"Yes, sir! We heard a cow and knew there must be a farm," began Amy excitedly, but her companion interrupted her and said: "That wasn't a cow we heard, but the bellow of this bull!"
"Do tell us all about how you escaped," chorused the eager voices of many girls.
Every one was anxious to wait on the heroines, and after they had been served everything at one time, they began to munch and talk.
"Well, first we left here and thrashed through those bushes back there," said Hester, nodding her head towards the alder bushes, "to reach the place where we heard the cow—as we thought."
Here Hester choked over the egg, and Amy quickly took up the story: "And we were halfway across a pasture lot when Hester, who was first, yelled wildly and waved her arms. I looked up, 'cause I was watching where I walked, the lot was pawed up into such hummocks, and saw Hester racing for the low boughs of an apple-tree. Then I heard a thumping, and saw a big bull charging across the meadow, making straight for us!"
Amy gasped and needed a drink of water, then Hester continued the tale: "Oh, girls, it was thrilling! I managed to scramble up in the apple-tree, and turned to see what had become of Amy. There she was, sprinting like a Marathoner for the barbed-wire fence that enclosed the lot. She back-trailed over to it, and up over it she went, just like a swallow flies, but look at her stockings and skirt!"
Every one looked at Amy's apparel and sympathized with her, yet every scout wished she had had such an exciting time.
"Now they can win a badge for story-telling, can't they, Verny?" said Betty, glad for her two pals.
"And another one for mending," laughed Julie, vindictively.
"Poor Julie's awful sore about that mud," murmured Amy, winking an eye at the others.