“What a funny cow that is, Josh! Look at the silly thing poking her bally old horns in the ground, and throwing the dirt up. Say, did you ever see anything like that? Why, the poor beast must be sick, Josh!”
“Cow? Great Jupiter! Buster, you silly, don’t you know a bull when you see one?”
“Oh, dear! and just think of me having the nerve to put on my nice red sweater this morning, because this Michigan air was so nippy. I don’t believe bulls like red things, do they, Josh?”
“They sure don’t. And then we had to cut across this field here, to save a few steps. He’s looking at us right now; we’ll have to run for it, Buster!”
The fat boy, who seemed to fully merit this name, set down the bucket of fresh milk he had been carrying, and groaned dismally.
“I just can’t run – never was built for a sprinter, and you know it, Josh Purdue!” he exclaimed. “If he comes after us, I’ve got to climb up this lone tree, and wait till he gets tired.”
“Then start shinning up right away, Buster; for there he comes – and here I go!”
With these words long-legged Josh started off at a tremendous pace, aiming for the nearest fence. Buster, left to himself, immediately commenced to try to get up the tree. He was so nervous with the trampling of the bull, together with the hoarse bellow that reached his ears, that in all probability he might have been caught before gaining a point of safety, only that the animal stopped once or twice to throw up some more soil, and thus give vent to his anger at the intrusion on his preserves.
Josh got over the ground at an amazing rate, and reaching the fence proceeded to climb over the topmost rails; never once relinquishing his grip on the package of fresh eggs that had just been purchased from the farmhouse, to make a delicious omelette for a camp dinner.
Meanwhile, after a tremendous amount of puffing, and frantic climbing, the fat boy had succeeded in getting a hold upon the lower limb, and pulled himself out of the danger zone just as the bull collided with the trunk of the tree.
“Gosh!” exclaimed Buster, as he hugged his limb desperately; “what an awful smash that was! And hang the luck, he’s just put his foot in our pail of milk too. There goes the shiny tin bucket the farmer loaned me, flying over the top of the tree, I guess.”
He presently managed to swing himself around so that he could sit upon the limb and look down at his tormentor. The bull was further amusing himself by tearing up a whole lot more of the turf, and bellowing furiously.
“Mad just because you didn’t get me, ain’t you, mister?” mocked Buster; whose name was really Nick Longfellow, strange to say, considering how short and stout nature had made him.
The bull did not bother answering, so after watching his antics for a minute, and wondering if he, too, would have been tossed over the tree had he been caught, Nick remembered that he had had a companion in misery.
Upon looking across the field he saw Josh perched on the rail fence, surveying the situation, craning his long neck to better observe the movements of the animal, and ready to promptly drop to the ground at the first sign of danger.
“Hey, Josh! ain’t you goin’ to help a feller?” shouted the prisoner of the lone tree in the pasture.
“Course I’d like to, Buster; but tell me, what can I do?” answered the other. “Perhaps now you’d like to have me step inside, and let the old thing chase me around, while you scuttled for the fence. What d’ye take me for, a Spanish bull-baiter? Well, I ain’t quite so green as I look, let me tell you.”
“That’s right, Josh,” replied the fat boy with emphasis; “and it’s lucky you ain’t, ’cause the cows’d grabbed you long ago for a bunch of juicy grass. But why don’t you do something to help a feller out of a hole?”
“Tell me what I can do, and I’ll think about it, Buster,” answered the other; as though not wholly relishing the remark of his comrade, and half tempted to go on his way, leaving the luckless one to his fate.
“If you only had my red sweater now, Josh, you might toll the old feller to the fence, and keep him running up and down while I slipped away.”
“Well, send it over to me then,” replied the tall boy, with a wide grin.
“You just know I can’t,” declared the prisoner. “Don’t I wish I had wings right now; or somebody’d drop down in an aeroplane, and snatch me out of this pickle? But I suppose I’ll have to get up a way of escape myself. Don’t I want to kick myself now for not thinking about a packet of red pepper when I was at that country store down near Pinconning yesterday. Never going to be without it after this, you hear, Josh?”
Only recently Nick had read an account of how a boy, on being hard pressed by a pack of several hungry wolves, somewhere in the north, had shown remarkable presence of mind in taking to a tree, and then scattering cayenne pepper in the noses and eyes of the fierce brutes as they jumped up at his dangling feet.
In that case the brutes had gone nearly crazy with the pain, and the boy easily made his way home. The story had impressed Buster greatly, and that was why he now lamented the fact that he had no such splendid ammunition to use on the bull.
