minute as if Allie was going to have a fit, but he choked it down.

"'Look here!' he says. 'I know who you are. Just because the gov'ner
has been soft enough to let you countrymen walk all over him, it don't
foller that I'm going to be. I'm boss here for this summer. My name's--'
He told me his name, and how his dad had turned the place over to him
for the season, and a lot more. 'I put those signs up,' he says, 'to
keep just such fellers as you are off my property. They mean that you
ain't to cross the field. Understand?'

"I understood. I was mad clean through, but I'm law-abiding, generally
speaking. 'All right,' I says, picking up my dreeners and starting for
the farther fence; 'I won't cross it again.'

"'You won't cross it now,' says he. 'Go back where you come from.'

"That was a grain too much. I told him a few things. He didn't wait for
the benediction. 'Take him, Prince!' he says, dropping the chain.

"Prince was willing. He fetched a kind of combination hurrah and growl
and let out for me full-tilt. I don't feed good fresh clams to dogs as
a usual thing, but that mouth HAD to be filled. I waited till he was
almost on me, and then I let drive with one of the dreeners. Prince and
a couple of pecks of clams went up in the air like a busted bomb-shell,
and I broke for the fence I'd started for. I hung on to the other
dreener, though, just out of principle.

"But I had to let go of it, after all. The dog come out of the collision
looking like a plate of scrambled eggs, and took after me harder'n ever,
shedding shells and clam juice something scandalous. When he was right