"Run, Richard! Come this way, my boy!" he called, beckoning wildly; for Bluff had come to a sudden pause in the middle of the road as a sudden terrible thought flashed into his mind.
He had a gun in his hands, and ammunition in plenty. Pet Peters had just called him next door to a coward, who could only show valor when everything was on his side. Who was to stop this mad dog in his career? There were many little children around the next bend, awaiting the coming of the circus parade. What if some of them were bitten by the beast, and he with a gun in his hands?
Bluff turned as white as a ghost. His hands were shaking furiously as he broke open the package he carried. The shells fell in a heap to the road, and eagerly the boy stooped down to pick up one and push it into the magazine of the gun. Then he took up a second and a third.
There was no time for more. He would not need them. If he could not finish the mad beast with three shots it was bound to be all over with him. What that boy suffered as he crouched there, staring at the terrible brute that came around the curve in the street, no one would ever know.
He heard a clamor of voices. Some applauded his act, while others, frightened lest he fall a prey to the fury of the mad dog, cried to him to run while there was yet time. Even Pet Peters, perched securely on a limb of the tree, nearly above Bluff, shouted to him to get behind the trunk of the same.
Bluff heard this confusion as in a dream. He only saw that advancing beast, and to his eyes the yellow hound looked almost as big as a lion just then. Indeed, the brute did present a terrible aspect, with bloodshot eyes, and foam dripping from his square jaws.
Bluff could hardly raise the gun to his shoulder, in order to glance along the single barrel, but strange to say, just then it seemed as though a miracle had been wrought, for his nerves became like steel, and the gun no longer wavered.