Dick stationed Gable in a convenient tree, with strict orders to cry ‘nit’ should anybody come in sight from the black clump of fir-trees surrounding the squatter’s house.  Then he led his party over the fence and along thick lines of currant bushes, creeping under their cover to where the beautiful white-heart cherries hung ripening in the sun.  Dick was very busy indeed in the finest of the trees when the note of warning came from Ted McKnight.

‘Nit! nit!  Nit!  Here comes Jock with a dog.’

Dick was last in the rush.  He saw the two McKnights safe away, and was following Peterson, full of hope, when there came a rush of feet behind and he was sent sprawling by a heavy body striking him between the shoulders.  When he was quite able to grasp the situation he found himself on the broad of his back, with a big mastiff lying on his chest, one paw on either side of his head, and a long, warm tongue lolling in his face with affectionate familiarity.  The expression in the dog’s eye, he noticed, was decidedly genial, but its attitude was firm.  The amiable eye reassured him; he was not going to be eaten, but at the same time he was given to understand that that dog would do his duty though the heavens fell.

A minute later the mastiff was whistled off; Dick was taken by the ear and gently assisted to his feet, and stood defiantly under the stern eye of a rugged, spare-boned, iron-grey Scotchman, six feet high, and framed like an iron cage.  Jock retained his hold on the boy’s ear.

‘Eh, eh, what is it, laddie?’ he said, ‘enterin’ an’ stealin’, enterin’ an’ stealin’.  A monstrous crime.  Come wi’ me.’

Dick followed reluctantly, but the grip on his ear lobe was emphatic, and in his one short struggle for freedom he felt as if he were grappling with the great poppet-legs at the Silver Stream.  Summers paused for a moment.

‘Laddie,’ he said, ‘d’ye mind my wee bit dog?’

The dog capered like a frivolous cow, flopped his ears, and exhibited himself in a cheerful, well-meaning way.

‘If ye’d rather, laddie, the dog will bring ye home,’ continued the man.

‘Skite!’ said Dick, with sullen scorn; but he went quietly after that.

At the house they were met by Christina Shine, and Dick blushed furiously under her gaze of mild surprise.  Christina had been a member of the Summers household for over five years, ever since the death of her mother, and had won herself a position there, something like that of a beloved poor relation with light duties and many liberties.

‘Dickie, Dickie, what have you been doing this time?’ asked Miss Chris.

‘Robbin’ my fruit-trees, my dear.  What might we do with him, d’ye think?’

Miss Chris thought for a minute with one finger pressed on her lip.

‘We might let him go,’ she said, with the air of one making rather a clever suggestion.

‘Na, na, na; we canna permit such crimes to go unpunished.’