The cart handlers willingly enough dropped their burden. All hands crowded forward to read what was written underneath on the sheet of paper. It ran thus:
"All passers-by are cautioned that a mad dog, frothing at the mouth, has passed this way, going west. Officers have gone in pursuit of the animal, but passers-by may encounter the dog before the officers do. The dog is a huge English mastiff, without collar. Turn back unless armed!"
"Fine and cheery!" exclaimed Tom Reade, looking rather startled despite his light comment.
"And, just as it happens, this is the only road in the country that we want to use just at present," commented Dick Prescott.
"Shall we go ahead, keeping a sharp lookout?" asked Dave.
"I don't know," Dick muttered. "We'll have to think that over a bit."
"There are six of us, and we can cut good, stout clubs before we proceed farther," suggested Greg Holmes.
"Yes, and probably, if attacked, we could finish the dog," Dick went on. "Yet, most likely, before we did kill the brute, he'd have bitten at least one of us."
"I'll go on, if the rest of you fellows want to," observed Danny Grin. "At the same time, it looks like taking a big chance, doesn't it?"
"It's taking a chance, of course," Dick admitted. "The dog may be running yet, and we might never get within ten, or even twenty, miles of him. Or, the officers may have caught and killed the brute by this time. Or, the mastiff might bound at us from the woods at any moment now."