Watching her opportunity, she stole softly behind the struggling animal, and, by a dextrous movement, slipped the end of her parasol, which was quite a stout one, into his collar, and then, with all her strength, drove it into the ground and held it there, though the creature struggled furiously to release himself. Her face had not an atom of color in it, but her lips did not falter as she said to the horror-stricken girl watching her: “Go now quickly and call help for me, for, small as he is, I cannot hold him long.” Josephine did not need a second bidding, but went shrieking back to the company in a way to arouse the dead almost. She had not been gone two minutes—though those two minutes seemed like an age to Star, who found an almost superhuman strength in that writhing, twisting thing at her feet—when the bushes behind her parted again, and the same gentleman who had met and warned her of this danger sprang toward her, with his gun cocked and aimed at the dog. His face was almost as colorless as her own. “Can you hold him just an instant longer?—will you _dare_ hold him while I shoot him? I will not harm you in the least,” he questioned, in rapid tones. “Yes, I _will_ hold him,” she said, resolutely. “If I let him loose now, he will surely bite somebody.” Although she spoke so steadily and with so much fortitude, she _looked_ like some beautiful spirit from another world, and the gentleman knew he must do what he had to do quickly, or it would be too late. There was an instant of silence, then a quick, sharp report rang through the woods, and the little danger-fiend lay bleeding and dead at her feet. All peril was past. Star had saved an enemy from a horrible fate—she had done a heroic deed; but the tension on her own nerves gave way when it was over. She swayed, tottered, and would have fallen to the ground, but another figure sprang through the bushes to her side, and her fainting form was received into the strong arms of Ralph Meredith. CHAPTER XXIX. JOSEPHINE’S INGRATITUDE. Confusion reigned during the next half hour among the company who had hitherto been so gay. Josephine Richards had rushed into their midst, startling everybody out of their senses by shrieking out: “Go to Miss Gladstone! A mad dog! a mad dog!” It was all that she could say, for she immediately after sank down helpless in a violent fit of hysterics, while the women, with white faces, huddled together in fear and trembling, and the men, with horrified eyes and quaking hearts, ran hither and thither in search of Star. Then there had come that quick, sharp report, directing them to the spot, and telling them that all danger to them was past. But the terrible question arose: “Was Miss Gladstone safe?” Ralph Meredith, his feet winged with love and fear, was, as we have seen, first upon the scene of the tragedy, and caught her frantically to his heart just as she was falling to the ground.