They all went inside the little dusty-looking building, where some enterprising man had started a wayside grocery, and general store, at which you could purchase nearly anything from a paper of needles to a coffin, or an automobile tire, and gasoline.
Fortunately the man happened to have some stray bottles of soft drinks like sarsaparilla and root beer that must have been left over from his summer trade; and presently each of the scouts was washing the dust down his throat.
Altogether they may have spent about ten minutes in the store; and then after Toby had settled the account, they again passed out to the wagon.
The loitering Fairfield boy had disappeared, as Elmer noted when he looked over toward the fence where Angus McDowd had been standing on their arrival.
"Now, what ails you for a silly thing, Nancy?" said Toby, as the mare laid back her ears, and pranced at their approach. "Been getting too much oats lately, I reckon, with too little exercise. Well, you won't be feeling so fresh and frisky by the time we get back home to-night. That load of nuts is going to make you puff, let me tell you. Pile in, fellows, while I unfasten the hitching rope. Whoa! there, don't you dare try to bite me, you horse with the nasty temper! Why, this is a new trick for you to show. Grab the lines, won't you, Elmer? The blame nag's that anxious to show off she'd leave me in the lurch! Let up, there, can't you?"
It was only by making a hasty jump that agile Toby managed to gain his seat, to take the taut lines from Elmer's hands. Immediately the mare commenced to rear up in a most remarkable manner. Then, taking the bit between her teeth, she started along the road, fortunately in the right direction, at a whirlwind pace, amidst a cloud of dust, and with the three scouts who had been sitting on the second seat tumbling around in a heap in the bed of the wagon, all of them having been thrown backward.
Even as the grocery keeper came running out of the door to see what was the matter, and while they were still within hearing distance of the place, Elmer felt sure he saw a head rise into view above the pig-pen situated on one side of the road, and could recognize the grinning face of that Fairfield loafer, Angus McDowd.
There was no time to say anything. The mare was undoubtedly running away, and the wagon flinging from side to side in the road, as Toby stood half erect, pulling with might and main on the lines in the endeavor to hold the frantic animal in.
It began to look like croaking George might have been right when he said he doubted whether the nutting expedition would be much of a success.