Nearer, nearer, came the dog; he was not a rod off. Paul had read that no animal can withstand the steady gaze of the human eye. He looked the dog steadily in the face. He held his breath. Not a nerve trembled. The dog stopped, looked at Paul a moment, broke into a louder growl, opened his jaws wider, his eyes glaring more wildly, and stepped slowly forward. Now or never, Paul thought, was his time. The breech of the gun touched his shoulder; his eye ran along the barrel,--bang! the dog rolled over with a yelp and a howl, but was up again, growling and trying to get at Paul, who in an instant seized his gun by the barrel, and brought the breech down upon the dog's skull, giving him blow after blow. "Kill him! kill him!" shouted the people from the windows. "Give it to him! Mash his head!" cried Hans from the tree. The dog soon became a mangled and bloody mass of flesh and bones. The people came out from their houses. "That was well done for a boy," said Mr. Funk. "Or for a man either," said Mr. Chrome, who came up and patted Paul on his back. "I should have thrown my lapstone at him, if I could have got my window open," said Mr. Leatherby. Mr. Noggin, the cooper, who had taken refuge in Leatherby's shop, afterwards said that Leatherby was frightened half to death, and kept saying, "Just as like as not he will make a spring and dart right through the window." "Nobly, bravely done, Paul," said Judge Adams. "Let me shake hands with you, my boy." He and Mrs. Adams and Azalia had seen it all from their parlor window. "O Paul, I was afraid he would bite and kill you, or that your gun would miss fire. I trembled all over just like a leaf," said Azalia, still pale and trembling. "O, I am so glad you have killed him!" She looked up into his face earnestly, and there was such a light in her eyes, that Paul was glad he had killed the dog, for her sake. "Weren't you afraid, Paul?" she asked. "No. If I had been afraid, I should have missed him, perhaps; I made up my mind to kill him, and what was the use of being afraid." Many were the praises bestowed upon Paul. "How noble! how heroic!" the people said. Hans told the story to all the boys in the village. "Paul was just as cool as--cool as--a cucumber," he said, that being the best comparison he could think of. The people came and looked at the dog, to see how large he was, and how savage, and went away saying, "I am glad he is dead, but I don't see how Paul had the courage to face him." Paul went home and told his mother what had happened. She turned pale while listening to the story, and held her breath, and clasped her hands; but when he had finished, and when she thought that, if Paul had not killed the dog, many might have been bitten, she was glad, and said, "You did right, my son. It is our duty to face danger if we can do good." A tear glistened in her eye as she kissed him. "God bless you, Paul," she said, and smiled through her tears. He remembered it for many a day.