Still, there would be two more days of the Fair, and if the chance to do something failed to arrive on Thursday, perhaps it would come along on Friday, or even with Saturday. As long as the harvest was there, and could be reaped so easily, it seemed to Hugh there would be little danger of Doc Merritt packing up his stand and clearing out between two days.
“The only danger of that,” mused Hugh, “would be if he was doing such a land-office business there as to sell his entire supply of stuff out, and have to close shop on that account.”
Even then he could hardly believe so fertile a brain as that of the fakir would fail to devise some new means for reaping still further profits by taking up some other device.
It was about this time late in the afternoon when Hugh suddenly became aware of the fact that there had arisen some sort of commotion a little way off. First he thought he could hear angry voices as though men might be quarreling, and this gave him a bad feeling, because so far the fair had been remarkably free from all manner of fights, simply because liquor was not allowed on the grounds.
“What can it be, do you think, Hugh?”
It was Arthur who asked this question, showing that he, too, had not only caught the loud sounds, but was equally mystified in trying to place them.
Other voices joined in with the first ones. Shouts were even heard and then came the yelping of a dog as some man stepped on its tail, or else gave the animal a hearty kick after being almost tripped by having it get under his feet.
Harold Tremaine, who was a comparatively recent addition to the troop, and still looked upon as a tenderfoot, chanced to be at the camp when this furore broke out. Having an especial antipathy for dogs—for a reason that was connected with a bad scare he had once experienced when a small chap—Harold seized hold of Hugh’s sleeve and hastily asked:
“Oh! you don’t believe it could be a dog gone mad, do you, Hugh? Wouldn’t it be terrible if such a thing as that happened, with all this crowd here, and so many women and children, too?”
“Make your mind easy, Harold,” said the other, without the slightest hesitation, “it isn’t a mad dog scare, I’m sure of that.”