“We saw them kill the calf,” went on Noddy, seemingly eager to array himself against the motor boys, and on the side of the farmer. “Didn’t we, Bill?”
“Sure we did,” answered the bully’s crony.
“Then you must have very good eyesight,” remarked Jerry cuttingly, “for you were in your car, and how you could observe the calf, when it is so small that it doesn’t come to the top of our radiator, is more than I can understand.”
“Well, we saw it just the same, Mr. Sackett,” went on the ugly bully. “They killed your animal, and you ought to make them pay for it.”
“That’s what I intend,” asserted the farmer. “I’ll attach their machine, that’s what I’ll do ef they don’t pay. Hi there, Abner!” he called, as a man, evidently one of the hired help, came hurrying along the lane. “Abner, you go notify Constable Higbie that I got a case fer him. I want these fellers arrested fer killin’ my spotted calf!”
“Gosh all hemlock!” cried Abner, as he stared at the scene before him.
“You go git th’ constable,” repeated Mr. Sackett, “an’ I’ll hold these fellers until you come back with him. I’ll show ’em that they can’t monkey with Ebenezer Sackett of Tewkesbury Township.”
“Isn’t it against the law to let animals run at large on the highway?” asked Ned of Mr. Sackett.
“He wasn’t runnin’ at large,” was the answer. “I was leading him, an’ he broke away from me. Ye can’t git out of it that way. I want damages an’ I’m goin’ t’ have ’em! Th’ constable will be here soon, an’ ye kin take yer choice of payin’ or goin’ t’ jail.”
How long this dispute might have been kept up it is difficult to say, but Professor Snodgrass arrived just then, and, hearing the story, endeavored to conciliate the angry farmer. But there was no subduing Mr. Sackett.