“He’s so deep in the mire that he may not be able to get out,” thought Billy, when he himself began to pant for breath. “It’s only fair to put him on his feet, I suppose,” and so he hooked him by the coat, and with a toss that required every atom of his strength—though Billy never admitted the fact—the boy was up once more, though oozing with mud.
“He’ll never show himself to his chief in that state. It will take an hour to make him presentable, and in the meantime I must make tracks. Still, I’m not one to run from danger, and it may be the fellow will never report his experience.”
Billy had studied human nature enough to know that one does not willingly tell a story in which he does not play a creditable part.
“I’ll not dare to show myself in this vicinity to-night, though,” he meditated. “That means that I shall have to seek new lodgings. I wonder who will be so kind—but let me think! Toppy also came to be exhibited. It’s no more than her plain duty to entertain me one night. I’ll hunt her up!”
Putting this resolution into action, he hurried down the Cattle Row. At the farther end was a large barn, now his objective point.
Long before break of day, the coming of the morning had been noisily heralded by the cocks, and Billy knew that all the fuss came from this building.
“One thing I forgot to ask the Duke, and that is how long this county jollification lasts. Toppy surely won’t know—it’s her first experience here, as she’s nothing but a pullet. Of course, the Duke is not much better—nothing but a calf—but at least he could inquire of some of his older neighbors.”
As the goat approached the barn which had been temporarily turned into the exhibition house for the chickens, he made a wide detour, circled round it twice and reconnoitered thoroughly, to reassure himself that it was altogether safe for him to enter. Seeing no one in sight, he hurried back to the main entrance, bent on finding Toppy.
“Of course she’ll see me as soon as I enter and will fly straight to me. Toppy has been my vassal ever since I saved her from the hawk down in the wood lot when she was just a scrawny, ugly chick getting her pin feathers.”