Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Ice.djvu/64

52 Here goes then," and returning to the gate he passed through.

About that time he heard the clank of a chain. Then Brutus lifted up his tuneful voice, and began to bark savagely. The beast used to be the terror of the community; but age was swooping down upon him. With his teeth gone he did not create so much alarm in the hearts of passersby; but his bark was as full of fury as in the days of his prime.

"Go it, old fellow. Don't you wish you could break loose, and get me? There's many an old score unsettled between us. My! but he's furious though! I'll stick this letter under the door, and skip out before he breaks his chain. There's nobody up in the house it seems, since everything's dark."

Lanky ran up the front steps and as speedily as possible pushed the answer to the latest challenge imder the door, where it would surely be seen the first thing in the morning, when the maid opened up the vestibule.

Then turning, he started down again, meaning to hasten out of the gate; for that angry barking and snapping of the animal tearing at his chain in the rear yard did not please him at all.

He had just taken two strides away from the bottom step when he received a shock that was quite as bad as when that wire cable uptilted the ice-boat on the frozen bosom of the Harrapin.