THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE GUN

"Oh, dear, Lance!" gasped Laura Belding, in a whisper. "I am afraid Short and Long will get into trouble. That man looks perfectly savage!"

But the small boy did not seem to be in the least disturbed. He had just made a very pretty cast into the stream as the dog and its master appeared.

"Say! can't you read that there sign?" demanded the man, very red in the face. The sign really was plainly to be seen, and easily read. In large black letters it said:

PRIVATE NO FISHING ALLOWED

The angler looked at the sign on the tree unabashed and observed:

"I didn't notice it. You see, Mister, they taught me never to read anything marked 'Private.'"

"Well, it says 'No fishin' allowed,' anyway," snarled the farmer.

"But I'm not fishing aloud," came from Short and Long, who was perfectly serious. "That's what I've been kickin' about. The other folks down stream are making so much noise that they'd give every trout in the brook nervous prostration. I tell you I came up here especially to be quiet about my fishing----"

"You may think you're funny, youngster," interrupted the man; "but you're fishin' just the same, aren't you?"

"Not so's you'd notice it," declared Short and Long. "All I've managed to do so far is to give my fly a chance to swim. Haven't even had a rise."

"I'll give yer a rise, confound ye!" roared the man, coming with a rush through the bushes. "Git out o' there, an' git out quick, or I'll set this dawg on ye!"

Here Lance took a hand in the affair. He shouted across the stream:

"Have a care, there, Mister! If that dog is savage, don't you turn him loose."

"Who the d.i.c.kens are _you_?" snarled the farmer. "This is my land, and it's posted, and this here is my dawg----"

"Let me have that pistol of yours, Purt," commanded Lance, firmly, reeling in his line.

The dude, who had stood open-mouthed and shaking, could not follow Lance's lead worth a cent. "You--you know, Lance," he stammered, "the pistol won't shoot----"

"Ho, ho!" cried the farmer, who had stopped abruptly when Lance had spoken. "Tryin' to scare me, was you? Now you step lively, or I'll let the dawg go."

"You poor sport!" gasped Lance, scowling at the shaking dude.

Short and Long, having tempted the fates far enough, was winding up his own line. And just before the fly left the surface of the water a trout jumped for it and caught the hook.

"Whee!" yelled Short and Long, as the line reeled out, singing shrilly.

"Stop that!" yelled the man. "That's my fish----"

"I can't help it," responded the boy from Central High. "I was reeling in, wasn't I? He came right up and jumped for my fly. Call off your old fish, if you don't want him caught on my hook and line."

But Billy Long was too saucy that time. He was playing the fish while he talked, just as well as he knew how. The farmer gave a yell, let the dog's strap run through his hand, and the beast, with an angry bay, dashed straight at the youthful fisherman.

Perhaps the farmer did not really intend doing such a cruel thing. For the dog would have torn Billy Long to pieces had he reached him.

There was a shout from across the stream--on the side where Laura stood--and a man leaped into the open. He carried a gun. As he reached the bank of the brook he threw up the shot-gun and erupted the contents of one barrel into the fore-shoulder of the angry dog.

The distance was scarcely two rods. The small shot peppered the dog well, and gave him a whole lot to think of beside grabbing a defenseless boy.

The farmer began to yell vociferously; the dog raised his voice even more loudly and, after falling and rolling over and over on the ground for a moment, he got to his feet and cut into the bushes like a flash.

He was more scared than hurt.

"I'll have you arrested for that!" yelled the dog's owner, shaking both clenched fists at the young man with the gun.

"You'd better thank me that the beast did not grab that boy," was the reply.

The young man with the gun seemed perfectly calm. He was a pale-faced young man, well dressed in a hunting suit, and with narrow boots on his rather small feet. He was doubtless a city sportsman.

"I bet I know who you be, ye scoundrel!" bawled the farmer.

The young man turned away instantly. Laura saw that he flushed and then paled again. He did not stop to say a word to the party of young folk from Centerport. Instead, he stepped into the thick underbrush and was almost instantly lost to their sight.

Short and Long had hastened to get over the border of the farmer's posted preserve. But he had brought the trout with him--and it weighed a good pound and a half!

CHAPTER XX

LAURA KEEPS HER SECRET

They left the farmer threatening vengeance upon the strange young man who had used his shot-gun to such good purpose.

"That fellow's all right, whoever he is," Lance declared. "And how quick he was with his gun!"

"He knows how to use one," Short and Long agreed, with admiration. "I wish I could have thanked him."

"And this dummy here!" added Lance, with a look of disgust at Purt.

"You had that old pistol in your pocket, didn't you?" he demanded of the dude.

"Ye-es," agreed Purt.

"Then if you had kept still about it, I could have scared that farmer into holding his dog in leash. Just as glad the brute was shot, though. He'll be tamed for a while, I bet!"

"It is too bad the dog was trained so badly," Laura said. "It is not his fault that he was taught to attack people."

"Well!" grunted Short and Long. "If he'd grabbed me, I reckon he'd have eaten me up before anybody could have helped."

"You had no business on that man's land," said Laura, admonishingly.

"And you _did_ sauce him."

"Ugh! who'd have thought he was so mean?" growled Short and Long.