Joses made for the cliff, where a fall had constituted a steep ramp. He scrambled up it, an avalanche of chalk slipping away from beneath his feet and half burying the pursuing dog. He panted up to the top of the ramp, and stood with his back to the cliff, looking down on his attacker. Billy Bluff could not make his footing good upon the shale. He lay at the foot of the cliff, one eye on his prey, licking his damaged paw, and swearing beneath his breath. And it was clear he did not mean to budge. Joses turned his face to the cliff. He got his hands on the top, and lifting himself, could just peer over the edge of the cliff and see the green and the gorse beyond. Unaided, he could do no more. Happily help was at hand. A man on a chestnut pony was standing on the turf not twenty yards away. "Give me a hand up, will you?" he panted. "That ---- of a dog!" The young man approached. "By all means," he said, in a deep, familiar voice. It was Silver. Joses did not mind that. He was not at all above taking a hand from an enemy in an emergency. And young Silver seemed surprisingly kind. Big men usually were. The young man got off his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave the perspiring tout his hand. With a heave and a lurch Joses scrambled to the top. How strong the fellow was! No horse would ever get away with _him_. "Good of you," panted the fat man, rising to his feet. "Not at all," replied Silver. "It was less trouble to pull you up than to come down to you." There was a note in his quiet voice Joses did not like. "What you mean?" he asked. "I'm going to give you a hiding," observed the other mildly. Joses looked aghast at his rescuer and snorted. He shot forward his shaggy face, and the action seemed to depress his chest and obtrude his stomach. "Whaffor?" he asked, in tones that betrayed the fact that such experiences were not entirely new to him. "I don't know," said Silver in his exasperatingly lazy way. "I feel I'd rather like to." He seemed quietly amused, much more so than was Joses. And he meant what he said. His clean, calm face, his mouth so determined and yet so mild, his steady eyes and the thrust of his jaw, all betrayed his resolution. "Here, stow it!" stammered the fat man. "Chuck the chaff. A gentleman!" "I'm not chaffing," said Silver in a matter-of-fact way. "How d'you like it?" "What ye mean?" "Will you put your hands up--or will you take it lying?" His pony's rein was over the young man's arm; and they were standing on the edge of the cliff. Joses, weighing his chances with the swift and comprehending eye of fear, marked it greedily. Silver was young, strong, an athlete; but he was handicapped. Joses's cunning was returning to reinforce his doubtful heart. "That's Heart of Oak, isn't it?" he asked. "Is it?" said the young man.