One day when Bunny and his boy chums were going across the fields to see another boy who had a trained rooster they wanted in the show, they saw a farmer running along as if very much excited.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Boardman?” asked Bunny, for he knew the farmer.
“Matter enough,” was the answer. “Look up on that hill! See all the cows in my corn! They’ll ruin my field if I don’t get ’em out soon, and it’s a long way to that hill—I can never get there in time. Oh, look at ’em!”
From where he and the boys stood they could look up on a distant hill, across a canal used to float boats into Sandport Bay. On the hill, in a field of corn, were many cows.
“They broke through the fence,” said Mr. Boardman. “If I don’t get them out soon I’ll have no corn left, and it’s a long way around to the bridge over the canal.”
“I’ll have Patter drive the cows for you,” offered Bunny.
“How can you?” asked the farmer. “It’s as far for the dog to go as it is for me, and it will take you just as long.”
Bunny’s chums, as well as the farmer, waited for the answer. What could Patter do to the cows, far from them as he was and with a deep canal of water between?
CHAPTER XVIII
SELLING TICKETS
Though it was perhaps half a mile from where Bunny and his chums and the farmer stood to the field of corn where the cows were causing such trouble, still the animals were in plain sight, for they were up on top of a hill. They could be seen walking in among the rows of corn, tramping down much of it, and eating what they wanted.