Then came another butting attack on the door.
“He’ll break it in!” cried Arden, her heart beating fast. “It isn’t very strong. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
The ram was snorting, puffing, and blowing outside the shed. Arden could hear him pawing in the dried leaves. Then for the third time he rushed with those heavy curved horns at the barrier which kept him from the human he wanted to attack.
“No wonder Tom Scott and the chaplain were hurt with such a creature as that rushing at them!” gasped Arden. “Oh, dear! I wish I’d taken the dean’s word. It’s a ram all right. A terrible ram!”
She wondered if a human voice in command would have any effect on the creature. She would try.
“Go away! Get out of here!” she ordered through a crack in the door. She waited. She heard nothing. Perhaps the beast had gone. She loosed the hook a little, making a crack wide enough out of which she could look. The ram hadn’t gone. He was balefully eyeing the shed from a little distance, and when he saw the door move again he lowered his head and butted it harder than before.
“Oh, this is awful!” groaned Arden. “I guess I’ll have to stay in here until he goes away or falls asleep. I suppose rams do sleep, sometimes. This is what I get for doubting Tiddy. I wonder if there is a back door that I could sneak out of while he’s butting the front one?”
But there was no rear exit, as Arden discovered when she peered through the jumble of ladders, barrels, and tools. Sheds aren’t usually built with two doors.
There was nothing to be done but to wait for a rescue or until the ram should get weary of the siege and raise it.
“When the girls find out about this they’ll have the laugh on me all right!” Arden ruefully mused.