“I don’t know about letting you go on!” broke in the constable.
There was greed in the man’s eyes. There was also an assumption of official severity as he glanced over the three youngsters. The machines were standing in the middle of a fairly smooth road running directly east and west.
To the right of the thoroughfare stood the shabby barns referred to before. To the left ran a ditch which had been cut through a bit of swamp lying on the other side of the road. As the farmer concluded his threatening sentence, Jimmie and Carl sprang to the Louise and pressed the button which set the motors in motion. For a moment the farmers were too dazed to do more than follow the swiftly departing machine with their eyes.
When they did recover their understanding of the situation, they both sprang at Ben in order to prevent his departure. This, doubtless, on the theory that one boy was better than none. If they couldn’t get three prisoners, they did not intend to lose the opportunity of taking one.
In carrying out this resolve, the men made a serious mistake in not seizing the machine. Had they thrown their muscular arms across the planes at one end it would have been impossible for the machine to have proceeded down the road in a straight course.
Instead of doing this, they both made an effort to seize Ben. Now Ben had been in many a rough-and-tumble skirmish on the lower East Side, and knew how to protect himself against such clumsy assaults. One of the farmers cut a circle over the shoulder of the boy as he fell from a hip-lock, and the other went down from as neat a jolt on the jaw, as was ever delivered in the prize ring.
While this remarkable contest was in progress, Jimmie was whirling the machine, he had mounted, into the air. When he saw one of the farmers land in the ditch he came swiftly about with a jeer of defiance and thrust an insulting face toward the ground.
“Say, you feller!” he shouted. “That’s Billy Burley, the Bruiser. Don’t you go to getting into a mix-up with him!”
The man who had tumbled into the soft muck of the trench clambered slowly out and shook his fist at the freckled, scornful face bent above him.
“I’ll show you!” he shouted. “I’ll show you!”