A TRANSACTION IN MUTTON
The man who approached was a fierce, red-faced individual, with long legs encased to the knees in cowhide boots, overalls, a checked shirt, and a whisp of yellow whisker under his chin that parted and waved, as he strode toward the auto party.
His pale blue eyes were ablaze, and he had worked himself up into a towering rage. Like many farmers (and sometimes for cause), he had evidently sworn eternal feud against all automobilists!
"What d'ye mean, runnin' inter my sheep?" he bawled. "I'll have the law on ye! I'll make ye pay for ev'ry sheep ye killed! I'll attach yer machine, 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 been none at all, had your sheep remained in their pasture. This is a county road, I take it."
"By glory!" exclaimed the farmer, arriving at the spot at last. "This road was built for folks ter drive over decent. Nobody reckoned on locomotives, 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'fore their time. By glory! I got an attic home full o' 'sorries.' Ye can't git out o' it thet way."
"I am not trying to. I'll pay for any sheep I have hurt or killed," Tom said, 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 some influence. I guess if I arrested ye right naow—an' these gals, too—the jestice 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 for you to go to such lengths. I will pay satisfactory damages. There is the lamb we struck—and the only beast that is hurt."
The man had given but one glance to the lamb that lay on the grass beside the girls. He did not look to be any too tender-hearted, and the little creature's accident did not touch him at all—save in the region of his pocketbook.
He stepped to the gap in the fence, kicked the bleating ewe out of the way in a most brutal manner, and proceeded to count his flock. He had to do 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 into mutton—for I suppose this lamb must be killed."
"Oh, no, Tom!" cried Ruth, who was bending over the little creature again. "I am sure its leg will mend."
The farmer snorted. "Don't want no crippled critters erbout. Ye'll hafter pay me full price for that lamb, boy—then I'll give it to the dogs. 'Tain't no good the way it is."
Ruth had tied the leg firmly with her own handkerchief—which was of practical 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 nor fat.
"Here you are," said Tom, and thrust four one-dollar notes into his hand.
The man stared at them, and from them to Tom. He really seemed disappointed. Perhaps he wished he had said more, when Tom did not haggle over the price.
"Wal, I'll take it along to the house then," said the farmer. "An' when ye come this road ag'in, young man, ye better go a leetle slow—yaas, a leetle slow!"
"I certainly shall—as long as you have gaps in your sheep pasture fence," 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 man frightened 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 the farmer, roughly. "Shucks! it's only a lamb."
"Don't you dare!" Ruth cried, standing in front of the quivering creature. "You are cruel."
"Hoity-toity!" cried the farmer. "I guess I kin do as I please with my own."
Helen clung to Ruth's hand and tried to draw her away from the rough man. Even Tom hesitated to arouse the farmer's wrath further. But the girl 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. "Thet thar's a good one! I raised thet lamb——"
"And we have just bought it—paid you your own price for it," cried Ruth.
"Crickey! that's so, Ruthie," Tom Cameron interposed. "Of course he doesn't own it. If you want the poor thing, we'll take it along to Fred Larkin's place."
"Say!" exclaimed the farmer. "What does this mean? I didn't sell ye the carcass of thet thar lamb; I only got damages——"
"You sold it. You know you did," Ruth declared, firmly. "I dare you to touch the poor little thing. It is ours—and I know its life can be saved."
"Pick it right up, girls, and come on," advised Tom, starting his engine. "We have the rights of it, and if he interferes, we'll just run on to the next town and bring a constable back with us. I guess we can call upon the authorities, too. What's sauce for the goose, ought to be sauce for the gander."
The man was stammering some very impolite words, and Tom was anxious to get his sister and Ruth away. The girls lifted the lamb in upon the back seat and laid it tenderly upon some wraps. Then the boy leaped into the front 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 ye take 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 to start——"
"You wait! I ain't got through with you——"
Just then the car started. The man had been holding to the end of the seat. 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 dusty road, shaking both fists after the car, and yelling at the top of his voice. 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 along steadily.
"And wasn't Ruth smart to see that he had no right to this poor little sheep?" said Helen, admiringly.
"What you going to do with it, Ruthie?" demanded Tom, glancing back at the lamb. "Going to sell it to a butcher in Littletop? That's where Fred Larkin's folk live, you know."
"Sell it to a butcher!" exclaimed Ruth, in scorn. "That's what the farmer 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. "But if 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 much to assure domestic animals of our good intentions toward them."
"Well," said Tom, grinning, "I promise not to eat this lamb, if you make a point of it, but if I don't get something to eat pretty soon, I assure you he'll be in grave danger!"
They made Littletop and the Larkins' residence before Tom became too ravenous, however; and the younger members of the Larkin family welcomed the adventurers—including the lamb—with enthusiasm.
Fred Larkin had some little aptitude for medicine and surgery—so they all 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 it liberally, and Fred declared that in ten days it would be well enough to hop around.
The little Larkin folk were delighted with the lamb for a pet, so Ruth knew that she could safely trust her protégé to them.
There was great fun that night, for the neighboring young folk were invited to meet the trio from Cheslow and the Red Mill, and it was midnight before the girls and boys were still. Therefore, there was no early start made for the second day's run.
Breakfast was late, and it was half-past nine before Tom started the car, and they left Littletop amid the cheers and good wishes of their friends.
"We must hustle, if we want to get to Uncle Ike's before dark," Tom declared. "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 some of these wild roads all night."
"Nor to travel over them by night, either," advised Ruth. "My! we haven't seen a house for ten miles."
"It's somewhere up this way that those Gypsy friends of Roberto are encamped—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 an adventure worth chronicling."
"You can laugh——Oh!"
As she was speaking, Helen saw a head thrust out of the bushes not far along 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 was watching 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 men standing in the road, talking. They were rough-looking fellows.
However, they saw nobody else for a few miles. Now they were skirting one of the lakes in the upper chain, some miles above the gorge where the dam was built, and the scenery was both beautiful and rugged. There were few farms.
On a rising stretch of road, the engine began to miss, and something rattled painfully in the "internal arrangements" of the car. Tom looked serious, stopped several times, and just coaxed her slowly to the summit of 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?" asked Ruth, seriously.
"Sure of it!" responded Helen.
"You are a regular 'calamity howler'!" exclaimed Tom. "By Jove! this old mill is going to kick up rusty."
"There's a house!" cried Ruth, gaily, standing up in the back to look ahead. "Now we're all right if the machine has to be repaired, or a storm bursts upon us."
But when the car limped up and stopped in the sandy road before the sagging gate, the trio saw that their refuge was a windowless and abandoned structure that looked as gaunt and ghostly as a lightning-riven tree!