down yet. Hurry, now, Josh! Tell the farmer what a mess I’m in; and that he’s just got to bring out some feed, and coax his mountain of beef to be good. Hurry, please, Josh, hurry!”
He watched the tall boy making his way leisurely along, and groaned because Josh seemed determined to let him have quite a siege of it there.
The bull had come back, and was nipping the grass almost under the tree. Now and then he would move off a little distance, and deliberately turn his back on Nick, as though he had forgotten that such a thing as a boy existed. But the captive was not so easily deceived.
“No you don’t Mr. Bull!” he called, derisively. “I can just see you looking this way out of the corner of your eye. Like me to slip down, and try to make that old fence, wouldn’t you? Guess I’d sail over the rails with ten feet to spare. But think what an awful splash there’d be when I landed. I can wait a while, till Josh takes a notion to tell what he came back for.”
Minutes passed, and he grew more and more nervous. Long ago had his tall chum passed out of sight behind the clump of trees that shut off all view of the farmhouse. Nick half suspected that Josh was lying down somewhere, resting, perhaps in a place where he could watch what went on in the pasture.
“Oh! don’t I wish I had wings now?” he kept mumbling, as he shook his head angrily, and watched the movements of the bull. “I’d fly away, and let Josh think the ugly old beast had swallowed me, that’s what. He’d be sorry then he loafed, when I sent him for help. But is that him coming over yonder?”
He thought he had detected something moving; but it was at a point far removed from the place where he expected Josh and assistance to show up.
“Well, I declare, if it ain’t George!” he exclaimed presently. “He must have begun to believe we were having too good a time at the farmhouse; and is on his way over to get his share. George is always looking for a pretty girl. I’ve got half a notion to let him get part way across the field, and then holler at him. When a feller is in a scrape it makes him feel better to see somebody else getting it in the neck too. There he comes across, sure enough!”
The bull had evidently seen George, too; but as he happened to be standing half concealed by the trunk of the tree just then, the boy who so lightly started to cut across the pasture, meaning to head for the house among the trees, failed to discover the bull.
“Oh! my, won’t he be surprised though!” muttered Nick, craning his fat neck in order to see the better; for he did not want his friend to get so far along that, in a pressure, he could not gain the fence before the coming of the wild bull.
Now the beast had started to paw the ground. George stopped short as he caught the sound, and looked around him. Just then the bull tore up some more turf, and tossed it in the air. That meant he was primed to start on a furious rush to overtake the newcomer.
“Run, George!” shrieked the boy in the tree, at the top of his high-pitched voice. “Run for the fence! He’s got his eye on you! The bull’s coming like hot cakes! Go it for all you’re worth, George. Oh! my! did I ever see such a great lot of sprinting! George can run pretty near as good as Josh did, and that’s saying a heap.”
It was. George seemed to be making remarkably fine time as he shot for that friendly fence. Evidently George knew something about bulls; enough at least not to want to stay in an enclosure with an angry one, and interview him.
For a very brief period of time it seemed nip and tuck as to whether George would be allowed to get over that barrier unassisted, or be helped by the willing bull. But apparently, after one look over his shoulder at the approaching cyclone, George was influenced to let out another link, for his speed increased; and he just managed to scramble over the rails when the bull came up short against the fence, to look through with his red eyes, and shake his head savagely.
“Hey! where are you, Buster?” shouted George, after he had succeeded in getting his breath again.
“Here, in this bally old tree, George. He chased us, and I had to hustle up here, while Josh went for help. He knocked my milkpail to flinders; but thank goodness Josh saved the eggs!” cried Nick; whose greatest failing was a tremendous appetite, that kept him almost constantly thinking of something to eat.
“Say, you’re a nice one,” called the other. “Why didn’t you warn me sooner?”
“I’m real sorry now I didn’t, George,” replied Nick, as if penitent; though at the time he was shaking with laughter, just as a bowl of jelly quivers on being moved; “but I was in hopes you’d scare him off. When I saw him getting mad, I knew he had it in for you; and then I yelled. But George, please think of some way to coax the old rascal off, won’t you. It’s awful hard on me sitting up here on this limb, and he means to stay till I just starve to death. Have pity on me George and get up some plan to rescue your best chum.”
CHAPTER II
THE CAMP IN THE COVE
“Hey, Buster,” cried the one on the other side of the fence, “where did you say Josh was?”
“He went for help, over to the farmhouse where we got the milk and eggs,” answered the boy in the tree.
“Well,” George went on, after looking all around. “I don’t see him coming any too fast; and I wouldn’t put it past that joker to take a snooze on the way, so as to make you worry a lot more.”
“Yes, I was just thinking that same thing myself, George. Josh has got it in for me, you know, every time. But please think up some way to toll this angry gentleman cow away, George.”
“If I only had that red sweater now, I believe it could be done,” said George, presently.
“Why, that was what Josh said too,” lamented the prisoner; “but don’t you see I can’t get it over to you at all?”
“Course not; but hold on there!” called George.
“Oh! now I know you’ve thought of an idea. Good for you, George! You’re the best friend a fellow ever had, when he was in trouble. Are you going to sneak in the pasture, and tempt the bull away?”
“I am not,” promptly responded George. “I’ve got too much use for my legs, to take the chances of being crippled. But wait and see what I’m going to do. Trust your Dutch uncle to fool that old cyclone. Look at him tossing the dirt up again. Oh! ain’t he anxious to get at me, though?”
“What’s that you’re shaking at him now?” demanded Nick. “It looks like my sweater, only I know yours is gray. Why, it must be a bandanna handkerchief; yes, I remember now, you often tie one around your neck, cowboy fashion. I can see that you’re going to get me out of this nasty fix, George. It takes a lawyer sometimes to beat a bull at his own game.”
“It is a bandanna, Buster,” replied the other, “and watch me coax the old fellow along the fence, down to the other end of the field. How he shakes his head every time I wave the red flag, and tries to get at me. It’s working fine, Buster. You get ready to drop down and run when I tell you.”
“But George, even if you coax him to the end of the pasture you know I’m so slow I never could make the fence before he caught up with me?” cried the still worried prisoner of the tree.
“Yes, you are like an ice wagon, Buster; but never mind. I’ve got all that fixed. Just look down yonder and you’ll see a nice little trap ready for Mr. Bull. It’s a small enclosure, with three long rails to slide across, once he’s inside.
