CHAPTER VI
A TRANSACTION IN MUTTON
The man who approached was a fierce, red-faced individual, with longlegs encased to the knees in cowhide boots, overalls, a checked shirt,and a whisp of yellow whisker under his chin that parted and waved, ashe strode toward the auto party.
His pale blue eyes were ablaze, and he had worked himself up into atowering rage. Like many farmers (and sometimes for cause), he hadevidently sworn eternal feud against all automobilists!
"What d'ye mean, runnin' inter my sheep?" he bawled. "I'll have the lawon ye! I'll make ye pay for ev'ry sheep ye killed! I'll attach yermachine, by glory! I'll put ye all in jail! I'll----"
"You're going to have your hands full with all _that_, Mister,"interrupted Tom Cameron. "And you're excited more than is necessary.I'll pay for all the damage I've done--although there would have beennone at all, had your sheep remained in their pasture. This is a countyroad, I take it."
"By glory!" exclaimed the farmer, arriving at the spot at last. "Thisroad was built for folks ter drive over decent. Nobody reckoned onlocomotives, an' sich comin' this way, when 'twas built--no, sir-ree!"
"I'm sorry," began Tom, but the man broke in:
"Thet don't pay me none for havin' all my sheep made into mutton b'foretheir time. By glory! I got an attic home full o' 'sorries.' Ye can'tgit out o' it thet way."
"I am not trying to. I'll pay for any sheep I have hurt or killed," Tomsaid, unable to keep from grinning at the excited farmer.
"And don't ye git sassy none, neither!" commanded the man. "I'm one o'the school trustees in this deestrict, an' the church clerk. I got someinfluence. I guess if I arrested ye right naow--an' these gals, too--thejestice of the peace would consider I done jest right."
"Oh!" murmured Helen, clinging to Ruth's hand.
"He can't do it," whispered the latter.
"I feel sure, sir," said Tom, politely, "that it will be unnecessary foryou to go to such lengths. I will pay satisfactory damages. There is thelamb we struck--and the only beast that is hurt."
The man had given but one glance to the lamb that lay on the grassbeside the girls. He did not look to be any too tender-hearted, and thelittle creature's accident did not touch him at all--save in the regionof his pocketbook.
He stepped to the gap in the fence, kicked the bleating ewe out of theway in a most brutal manner, and proceeded to count his flock. He had todo this twice before he was assured that none but the lamb was missing.
"You see," Tom said, quietly, "I have turned only one of your sheep intomutton--for I suppose this lamb must be killed."
"Oh, no, Tom!" cried Ruth, who was bending over the little creatureagain. "I am sure its leg will mend."
The farmer snorted. "Don't want no crippled critters erbout. Ye'llhafter pay me full price for that lamb, boy--then I'll give it to thedogs. 'Tain't no good the way it is."
Ruth had tied the leg firmly with her own handkerchief--which was ofpractical size. "If we could put it in splints, and keep the lamb still,it would mend," she declared to Helen.
"What do you consider the thing worth, sir?" asked Tom.
"Four dollars," declared the farmer, promptly. It was not worth two,even at the present price of lamb, for the creature was neither big norfat.
"Here you are," said Tom, and thrust four one-dollar notes into hishand.
The man stared at them, and from them to Tom. He really seemeddisappointed. Perhaps he wished he had said more, when Tom did nothaggle over the price.
"Wal, I'll take it along to the house then," said the farmer. "An' whenye come this road ag'in, young man, ye better go a leetle slow--yaas, aleetle slow!"
"I certainly shall--as long as you have gaps in your sheep pasturefence," returned Tom, promptly.
"Git out'n the way, leetle gal," said the man, brushing Ruth aside."I'll take him----"
The lamb struggled to get on its feet. The sudden appearance of the manfrightened the animal.
"Stop that!" cried Ruth. "You'll hurt the poor thing."
"I'll knock him in the head, when I git to the chopping block," said thefarmer, roughly. "Shucks! it's only a lamb."
"Don't you dare!" Ruth cried, standing in front of the quiveringcreature. "You are cruel."
"Hoity-toity!" cried the farmer. "I guess I kin do as I please with myown."
Helen clung to Ruth's hand and tried to draw her away from the roughman. Even Tom hesitated to arouse the farmer's wrath further. But thegirl from the Red Mill stamped her foot and refused to move.
"Don't you dare touch it!" she exclaimed. "It isn't your lamb."
"What's that?" he demanded, and then broke into a hoarse laugh. "Thetthar's a good one! I raised thet lamb----"
"And we have just bought it--paid you your own price for it," criedRuth.
"Crickey! that's so, Ruthie," Tom Cameron interposed. "Of course hedoesn't own it. If you want the poor thing, we'll take it along to FredLarkin's place."
"Say!" exclaimed the farmer. "What does this mean? I didn't sell ye thecarcass of thet thar lamb; I only got damages----"
"You sold it. You know you did," Ruth declared, firmly. "I dare you totouch the poor little thing. It is ours--and I know its life can besaved."
"Pick it right up, girls, and come on," advised Tom, starting hisengine. "We have the rights of it, and if he interferes, we'll just runon to the next town and bring a constable back with us. I guess we cancall upon the authorities, too. What's sauce for the goose, ought to besauce for the gander."
