Taken off his guard, he fell heavily into the road, crushing her beneath him, and raising such a cloud of dust that both were nearly smothered; but with a dexterous twist she freed herself, and, unconscious of the dust, the boy's screams or the sound of answering shouts in the pasture nearby, she fell to pummelling her helpless victim with relentless fists, all the while screaming at the top of her voice,
"I am a Tabby Catt, am I? I am scrawny and skinny, am I? Well, you're a coward, a good-for-nothing coward, and so is your big brother. He wouldn't dare fight Tom, and you wouldn't dare say such things to me if Tom was anywhere near. You're a bully, an overgrown baby, a 'fraid-cat! Yes, that's what you are! I may be a Tabby Catt, but I'm not a 'fraid-cat. I may be skinny and scrawny now, but I reckon you will be, too, when I get through with you, Joe Pomeroy! You're the sneakin'est sneak that ever lived—except your brother. 'Fraid-cat, sneak, sneak, sneak, s-n-e-a-k—"
Words failed her. What could she say mean enough to express her contempt for the howling coward almost twice her size pinned under her knees, making no attempt to defend himself against the rain of blows falling wherever the avenging fists could strike?
Suddenly she felt herself snatched from the back of her victim, held high in the air so her feet did not touch the ground, and shaken to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat. She twisted and turned and writhed and squirmed to free herself, thinking this must be the big brother punishing her for the drubbing she had given hapless Joe, and expecting any instant to feel the lash of his heavy herder's whip. But no whip struck her, and with one great tug she broke loose from the hand that gripped her shoulder, and confronted—not Sneed Pomeroy, the bully, but a tall, swarthy-faced man with a long beard and snapping black eyes, very much like her own, had she taken the time to notice it, who held her transfixed for a moment with his angry gaze. Amazed to find Joe's rescuer—for such he appeared to her—some one other than the big brother Sneed, and angered at the vigorous shaking he had given her, the child found vent for her outraged feelings in a horrible grimace at the stalwart man in front of her. With an exclamation of anger the stranger raised his hand as if to strike the girl, but she dodged the blow, and screamed in disdainful defiance:
"Slap, if you dare, you old gray head,
I'll scratch like a—cat—till you'll wish you were dead."
She hesitated a moment before choosing that word, and as it fell from her lips, she glanced apprehensively at the blubbering Joe still lying in the dust, and saw for the first time that this rescuer, whoever he might be, was evidently unknown to Joe, for the coward's bloody face was even more scared than when she had been pounding it, and he looked as if he, too, expected to receive some punishment from the hands of the mysterious stranger.
She whirled toward the man in frightened silence, and her clenched hands dropped nerveless at her side. It was her father! What a change the heavy beard made in his appearance; and then besides, it was almost a year since she had seen him. No wonder she had failed to recognize him in her anger. It would have taken more than one glance had she met him under ordinary circumstances.
"Put on your bonnet and march home. We will settle matters there."
His words sounded so ominous that she hastily did as he bid, wondering dully whether at last her day of reckoning had come.