Old Bobtail was a gentle beast nearly all the time, but he did not like Dingo any better than Dingo liked him, so he began to climb right out of the water, grunting and wallowing about in a way to scare even an elephant or a tiger if there had been any such beasts about, which of course there were not.

The white heron screamed and flew away to the mangrove swamp with her long legs streaming out behind her. The ducks swam up the river as fast as they could go, and as for Dingo and the Twins, they ran like a streak of lightning for home. Of course Dingo got there first. He ran under the house, and was already hidden beneath the farm wagon when the Twins scrambled up the steps and dashed into the kitchen.

"Oh! Oh!" cried their mother, "you can't have caught any crabs in this time! Why are you back so soon?"

She looked up from her frying-pan and saw their scared faces. She heard Dingo whining under the house.

"What in the world is the matter?" she cried, gazing at them in surprise.

"Bobtail!" gasped the terror-stricken Twins. "He chased us! He's mad as anything!"

Their mother dropped the banana she was just about to put in the frying-pan. "Where is he now?" she asked. "He must have broken down the fence, for your father put him in the pasture when he came back from the field."

She ran to the door and looked out. There was Bobtail in the dooryard, dripping with mud and grunting with rage.

"The saints preserve us, the beast has gone mad!" she cried, slamming the door shut, as if she thought he might try to climb the steps and come into the kitchen. "He has been dragging the plow all day in the rice-field. Perhaps the heat has crazed him! He may run away and get himself stolen! Ay! Whatever should we do without old Bobtail? Your father could not finish plowing the field nor carry our rice to market when it is grown, and Heaven knows how we should live at all if anything should happen to our rice crop this year, too! Where is your father?"

"We don't know. We haven't seen him," wailed the Twins.

Their mother ran to the front of the house, slid back the shell window, and looked out. There, directly before her, lay the blue waters of Manila Bay, dotted with the sails of fishing-boats. Of course, her husband was not there. She looked to the left. There was the shore-line stretching along the bay, but there was no one in sight. She looked to the right, across the river which emptied itself into the bay not far from the house. There was the fishing-raft safely tied to the coconut tree, but Felix was not on the raft.

"Ay! Ay!" she cried to the children. "Your father is nowhere to be seen!"

She ran to the kitchen window and called, "Felix! Felix!"

The Twins stuck their heads out too and shouted, "Father! Father!"

When he heard their voices, Dingo under the house gave a mournful howl. Old Bobtail heard him, and the voice of his enemy seemed to rouse him to fresh fury. There was a ring in his nose and a rope was fastened to the ring. The rope had been tied to one of his horns to keep it out of the way, but in his fit of temper it had become loosened and now was hanging on the ground. When Dingo howled, old Bobtail shook his head angrily and started toward the house. In doing so he stepped on the rope and pulled his own nose. This was too much!

Maybe he thought Dingo had pulled his nose. Anyway, he gave a savage grunt and plunged forward as if he meant to find him. He was too big to get under the house, and besides there was a bamboo lattice to keep him out, but he put his head down and looked through the opening by the kitchen steps. When Dingo saw the carabao's nose so near him, he yelped as if he had fallen again on a maguey plant. Then he dashed through a hole in the lattice on the opposite side of the house and never stopped running until he was out of sight. He ran through the coconut grove, past the clump of banana trees, past the bamboos along the river, and sat down at last with his tongue hanging out, on top of a little hill back of the rice-field.

Just then around the corner of the house came the Twins' father, carrying the empty basket in one hand and in the other the bamboo pail which held the milk. When he saw the basket old Bobtail thought there might be something good to eat in it; so he came lumbering along toward his master.

"Come in, come in quick!" screamed the children and their mother. "He's as mad as he can be!" They thought old Bobtail might try to toss Felix up in the air, as carabaos sometimes do when they are angry.

But Felix was not afraid. He held out the basket, and the great beast stopped and sniffed at it. "Poor old Bobtail!" said Felix, "it was hot in the rice-field; wasn't it?"

"He chased us!" cried Rita.

"We ran home as fast as we could," shouted Ramon.

"Dingo barked at him," explained the mother. "It made Bobtail angry, and now Dingo has run away."

Felix handed the milk to Petra. "Bring me some water," he said to Ramon.

Ramon ran into the kitchen and brought out a long bamboo tube filled with water. His father emptied it on the carabao's back, then old Bobtail acted as pleased as a cat when its fur is stroked.

"He is quiet enough now," said Felix. "It was only a passing fit of anger. He was hot and tired, and that pest of a Dingo must have driven him wild. He deserves a beating. Come, Ramon, there is no more danger. Climb up on his back and drive him to pasture." Ramon was used to taking care of the carabao and, no longer afraid of him, he ran down the steps, seized Bobtail's stumpy tail, and planting one foot firmly against his hind leg, climbed to a seat on his broad back.

His father took the rope's end in his hand and started toward the pasture. Good-tempered, lazy, and slow-moving once more, the carabao followed patiently after him.

Rita and her mother watched them from the kitchen door, and when they saw that all danger was past, turned back to the stove where their supper was cooking. Alas! it was not cooking any more. The fire had gone out and the rice was only half done.

Rita ran for more sticks, her mother blew on the coals and fed the flames with dry leaves and twigs, and soon the pot was bubbling away merrily again.

Ramon and his father were gone for some time, for they had to mend the bamboo fence around the pasture where old Bobtail had broken through. When they came home, supper was waiting for them, and, although there was not as much rice as they would have liked, there were plenty of fried bananas, and Petra had also cooked some dried fish, since there were no crabs.