“Think not, eh, young man?” retorted the man. “You’d better read aour county ord’nance on cattle. Don’t hafter fence aour farms no more.”
“I bet,” growled Ned to the girls, “that the old scoundrel just set this crow-bait of a cow like a trap for any automobilist who might come by. Goodness! I hate to pay that fifty dollars.”
CHAPTER V
THE OLD LADY WITH THE BASKET
Time was flying and Mrs. White was becoming anxious. “Do pay the man, Ned, and let us go on. Of course, the cow is not worth so much——”
“Why, mother, it’s a miserable little thing,” began Nat; but the farmer burst in with a lot of threats as to what he would do if the money was not immediately forthcoming, and Nat subsided.
“It is an imposition, Mrs. White,” warned her chauffeur. “I’ll go with him, if he likes, and tell the judge about it.”
“I’ll pull you all,” threatened the farmer, boisterously, “if you don’t fork over the money for my caow—yes, I will, by Jo!”
“If he talks fresh to mother,” growled Nat to Ned, “we ought to take away his tin star and club and throw him into the ditch.”
“No use making a bad matter worse,” said Ned.