And then an unlooked-for actor appeared upon the scene; a boyish figure, supple and well built, sprang, as if miraculously, out of a dense clump of bushes, just beyond the terror-stricken girls.
With a ringing shout he darted straight in front of the infuriated brute, and flung his coat defiantly in its eyes. Angry and snorting, it tossed the coat aside and started after its tormentor.
The trembling girls, thus suddenly and unexpectedly rescued from their peril, found new anxiety for the safety of their brave deliverer.
With bated breath they watched him as, having succeeded in diverting the attention of the enemy, he half circled the field with the maddened creature in hot pursuit, so close at times that he felt its hot breath on his neck.
Always heading in one direction, toward the open gate of the pasture field, the boy led the race, and finally breathless and almost exhausted, he gained the goal.
Through the gate he ran and gave, as he cleared it, a sudden jump to one side, while the momentum of the bull carried it forward and beyond him. A moment later he stood in the friendly grass of the berry-patch, with the gate closed securely between him and the foe.
"It's Mark Griffin!" cried Ivy.
"Yes, I knew him at once," returned Alene.
The three girls clapped their hands joyfully, starting a round of applause. Soon from every part of the patch came cheers and shouts and whistling; a small boy, who perhaps was the cause of all the trouble, scrambled from a tree near the big gate with a whoop that would have startled an Indian brave. He ran across the field, picked up the coat from where it lay on the ground almost in ribbons, and returned it to its owner.
With a humorous glance at the crumpled and grass-stained object Mark flung it over his shoulder and, followed by the urchin and one or two other boys, started away from the field and was soon out of sight down the lane.