The Corner House Girls on a Tour

“Keep away from here,” commanded the ugly man, to Neale.

“I guess not,” responded the boy sharply. “You don’t seem to be doing anything to help him.”

“What did he want to get tangled up with the ram for, then?” demanded the fellow.

“He was trying to help the poor Billy goat,” Tess sobbed, from the shelter of Agnes’ arms.

“You city folks are too fresh, anyhow,” cried one of the ragged children. “We ought to stone you kids. Hadn’t we, Uncle Jim?”

But the man was busy with Neale. “Let that rope alone!” he commanded, as the boy approached the entangled Sammy.

“Stand out of my way,” said Neale, taking out his pocketknife and opening the big blade. “And run your old sheep out of here when I cut him free.”

“Don’t you do that!” cried the man.

But with one stroke of the sharp blade Neale freed both the ram and Sammy.

“Ba-a-a! Bla-a-a-t!” uttered the ram, and shook his horns threateningly at Neale.

“Butt him, Dewey!” yelled the ragamuffins.

But Neale delivered a hearty kick that resounded upon the ram’s ribs. With another blat the beast switched around, lowered his head, and charged directly at the ugly man.

“Git out, ye derned nuisance!” yelled the fellow, and only by leaping high and spreading wide his legs did he escape the ram’s furious charge.

Missing his object, the ram kept on across the field and, whooping, the rag-and-bobtail crew strung along after him. The man remained to bluster and threaten Neale for a while; but the boy from Milton paid very little attention to him.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Agnes kept saying, and the little girls, thoroughly frightened, kept urging the same thing.

But when they got down into the ravine again, and the ugly man was out of sight, Agnes sent the trio of little folks ahead, and said to Neale:

“Do you know, Neale, who that horrid man was?”

“Huh?” grunted Neale, puzzled.

“Didn’t you see who he was when he stood right there before you?”

“Er – ‘Hawkshaw, the detective’!” scoffed Neale, grinning widely.

“Don’t try to be funny,” implored Agnes. “Where were your eyes? That was the man we saw the last time with Saleratus Joe, when they passed us in that strange automobile,” declared the girl earnestly.

“No?” gasped Neale.

“Yes, it was. I could never forget his ugly face. He is the very man, I believe, who helped Joe steal Mr. Collinger’s car.”

Neale wagged his head. “Whether he is one of the thieves or not, he’s a bad man all right. You can see that,” the boy agreed. “I wonder if we ought to hunt up Sheriff Keech?” But they were a long way from the residence of the sheriff whose acquaintance they had previously made.

That night the touring party stopped with the blacksmith and his wife. The Shepards had not returned to this neighborhood, and the Corner House party did not wish to waste any time. They were to make a long detour from this point before going back to Milton. They desired to see a part of the country altogether strange to them.

“Shall we go around by the Higgins farm again?”

That was the query Neale O’Neil propounded before bedtime that evening after they had eaten another of “Mother’s” wonderful suppers.

“I don’t really see the use,” Mrs. Heard said. “I haven’t heard a word from Philly Collinger about it. And I told him everything that Gypsy told you, Neale.”

“And how Neale hunted in the barn and found no trace of Mr. Collinger’s car?” suggested Ruth.

“Oh, yes.”

“But he did find something!” cried Agnes.

“What did he find, I’d like to know?” asked her sister.

“He saw where the auto wheels had skidded on the path going up to the barn – didn’t you, Neale?”

“Yes,” the boy agreed. “But the car wasn’t there.”

“Pooh! you didn’t find it,” said the girl scornfully.

“My goodness, Aggie!” cried Ruth, “when you set out to be, you can be the most stubborn person!”

“Oh, well,” Mrs. Heard said soothingly, “what if we do go around by that barn and satisfy Agnes? It won’t be much out of our way.”

It was over a good bit of rough road, however, and that rough road brought calamity to the Corner House car. Neale O’Neil knew something was wrong before they had climbed the long hill to the level of the Higgins farm.

“What’s that thumping noise, Neale?” asked the sharp-eared Agnes, who had chosen to ride with the young chauffeur and Sammy and Tom Jonah in the front of the machine.

Neale was scowling. “Ask me an easier one,” he growled. “I’m no soothsayer.”

“Well! you needn’t be so pie-crusty,” she said. “Is the car falling to pieces?”

“Maybe.”

“Why don’t you stop and find out?”

“On this hill? Not much!” declared the boy, his brow still wrinkled with anxiety.

“Well! It’s – go-ing – to – stop!” jerked out the prophetic Agnes, as the wheels of the rumbling car seemed to turn more and more slowly.

“What is the matter?” demanded Ruth, from the tonneau. “Is the car stopping?”

Neale manipulated the levers, and the engine roared spitefully; but the speed did not increase, and that sepulchral thumping under the car continued.

“I hope you haven’t run out of gasoline again, Neale?” suggested Mrs. Heard.

Neale grunted. Agnes giggled. “My! you could bite nails, couldn’t you?” she whispered.

It was most exasperating – no mistake about it! The machine had acted so well all along, that perhaps he had grown careless. Yet Neale could not imagine what it was that had happened now. And away out here in the wilderness! He was sure that rumbling and thumping spelled trouble.