“Are you hurt?” asked Malcolm anxiously as he helped Jelly to his feet.

“I guess not,” was the aggrieved reply. “You fellows might have hurried a bit, though, it seems to me.” Jelly disencumbered one shoe of the coffee-pot and felt of himself gingerly. Around the foot of the gnarled apple-tree lay the contents of the bundle, trampled and battered. The piece of sacking decorated a lower branch like a flag of distress.

“You silly chump,” exclaimed Rob irritably, “what did you think we were going to do? Seize the bull by the horns and hold him while you came down and walked home? We don’t like bulls any better than you do.”

“Maybe we’d better get out of here,” suggested Evan, casting nervous glances into the encircling fog. “He might come back to finish the job, you know.”

“That’s so. Maybe he’s gone off to get his friends,” said Rob. “Here, let’s pick this stuff up. Did you throw the bundle at him, Jelly?”

“Throw it at him! There wasn’t time to do any throwing,” answered Jelly crossly. “He nearly got me. I dropped the things and made a flying leap at that branch. The next thing I knew he was digging his horns into the bundle. He got one horn through the sacking and couldn’t get it off at first. And that made him mad. So he gave a bellow and tossed it into the tree and it just rained tin plates and frying-pans and forks and things for a minute. Then he danced around on them and butted the tree as though he was trying to jar me out. I’ll bet you he’s got an awful headache! I—I’d like to shoot him!”

“I can’t find the string,” said Malcolm. “We’ll just have to hold the sack by the corners. Come on and let’s get away from here.”

“All right, but which way shall we go?” asked Rob.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter; any old way. What’s that?”

It was the shriek of a distant locomotive. They turned toward the sound.

“Well, that proves that the railroad is in that direction,” said Malcolm. “Let’s head that way.”

“All right,” Rob answered, “but that train may be at Engle or it may be ten miles north. Still, one way’s as good as another. Come along. If we meet that bull, though, I tell you right now that I shall drop this tin shop and run like thunder!”

They went on across the meadow through the fog which, instead of decreasing, seemed to thicken as evening drew near. They may have traversed a quarter of a mile of meadow or it may have been twice that distance, but at last a row of trees loomed out of the grayness ahead. The trees proved to be growing along a fence and on the other side of the fence was a country road. Rob seated himself on a rock and wiped his face with a damp handkerchief.

“Well, here we are,” he said.

“Where?” scoffed Evan.

“Why, on the road.”

“What road?”

“Oh, don’t be so inquisitive. It’s a road and that’s enough. It must lead somewhere. I’ll vow, though, that I never saw it before. Did you, Mal?”

“I think it’s the Hillsgrove road,” answered Malcolm doubtfully. “If it is we want to go to the right here. That’ll take us to Riverport.”

“And if it isn’t the Hillsgrove road,” asked Evan pessimistically, “where will it take us to?”

Malcolm couldn’t answer that.

“I don’t believe it’s the Hillsgrove road at all,” said Jelly. “I don’t remember any row of trees like this on it.”

“I don’t seem to remember a row of trees like this on any road,” said Rob. “But we might as well go one way as another, fellows. And perhaps we will meet someone. Gee, but I’m getting hungry!”

“So am I,” muttered Evan dejectedly. “I wonder if we’ll get to school in time for supper.”

“We won’t if we stay here,” said Jelly. “I’m going on.”

So they took the road and followed it as it curved through the darkening fog to the right. After awhile their ears were gladdened with the sound of a creaking wagon and a moment later it took shape before them. There was a dejected-looking horse and an equally dejected-looking driver on the seat of an ancient farm wagon.

“Hello,” greeted Rob. “Which way is Riverport School, sir?”

The man pulled his horse in and leisurely examined the boys before he answered.

“You belong there?” he asked in a suspicious way.

“Yes, but we’ve sort of lost our bearings in this fog.”

The man chuckled.

“Well, you’re coming away from it as fast as you can,” he said. “Get ap.”

“What!” they exclaimed in chorus. “Isn’t this the Hillsgrove road?”

“No,” replied the man over his shoulder as the horse broke into a slow jog, “it’s the Lebanon Springs road, o’ course. Guess you boys don’t study geography much.” And he chuckled some more.

“Well, what do you think of that?” marveled Malcolm.

“Say, can we have a ride?” called Rob.

“No, you can’t; my horse is tired,” was the ungracious response.

“How far is it to school?” shouted Malcolm.

“’Bout two miles or two miles an’ a half, I guess.”

“We’ll pay you for a lift,” Rob bawled after the vanishing driver. But there was no reply and the fog swallowed man and horse and vehicle.

“Brute!” muttered Evan.

“Hope he breaks down,” said Jelly. “Hope his horse has blind staggers. Hope—”

“That’ll do, Jelly; you’ve hoped enough. Hope for something worth while, like a trolley-car or an automobile or a flying-machine. Gee, fellows; two miles and a half he said!” And Rob shook his head and looked dismally into the fog.

“I’d like to know how we ever got on the Lebanon Springs road,” pondered Malcolm as they began to retrace their steps.

“I may be mistaken,” replied Rob, “but I think we walked. Anyhow, my legs feel that way.”