The man was stammering some very impolite words, and Tom was anxious toget his sister and Ruth away. The girls lifted the lamb in upon the backseat and laid it tenderly upon some wraps. Then the boy leaped into thefront seat and prepared to start.
"I tell ye what it is!" exclaimed the farmer, coming close to the car."This ain't no better than highway robbery. I never expected ter have yetake the carcass away, when I told ye sich a low price----"
"I have paid its full value, and you don't own a thread of its wool,Mister," said Tom, feeling the engine throb under him now. "I'm going tostart----"
"You wait! I ain't got through with you----"
Just then the car started. The man had been holding to the end of theseat. He foolishly tried to continue his hold.
The car sprang ahead suddenly, the farmer was swung around like a top,and the last they saw of him he was sitting in the middle of the dustyroad, shaking both fists after the car, and yelling at the top of hisvoice. Just what he said, it was perhaps better that they did not hear!
"Wasn't he a mean old thing?" cried Tom, when the car was purring alongsteadily.
"And wasn't Ruth smart to see that he had no right to this poor littlesheep?" said Helen, admiringly.
"What you going to do with it, Ruthie?" demanded Tom, glancing back atthe lamb. "Going to sell it to a butcher in Littletop? That's whereFred Larkin's folk live, you know."
"Sell it to a butcher!" exclaimed Ruth, in scorn. "That's what thefarmer would have done--butchered it."
"It is the fate of most sheep to be turned into mutton," returned Tom,his eyes twinkling.
"And then the mutton is turned into boys and girls," laughed Ruth. "Butif I have my way, this little fellow will never become either a Cameron,or a Fielding."
"Oh! I wouldn't want to eat him--after seeing him hurt," cried Helen."Isn't he cunning? See! he knows we are going to be good to him."
"I hope he knows it," her chum replied. "After all, it doesn't take muchto assure domestic animals of our good intentions toward them."
"Well," said Tom, grinning, "I promise not to eat this lamb, if you makea point of it, but if I don't get something to eat pretty soon, I assureyou he'll be in grave danger!"
They made Littletop and the Larkins' residence before Tom became tooravenous, however; and the younger members of the Larkin family welcomedthe adventurers--including the lamb--with enthusiasm.
Fred Larkin had some little aptitude for medicine and surgery--so theyall said, at least--and he
set the broken leg and put splints upon it.Then they put the little creature in one of the calf pens, fed itliberally, and Fred declared that in ten days it would be well enough tohop around.
The little Larkin folk were delighted with the lamb for a pet, so Ruthknew that she could safely trust her protege to them.
There was great fun that night, for the neighboring young folk wereinvited to meet the trio from Cheslow and the Red Mill, and it wasmidnight before the girls and boys were still. Therefore, there was noearly start made for the second day's run.
Breakfast was late, and it was half-past nine before Tom started thecar, and they left Littletop amid the cheers and good wishes of theirfriends.
"We must hustle, if we want to get to Uncle Ike's before dark," Tomdeclared. "So you will have to stand for some scorching, girls."
"See that you don't kill anything--or even maim it," advised his sister."You are out four dollars for damages already."
"Never you mind. I reckon you girls won't care to be marooned along someof these wild roads all night."
"Nor to travel over them by night, either," advised Ruth. "My! wehaven't seen a house for ten miles."
"It's somewhere up this way that those Gypsy friends of Roberto areencamped--as near as I could make out," Tom remarked.
"My! I wouldn't like to meet them," his sister said.
"They wouldn't hurt us--at least, Roberto didn't," laughed Ruth.
"That's all right. But Gypsies _do_ carry off people----"
"And eat them?" scoffed Tom. "How silly, Nell!"
"Well, Mr. Smartie! they might hold us for ransom."
"Like regular brigands, eh?" returned Tom, lightly. "That _would_ be anadventure worth chronicling."
"You can laugh----Oh!"
As she was speaking, Helen saw a head thrust out of the bushes not faralong the road they traveled.
"What's the matter?" demanded Ruth, seizing her arm.
"Look there!" But the car was past the spot in a moment. "Somebody waswatching us, and dodged back," declared Helen, anxiously.
"Oh, nonsense!" laughed her brother.
But before they took the next turn they looked back and saw two menstanding in the road, talking. They were rough-looking fellows.
"Gypsies!" cried Helen.
However, they saw nobody else for a few miles. Now they were skirtingone of the lakes in the upper chain, some miles above the gorge wherethe dam was built, and the scenery was both beautiful and rugged. Therewere few farms.
On a rising stretch of road, the engine began to miss, and somethingrattled painfully in the "internal arrangements" of the car. Tom lookedserious, stopped several times, and just coaxed her slowly to the summitof the hill.
"Now don't tell us that we're going to have a breakdown!" cried Helen.
"Do you think those are thunder-heads hanging over the mountain?" askedRuth, seriously.
"Sure of it!" responded Helen.
"You are a regular 'calamity howler'!" exclaimed Tom. "By Jove! this oldmill _is_ going to kick up rusty."
"There's a house!" cried Ruth, gaily, standing up in the back to lookahead. "Now we're all right if the machine has to be repaired, or astorm bursts upon us."
But when the car limped up and stopped in the sandy road before thesagging gate, the trio saw that their refuge was a windowless andabandoned structure that looked as gaunt and ghostly as alightning-riven tree!