The bullet flew high and to the right, smashing a second-story window and making the echoes resound deafeningly through the narrow street.
"What's up?" excitedly asked a boy, who stood beside a barrel bonfire with a group of chums.
"Mad dog!" puffed the policeman as he sped past.
At once the boys joined gleesomely in the chase, outdistancing the officer, just as the latter fired a second shot.
Lad felt a white-hot ridge of pain cut along his left flank like a whip-lash. He wheeled to face his invisible foe, and he found himself looking at a half-dozen boys who charged whoopingly down on him. Behind the boys clumped a man in blue flourishing something bright.
Lad had no taste for this sort of attention. Always he had loathed strangers, and these new strangers seemed bent on catching hi
