"Now you'll stay there until I choose to let you come down," he gloated, "and that'll be some time yet, I'm telling you. You'll have to go without your supper, and you'll have time to think over what a graceless scamp you are." Garry said nothing. Jacob Fish enjoyed his triumph for a few moments, and then, as the chill evening air struck his bare head uncomfortably, he moved toward the house. "I'll be watching you from the window," he said as he moved away. "But Roy will stay here to bear you company. I guess he'll hold you for a while. He he!" And he cackled shrilly. He went inside the house, and a moment later Garry saw him at a window, where he had settled himself comfortably to enjoy the boy's discomfiture. Garry lowered himself to a branch only a few feet over the dog's snapping jaws. The beast growled ominously. "Hello, Roy!" Garry said, in the caressing tone he had always used toward the animal. "What's the matter with you, old fellow! Don't you know a friend when you see one?" At sight and sound of him Roy seemed puzzled. The deep growl died in his throat. His ears cocked forward inquiringly. He stepped about the tree daintily, mincingly, as though about to play. Garry, from the corner of his eye, saw that the change in the dog's attitude had not been lost upon its master. Jacob Fish had started from his chair and was staring bewilderedly at the two. But Garry now was willing to stake all on a chance. He dropped quickly to the ground and went up to Roy, putting his hand on his head in friendly fashion. "Good old boy!" he said. "I knew you wouldn't go back on a friend. Thoroughbreds never do." Roy snuggled up closer to him and rubbed against him. With a face purple with suppressed fury, Jacob Fish threw up the window. "Wh-what does this mean!" he sputtered. "Leave my dog alone, you young scoundrel! Get out of here before I put you out." "I'm going," said Garry calmly. "You'd better!" shouted the man. "G-get out before I lose my t-temper." Garry thought to himself that that temper had been lost some time before. He gave a final pat to the dog's head and started toward the gate. His foot struck against something, and seeing that it was the football, he picked it up and got out into the street. As he rounded the tall hedge that closed in the Fish grounds he came face to face with his twin sister, Ella, and her chum, Jane Danter. "Oh, Garry," giggled Ella. "We saw you in the tree and thought you were a new kind of bird. My, but you did look funny!" CHAPTER VI Getting into Swing "I probably looked lots funnier than I felt," replied Garry Grayson to his sister, reddening sheepishly. "You were having some trouble with that awful Fish man, weren't you?" asked Jane Danter, as the three walked down the street together. "Trouble's no name for it!" answered Garry. "It looked for a while as though I were treed for fair. And all for the sake of this pigskin!"