“Then suppose you get off that fence and do it!” said Thad severely. “You got poor old Bumpus in that hole, and it ought to be your business to rescue him!”
Giraffe looked dubious. When he spoke so confidently about believing himself able to down the raging cow he certainly could not have meant it.
“Oh! he ain’t going to get hurt, Thad,” he started to say; “if I saw him knocked down, course I’d jump and run to help him. The exercise ought to do Bumpus good, for he’s been putting on too much flesh lately, you know. You’ll have to excuse me, Thad, sure you will. I’ll go if things look bad for him; but I hate to break up the game now by interfering.”
Thad paid no more attention to Giraffe, since he knew that the other’s inordinate love for practical joking made him blind to facts that as a true scout he should have kept before his mind.
“Hello! Bumpus!” the patrol leader once more shouted.
“Yes—T-had, what is it?” came back in a wheezy voice, for to tell the truth Bumpus was getting pretty well winded by now, thanks to the rapid manner in which he had to navigate around that tree again, with the active bovine in pursuit.
“Take off that red bandanna from your neck, and put it in your pocket!” ordered the patrol leader.
Strange to say no one else—saving possibly the artful Giraffe—had once considered this glaring fact, that much of the cow’s anger was excited by seeing the hated color so prominently displayed by the boy who had invaded the pasture at such an unfortunate time in her life of frequent bereavements.
Taking it for granted that Bumpus would obey the first chance he got to unfasten the knot by which his big bandanna was secured around his neck, Thad clambered over the fence and started to run.
He did not head directly for the tree around which this exciting chase was being carried on, but obliquely. In doing this Thad had several reasons, no doubt. First of all he was more apt to catch the attention of the angry cow, for he was waving his own red handkerchief wildly as he ran, and doing everything else in his power to attract notice. Then, if he did succeed in luring the animal toward him he would be taking her away from the tree at such an angle that when Bumpus headed for the spot where his other chums were gathered the cow would not be apt to see him in motion and give chase.