yards ensued before he was caught. But the old man was wiry and was
urged to his topmost speed by the press of the circumstances. He
caught "Dodd," and collared him with a grip such as the boy had never
before felt. He dragged the young rogue back to the barrel in no
gentle manner, and thrust the plug into the hole, saving a mere remnant
that remained of the contents of the cask, and then devoted himself to
the little scamp whom he still held.

For a few times in a lifetime Fortune puts into our hands the very
thing we most want at the very time we most want it, and this was one
of the times when the fickle goddess favored the old man Stebbins.

"Dodd" had dropped the riding whip that he had been using, beside the
barrel, and it lay where it fell. It was a tough bit of rawhide,
hard-twisted, and lithe. The old man's hand caught it instinctively,
as if drawn to it by an irresistible attraction, and before the young
lawbreaker, whom he held by the collar, could say, or think, "what
doest thou?" he plied it so vigorously about his legs and back that the
culprit thought for a moment that he had been struck by lightning. He
yelled from very pain for the first time in his life, from such a
cause, and tried to find breath or words to beg for a respite, but in
vain, for the blows fell thick and fast and they stung terribly, every
one.

"I'll teach you," the old man shouted as he laid on. "Perhaps you
think this is a little switch, and that I shall only tickle you with
it."

He paused a minute to let "Dodd" catch up with the general line of
thought, in his somewhat distracted mind, and while the youth danced