“Why, I wasn’t going more than ten miles!” cried the girl, flushing with indignation.
“Huh! Tell that to ther justice. I’ll git my son to push yer machine out’n ther ditch an’ then I’ll hop in aside yer an’ we’ll drive into town.”
“You’ll do no such thing! Why, the idea! Take your hand off my car at once, or—oh, dear! What shall I do?” she broke off despairingly.
“You’ll drive me inter town or pay fifteen dollars, that’s what you’ll do,” declared Farmer Applegate stubbornly; “now then—hullo, what in ther name uv early pertaties is this a-comin’?”
Around the same corner from which the auto had appeared with such embarrassing results to its pretty young driver came three well-built lads. One of them was rather fat and his round, good-natured face was streaming with perspiration from the long “hike” on which they had been. But his companions looked trained to the minute, brown-faced, lithe-limbed, radiating health and strength from their khaki-clad forms. All three wore the same kind of uniform, gaiters, knickerbockers, coats of military cut and broad-brimmed campaign hats. In addition, each carried a staff.
“Hullo, what’s all this, Rob?” cried one of them as they came into full view of the strange scene,—the ditched auto, the flushed, embarrassed yet indignant girl, and the truculent farmer.
“Consarn it all, it’s them pesky Boy Scouts from Hampton,” exclaimed Farmer Applegate disgustedly, as, in answer to the girl’s appealing look, the three youths stepped up, their hands lifted in the scout salute and their hats raised.
CHAPTER II.
AN ANGRY FARMER.
“Can we be of any assistance?” asked Rob Blake of the girl, whose alarmed looks made it evident that she was in an unpleasant situation. He ignored the red-faced, angry farmer, but took note out of the corner of his eye of Jared, who was peeping out at them from behind a shed. Apparently he had no wish to appear on the scene while his late employer’s daughter was there. To himself he muttered:—
“It’s that stuck-up Rob Blake, that butter-firkin, Tubby Hopkins and that sissy, Merritt Crawford. They’re always butting in when they’re not wanted.”