“Hello, what’s that?” Rob stopped and peered into the fog ahead.
“A rock, you idiot,” said Malcolm.
“It isn’t; it’s a cow! And there’s another. We’re probably away out West in the cattle country. I knew I’d walked a long distance!”
“There are dozens of them,” said Jelly as they went on. “If there are cows there must be a house somewhere around.”
“We’ll ask one of them,” said Rob. “Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cow, will you kindly tell me where—”
“I don’t believe,” murmured Malcolm, “that I’d have much to say to that cow, Rob.” He pulled the other aside. “She happens to be a bull.”
“Gee, that’s so! And I don’t think he likes us. Let us alter our course and steer around him. Nice bull, nice bull!”
They were in the middle of the herd now. The cows stopped nibbling at the grass and viewed them with calm curiosity, some moving slowly away. The bull, however, which was a particularly large and active looking animal, displayed more interest. As they moved to the left he pawed the ground and then trotted ahead as though to intercept them.
“I believe he’s going to speak to us,” murmured Rob. “Perhaps we’d better go back.”
He was and he did. He stopped some twenty feet away, lowered his head and bellowed. Jelly gave a yell of dismay and took to his legs. The others didn’t waste time in vocal manifestations of alarm; they fled silently. As there had been no agreement as to direction they put out toward four different points of the compass. Just what it was about Jelly that attracted the bull is difficult to say; perhaps it was the bundle of tin plates and coffee-pot and things that rattled enticingly as he ran. At all events, it was on Jelly that the bull centered his attention and it was in his wake that he galloped. When the others paused for breath, through the silent mist came the rattle of tins and the thud of bovine hoofs. They listened in anxious suspense. Then, farther away, there was a terrorized shriek followed by an awesome bellow. Then silence, heavy and depressing, broken a moment later by a great rattling of tinware. Then silence once more.