A boy of fifteen assailing a full-grown ruffian?

Why not?  Age hardly counts in such a matter, and then it is not every boy of even his “growth” that could have brought muscles like those of Dab Kinzer to the swing he gave that four feet length of seasoned ironwood.

Annie saw him coming, but her assailant did not until it was too late for anything but to turn and receive that first hit in front instead of behind.  It would have knocked over almost anybody, and the tramp measured his length on the ground, while Dabney plied the rod on him with all the energy he was master of.

“Oh, don’t, Dabney, don’t; you’ll kill him!” pleaded Annie.

“I wouldn’t want to do that,” said Dabney, but he added, to the tramp:  “Now you’d better get up and run for it.  If you are caught around here again it’ll be the worse for you.”

The vagabond staggered to his feet, looking savagely enough at Dab, but the latter seemed so very ready to put in another hit with that terrible cudgel, and the whole situation was so unpleasantly suggestive of further difficulty, that the youngster’s advice was taken without a word.

“Here it is.  I’ve found my pocket-book,” said Annie, as her enemy made the best of his way off.

“He did not hurt you?”

“No, he only scared me, except that I s’pose my arm will be black and blue where he caught it.  Thank you ever so much, Dabney!  You’re a brave boy.  Why, he’s almost twice your size.”

“Yes, but the butt end of my rod is twice as hard as his head,” replied Dabney.  “I was almost afraid to strike him with it, because I might have broken his skull.”

“You didn’t even break your rod.”

“No, and now I must run back for the other pieces and the tip.  I dropped them in the road.”

“Please, Dabney, see me home first,” said Annie.  “I know it’s foolish and there isn’t a bit of danger, but I must confess to being rather frightened.”

Dab Kinzer was a little the proudest boy on Long Island, as he marched along in compliance with her request.  He went no further than the gate, to be sure, and then returned for the rest of his rod, but, before he got home, Keziah hurried back from a call on Mrs. Foster, bringing a tremendous account of Dab’s heroism, and then his own pride was a mere drop in the bucket compared to that of his mother.

“Dabney is growing wonderfully,” she remarked to Samantha.  “He’ll be a man before any of us know it.”

If Dabney had been a man, however, or if Ham Morris or Mr. Foster had been at home, the matter would not have been permitted to drop there.  That tramp ought to have been followed, arrested and shut up where his vicious propensities could have been restrained for a while.  As it was, after hurrying on for a short distance and making sure that he was not pursued, he sprang over the fence and sneaked into the nearest clump of bushes.  From this safe covert he watched Dab Kinzer’s return after the lighter joints of his rod, and then even dared to crouch along the fence until he saw which house his young conqueror went into.