When he reached the place where he had left Stubby, he found he was in good hands. A kind-faced lady with a big heart for hurt animals had picked Stubby up in her arms and was carrying him home where she could cut the string around his tail and bathe the wound in warm water and witch hazel. The boys had tied the string on so tightly that she could not undo the knot, so was taking him home where she could get a pair of scissors and cut it off.
Billy followed them closely and waited until Stubby came out of her house with his tail wrapped up with a witch hazel bandage, and as he stood eating from a plate of food she had given him, Billy told him what he had done to his four boy tormentors.
“Thank you so much, Billy! But how I should have loved to have seen you butting them right and left and skyward! My, that is a nice lady who fixed my tail! I like her so much, I’d like to stay with her always if it were not for our trip west. And it seems mean to run away from her without saying good-by after she has been so good to me. But the best of friends must part some time. I am going to promise myself to come back and see her when we return from our trip. As soon as I have finished eating this delicious luncheon she has given me I will be ready to go with you to where Nannie is waiting for us.”
CHAPTER VI
BILLY FINDS NANNIE IN BAD HANDS
BUT when they reached the trysting-place, there was no Nannie. After waiting an hour, they decided something must have happened to her, as it was long past the time she should have been there. So they put their heads together and formed plans as to how to search for her.
Billy was to go to the right to a farmhouse whose chimneys he saw sticking up above the treetops to the right of the road. Stubby was to go round a big turn he saw to the left and Button was to stay there at the trysting-place in case Nannie came while they were away.
“I feel quite sure someone has caught her and tied her up somewhere,” said Billy.
“So do I,” replied Stubby. “But it won’t take us long to rescue her when we once find her.”
In the wiggle of a lamb’s tail Billy disappeared from sight down a ravine and Stubby under some bushes on the other side of the road. When they had gone Button climbed up into a tree and fell asleep.