Hiram had already started for the road. A sharp cry arose in front:
"Look out, there! That bull is as mad as he can be. Look out!"
A huge, plunging shape came out of the wood path with two men, or boys, hanging on to the ropes hitched to the monster. The latter headed right across the road and those in the way scattered like chaff before a wind.
"That's Turner's bull!" shouted somebody behind Hiram. "He is as savage as a lion."
At that the two men clinging to the maddened animal let go of the ropes. With head down, and uttering a reverberating bellow, the creature came toward the new house on the floor of which the girls and boys were dancing.
CHAPTER XVII
WHEAT HARVEST
There had been two powerful lamps lifted from automobiles and placed so that they would light the veranda. Therefore the front of the partially built house and the yard were well illuminated.
As the bull charged through the gap in the fence his coming cleared the yard in a hurry. The only person who stood his ground was Hiram, and he did not do so from any choice of his own.
It seemed that the mad bull was aiming directly for the steps to the veranda, and the young farm manager stood directly in his path. The youth was not fear-paralyzed, but his mind was quite as empty of ideas at the moment as the others who had run in all directions. His single thought was: