“We can fall off it and land on it again,” said Pee-wee.
Simon did not raise a question here. Probably he believed that Pee-wee could “handle” such a situation.
“I mean off a cliff,” Pee-wee explained.
“Oh,” said Simon.
Their progress, now less perilous, was without episode and would doubtless have ended at Goodale Manor Farm despite the enshrouding fog, had not an altogether unforeseen occurrence confounded all their plans. They were travelling leisurely along, the mountain still rising to the right and the land sloping away at their left, when suddenly they heard the barking of a dog a little way ahead of them. Pee-wee knew perfectly well that it was a dog barking but he held his hand to his ear and listened with critical attention to determine if by chance it might be a member of the St. Bernard Patrol which was at Temple Camp some five hundred miles distant.
“It’s a mut,” said Simon innocently. “Do you have mut patrols?”
“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee said.
The dog, a lone traveller as it proved, soon hove in view. He had probably paused in the road to bark at the unearthly din that Pee-wee had been making with his stick and then trotted on again. He emerged out of the fog two or three yards ahead of the oxen, and the oxen, out of politeness perhaps, stopped also. The dog was small and certainly not of the snobbish class of dogs. His tail was wagging steadily and he seemed to be pausing to consider the best and shortest route past this unexpected obstacle. He seemed to be in a kind of nervous hurry, as if intent on some particular business. Perhaps he was on his way to the dance at Snailsdale Manor....
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAOS AND CONFUSION