Fifty yards down the road, Bonfire lifted a pointing hand.
"Look there!" he shouted. "Three cows in that cornfield, gobbling up those little stalks as if they were prairie grass. I don't believe—Ah, I thought so! See that gap in the fence on the far side. They have broken in."
"And nobody around to chase them out," said Specs briskly. "I guess it's a job for us."
"What good would it do us?" Bunny tested him. "There isn't a soul about to thank us or to give us a lift on our way."
Specs hung his head. "Aw, Bunny!" he protested; "forget it, won't you?"
And then everybody laughed, as if it were a great joke, and finally Specs laughed, too. After that, there was no question about what they meant to do. Nine boys climbed through the barbed-wire fence along the road and went whooping toward the astonished trio of cows. Tender and juicy as the cornstalks were, the animals realized that their stolen meal must end. They turned and galloped awkwardly through the gap in the fence, back into their own field.
"Sorry, old girls!" shouted Specs, quite himself again, "but you can't eat up a crop just for the sake of one square meal. Besides, you'd get an awful, awful tummy-ache."
"Now let's patch up the break," urged Bunny. "We can prop up this broken post and restring these wires. It won't take ten minutes."
In something like half that time, the fence was as good as new for all practical purposes. While they were winding the last loose strand about the bolstered post, a voice from the cornfield said pleasantly:
"When the boss's away, the cows will play. Thank you, boys; thank you!"