"Fire!" cried Tug.
And every grandfather's and grandmother's grandson of the five let fly with a will the rocks his hands had found upon the road.
Those dogs must have felt that they were caught out in the heaviest hail-storm of their whole experience. Their blustering mood disappeared in an instant, and they turned for home, yelping like frightened puppies; nor did they forget, like Bo-peep's sheep, to take their tails with them, neatly tucked between their legs.
Past as the cross-country dogs ran in one direction, the cross-country humans ran in the opposite.
Now that they were on a good pike road, some of them were disposed to sprint, particularly the fleet-footed Stage, who could far outrun Tug or any of the team.
But Tug thought that wisdom lay in keeping his team well in hand, and he did not approve of running on in advance any more than he approved of straggling. Thus the enthusiastic Stage, rejoicing in his airy heels, suddenly found himself deserted, Tug having seen fit to leave the road for a short cut across the fields; and Stage had to run back fifty yards or more and spend most of his surplus energy in catching up with the team.
It was a merry chase Tug led his weary crew: through one rough ravine where the hillside flowed out from under their feet and followed them down, and where they must climb the other side on slippery earth, grasping at a rock here and a root there; then through one little strip of forest that offered him an advantageous-short cut. Here again he silenced the protests of his men at the thick underbrush and the frequent brambles they encountered. Just at the edge of this little grove Tug put on an extra burst of speed, and was running like the wind. The others, following to the best of their ability, saw him about to pass between two harmless posts.
Suddenly they also saw him throw up his hands and fall over backward. When they reached him they saw that he had run into a barbed-wire fence in the dark.
XXIII
They were doubly dismayed now, because they not only had lost their leader, but were themselves lost in some part of the country where they knew neither the landmarks nor the points of the compass. They helped Tug cautiously to his feet, and, for lack of a better medicine, rubbed snow upon the ugly slashes in his breast and legs.