the dog's ears twitched very perceptibly) “and he kept at that man; oh! how he bit him! till he had to run for fear the monkey would get killed.”
“Was Phronsie frightened?” asked Ben; “she's never seen strangers.”