“It chanced that a party of wheelmen from Halifax, on a tour through the Cornwallis valley and the Evangeline regions, arrived at the top of the hill when Landry and his charge were about half-way down. The bicyclists were riding in a long line, single file. Their leader knew the country, and he knew that Barnes’s Hill was smooth and safe for ‘coasting.’ Some of the riders, the leader among them, were on the old-fashioned high wheels, while others rode the less conspicuous ‘Safeties,’ then a new thing. Each man, as he dipped over the edge of the slope, flung his legs over the handles and luxuriously ‘let her go.’ They saw the team ahead, but there was abundance of room for safe passing.
“Now, Squire Bateman’s black-and-white steer had been brought up behind the Gaspereau hills, where the wheelman delights not to wander. A bicycle, therefore, was in his eyes a novel and terrifying sight. As the whirling and gleaming apparition flashed past he snorted fiercely, and sprang aside with a violence that almost upset the cart. Landry sprang to his feet, grinding his teeth with excitement and wrath, and the next wheelman slipped radiantly by. This was too much for the black-and-white steer, and on the third wheel he made a desperate but ineffectual charge.
“Ineffectual did I say? Well, only so far as that wheel was concerned; but he flung himself so far across the way that the next rider could not avoid the obstacle. The tall wheel struck the animal amidships, so to speak; and the rider went right on and landed in a dismal heap. The other riders darted aside up the bank into the fence, stopping themselves gracefully or ungracefully, but at any cost avoiding the now quite demented beast that was blocking their way.
“The animal made a frantic dash at the unfortunate wheelman in the gutter, who had picked himself up with difficulty, and was feeling for broken bones. He was beyond the steer’s reach, but discreetly hobbled to the fence, and placed that welcome barrier between him and the foe. The fury of the animal’s charge, however, had swung the cart right across the road, and now the frightened horse began to plunge and rear. Landry held him in partial control; and the next instant the steer made a second mad rush, this time aiming at the bicycle which had struck him, and which now lay in the gutter. He reached the offending wheel, but at the same time he upset the cart. Out went Landry like a rubber ball; and the horse, kicking himself free of the traces, set out at a highly creditable pace for Kentville.
“The rage of the little Frenchman, as he picked himself up, was Homeric. He abused the bellowing and bounding brute with an eloquence which, had it been expressed in English, would have made the wheelmen on the other side of the fence depart in horror. Then he seized a fence stake and rushed into close quarters, resolved to enforce his authority.
“At the moment of Landry’s attack, the steer had his horns very much engaged in the wheel of the bicycle. As the fence stake came down with impressive emphasis across his haunches, he tossed the machine in air, and charged on his assailant with great nimbleness and ferocity. Landry just escaped by springing over the body of the cart; and at this juncture he congratulated himself that he had hitched the animal by so strong a halter.
“By this time the bicyclists had reunited their forces a little below. Their leader, with the dismounted wheelman, now came to rescue the suffering wheel. But there was no such thing as getting near it. The steer stood guard over his prize with an air that forbade any interference.
“‘It isn’t much good now, anyway,’ grumbled the victim. ‘I guess I’ll have to hobble on as far as Kentville, and borrow or hire another wheel there. This ain’t worth mending now.’
“‘Oh, nonsense!’ replied the leader; ‘a few dollars will put it all right. We’ll leave it at Kentville to be sent back to Halifax by the D. A. R., and McInerney’ll fix it so you’d never know it had been broken!’
“‘Well,’ rejoined the discomfited one, ‘I don’t see how we’re going to get hold of it, anyway.’