Perhaps the boy in the tree guessed her thoughts, for once more he lowered his feet and kicked viciously at her as he chanted: "Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt, Drink some milk and make you fat, Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt." The faded calico bonnet caught on his toes and he tossed it high in the air, letting it fall far out in the dust of the road. Never pausing to see what was the fate of her possessions, the child let out one scream of animal rage, and with a tiger-like spring caught the feet of her enemy and jerked the coward off his perch. Taken off his guard, he fell heavily into the road, crushing her beneath him, and raising such a cloud of dust that both were nearly smothered; but with a dexterous twist she freed herself, and, unconscious of the dust, the boy's screams or the sound of answering shouts in the pasture nearby, she fell to pummelling her helpless victim with relentless fists, all the while screaming at the top of her voice, "I am a Tabby Catt, am I? I am scrawny and skinny, am I? Well, you're a coward, a good-for-nothing coward, and so is your big brother. He wouldn't dare fight Tom, and you wouldn't dare say such things to me if Tom was anywhere near. You're a bully, an overgrown baby, a 'fraid-cat! Yes, that's what you are! _I_ may be a Tabby Catt, but I'm _not_ a 'fraid-cat. I may be skinny and scrawny now, but I reckon you will be, too, when I get through with you, Joe Pomeroy! You're the sneakin'est sneak that ever lived--except your brother. 'Fraid-cat, sneak, sneak, sneak, s-n-e-a-k--" Words failed her. What could she say mean enough to express her contempt for the howling coward almost twice her size pinned under her knees, making no attempt to defend himself against the rain of blows falling wherever the avenging fists could strike? Suddenly she felt herself snatched from the back of her victim, held high in the air so her feet did not touch the ground, and shaken to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat. She twisted and turned and writhed and squirmed to free herself, thinking this must be the big brother punishing her for the drubbing she had given hapless Joe, and expecting any instant to feel the lash of his heavy herder's whip. But no whip struck her, and with one great tug she broke loose from the hand that gripped her shoulder, and confronted--not Sneed Pomeroy, the bully, but a tall, swarthy-faced man with a long beard and snapping black eyes, very much like her own, had she taken the time to notice it, who held her transfixed for a moment with his angry gaze. Amazed to find Joe's rescuer--for such he appeared to her--some one other than the big brother Sneed, and angered at the vigorous shaking he had given her, the child found vent for her outraged feelings in a horrible grimace at the stalwart man in front of her. With an exclamation of anger the stranger raised his hand as if to strike the girl, but she dodged the blow, and screamed in disdainful defiance: