"Well, I guess he won't bother you much more," said their champion, when he returned to the surrey. "I'm only going as far as Tecumseh, but I'll be glad to give you a ride that far if you want to go."
"We do indeed," said Bessie. "And we're ever so much obliged to you for saving us from that fellow and for offering us the ride too. Do you know when we can get a train at Tecumseh for Deer Crossing?"
"Right soon now," said the boy. "It's due most any minute but I'll get you there in time. That's the train I'm going to meet—got to take some summer boarders from the city out to pop's place. My name's Bill Burns. My pop's got a farm over that way"—he pointed with his whip—"about two miles."
Bessie and Dolly told him their names then, and he asked where they were staying at Deer Crossing.
"Mercer Farm, huh?" he said, when they had told him. "I got a cousin works over there—fellow by the name of Walter Stubbs. Do you know him?"
"Yes, indeed," said Bessie, with a smiling look at Dolly. "We saw him this morning. Dolly thinks a lot of him."
"Oh, is that so?" said Bill Burns. He looked at Dolly, then bent over and whispered to Bessie, "He's welcome to her." Then he spoke aloud again. "I may be running over to see Walt one of these days. He and I are pretty good friends—for cousins. Seems to me he told me somethin' about an ice-cream festival over there at the Methodist Church. I might run over to that."
"I wish you would," said Bessie, laughing. "All the girls are going, I'm sure—all our Camp Fire Girls."
"What, more of you girls!" said Bill, seeming to be surprised.
"Yes, indeed. There are a whole lot over at the farm. They'll be glad to see you, especially when we tell them how good you were to us, and how you saved us from that nasty Jake Hoover."