Rather worried and undecided whether to stay on or tumble off, the little company looked uncertainly at one another. But before they could dismount, High Boy shot up two hundred feet and then carefully stepped down into the river. Trot gasped and expected to find herself under water. But only the toes of her shoes touched the water, and when High Boy, looking around, saw this, he raised himself higher still and, with his whole body out of the water and his feet on the river bed, carried them safely and slowly across.
"Why, you're better than a bridge!" exclaimed Philador, leaning forward to give him a good hug. "I wish I could keep you always."
"Joe couldn't spare me," announced High Boy, self consciously, "but I'll come to see you often, Phil, when this adventure is over. Hold on now, I'm going to step out."
The great length of High Boy's legs made his body almost vertical, as he scrambled up the bank. But so tightly did his riders hold on to the saddle and to one another, nobody fell off. Bringing his legs down with a few sharp clicks, High Boy put up his umbrella tail and was about to start on when a series of splutters made him look back. The high horse had closed his umbrella tail when he stepped into the river, but in spite of this a lot of water had got in. Therefore, when he snapped it up, a perfect deluge had come down on his luckless passengers.
"This is the third shower I've had to-day," coughed the Scarecrow dolefully. Benny didn't mind the water at all and Herby, after peering into his medicine chest and discovering that none of the contents were wet, merely gave himself a good shake. As for Philador and Trot—what could they do but laughingly accept High Boy's apologies? It was late afternoon by now, and the sun sinking lower and lower behind the hills. Since their meeting on the blue highway, High Boy had come many a long mile, and everyone but Benny and the Scarecrow began to feel tired as well as hungry.
"I'd give my gold tooth for a pail of yummy jummy," confessed High Boy, as he slowly mounted a small hill. "I'm hungry enough to eat a—" He did not finish his sentence, but glanced longingly over his shoulder at the Scarecrow, who immediately ducked behind Benny and began feverishly stuffing in his stray wisps of straw.
"How about a sandwich?" suggested Philador, pulling out the lunch basket Queen Hyacinth had filled so generously.
"A sandwich would be no more than a cracker crumb to me," exclaimed High Boy disdainfully.