“I’m glad you think it’s such a good joke,” said Malcolm wearily. “All I know is that when I get home, if I ever do, I’m going to get straight into bed and go to sleep.”

“Supper first, for me,” said Evan.

“All I want is a drink,” wailed Jelly from his accustomed position in the rear of the party. “The lake isn’t very far over there. I’ve a good mind to look for it. I’m terribly thirsty.”

“You’ll stay right on the road,” said Rob curtly. “I don’t propose to spend the rest of the night hunting for you, Jelly. We’ll be home in half an hour, likely, and you can drink all you want to.”

“That doesn’t help now, though,” grumbled Jelly.

A few minutes later the rural postman clattered up from behind in his buggy and passed them in the direction of Riverport, but not before Rob had hailed him and asked the distance to school.

“A little over a mile, I guess,” was the reply.

That was encouraging and they pegged along. Then a dark object grew out of the mist ahead, and when they reached it they found that it was the dilapidated wagon and the dejected horse and the ill-natured farmer. He had broken a trace, and as they gathered around he looked up and scowled angrily.

“In trouble?” asked Rob sweetly.

“Can’t you see I be?”

“Well, I am sorry. We’re all sorry, aren’t we, fellows?”

“Awfully!”

“Huh,” grunted the man.

“Yes, because you were so kind and accommodating,” went on Rob genially. “Your pressing invitation to ride with you quite won our hearts. Did it not, fellows?”

“It did—not,” said Malcolm.

“You get out o’ here an’ let me be,” grunted the farmer.

“Let you be what?” asked Evan from a safe distance. Jelly sniggered and the farmer bent over his trace muttering savagely. The boys drew away to the side of the road, smiling broadly at each other.

“What a beautiful horse,” remarked Jelly. “I’ll bet he’s got a record.”

“I’ll bet they both have,” said Malcolm.

“Look at his ears,” Evan directed.

“Who’s ears?”

“Why, the horse’s. Are they not eloquent? See how he carries one forward and the other back. He’s listening for automobiles, I suppose. Don’t tell me that horse hasn’t got sense.”

“Sense! I should say he had sense!” said Rob. “Why, that horse has the sense of the whole family!”

“Well, he’s old enough to have sense,” remarked Evan. “How old would you say, Malcolm?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call him exactly old. I don’t suppose he’s a day over fifty—or sixty!”

“That horse?” said Rob derisively. “Get out! Why, that horse is one of the ancient landmarks of the locality. He was captured wild on the slope of Graytop by the first settler.”

“Was he hitched to that wagon when they caught him?” asked Malcolm.

“I believe so. Anyway, he wore the same harness.”

“They don’t make harness the way they used to,” mourned Evan. “Look at that trace; why, that should have lasted years yet!”

“I know; it’s a shame,” said Malcolm. “That’s a perfectly good harness. I saw one just like it once in a museum. Well, accidents will happen!”

Meanwhile the farmer, muttering crossly, had managed to mend the break with the aid of his knife and a piece of stout cord. Now he climbed on to the seat again and picked up the reins.

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he asked venomously.

“Well,” answered Rob modestly, “far be it from us to sound our own praises.”

“You’re a parcel of young fools, that’s what you be! Get ap!”

“Whoa!” shouted Jelly.

The horse preferred the second command to the first and remained motionless.

“Get ap, I say! Get ap!”

“Whoa, Dobbin!” was the chorus from the road. Dobbin started and stopped. Then the farmer found his whip in the bottom of the wagon and Dobbin decided to go.

“If I wasn’t in a hurry I’d use this whip on you!” shouted the farmer as the horse trotted away.

“Look out! He’s running away from you!” bawled Malcolm. Driver and wagon disappeared and the boys took up their journey again, still laughing. The encounter had cheered them up wonderfully. Fifteen minutes later the gymnasium loomed through the fog at the left of the road and their troubles and travels were over. As they cut across the slope toward Holden Malcolm said:

“Give me the dishes and things, Rob, and I’ll leave them at the kitchen.”

“The di—” Rob looked about in dismay. “Hasn’t anybody got them?”

“Haven’t you?” demanded Malcolm.

“No. I thought—Oh, I remember now. I set them down when we climbed the fence back there. I guess they’re there yet, Mal.”

“Well, you’re a wonder! Cook will give me the dickens.”

“Oh, I’ll pay for them. They weren’t much good, anyway, after the way Jelly dented them up.”

“After I dented them up!” exclaimed Jelly. “I’d like to know what I had to do with it. It was that silly bull!”

“Well, you gave them to him to play with, didn’t you? Now don’t try to evade responsibility, Jelly.”

“Well, we’ll never get any more,” said Malcolm. “The next time we want to picnic—”

“The next time we want to picnic,” said Rob severely, “I hope some one will clap us into an insane asylum. Don’t talk about picnics to me, Mal, or I may do you mortal injury. I’ve had enough picnicking to last me fifty years!”

“So have I,” grunted Jelly. “The next time you fellows ask me to go with you—”

“The next time we ask you!” cried Rob. But words failed him.

“I shall simply refuse,” concluded Jelly as he limped away.