"Well, he has got a very savage dog and has posted signs all over his place, 'Beware of the Dog!' Two or three of the fellows, who were crossing his corner lot one day, came near being bitten."
"Were you one of them?" asked Roger.
"Yes, and we weren't doing anything either—only crossing the vacant lot to take a short-cut to the school, to avoid being late."
"I was in the crowd," said Luke Watson, "and I had a good mind to kill the dog."
"We'll have to go over some day and see Marcy," said Phil. "I haven't forgotten how he accused me of stealing his apples."
"He once accused me of stealing a chicken," put in a boy named Messmer. "I'd like to take him down a peg or two for that."
"Let us go over to his place next week some time and tease him," suggested another boy named Henshaw, and some of the others said they would bear his words in mind.
Messmer and Henshaw were the owners of an ice-boat named the Snowbird. They had built the craft themselves, and, while it was not very handsome, it had good going qualities, and that was all the boys wanted.
"Come on out in the Snowbird," said Henshaw, to Dave and several of the others, on the following Saturday afternoon, when there was no school.
