[Illustration: BILLY RAN BETWEEN THE SHORT, FAT LEGS OF THE COOK AND
UPSET HIM. (PAGE 20)]




  BILLY WHISKERS
  OUT FOR FUN

  BY

  FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY

  AUTHOR OF “BILLY WHISKERS,” “BILLY WHISKERS’ KIDS,” “BILLY
  WHISKERS’ ADVENTURES,” “BILLY WHISKERS IN THE MOVIES,”
  “FRANCES AND THE IRREPRESSIBLES AT BUENA
  VISTA FARM,” “THE WONDERFUL ELECTRIC
  ELEPHANT,” ETC., ETC.

  [Illustration]

  ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HAWTHORNE

  THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

  AKRON, OHIO                 NEW YORK

  MADE IN U. S. A.




  Copyright 1922
  by
  The Saalfield Publishing Co.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                               PAGE

     I BILLY WHISKERS, NANNIE, STUBBY AND BUTTON START
         ON A PLEASURE TRIP                                7

    II BILLY WHISKERS, STUBBY AND BUTTON VISIT THE
         COUNTY FAIR                                      15

   III WHAT BEFELL THE CHUMS IN TOWN                      27

    IV BILLY HAS AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE                   35

     V BILLY HAS ANOTHER EXCITING EXPERIENCE              45

    VI BILLY FINDS NANNIE IN BAD HANDS                    55

   VII WILD EXCITEMENT IN THE BARNYARD                    69

  VIII THE BURGLAR IN THE CELLAR                          83

    IX THE BRIDAL SUPPER                                  97

     X A THRILLING EXPERIENCE                            111

    XI UNEXPECTED HAPPENINGS                             125

   XII THE ELEPHANT’S STORY                              137

  XIII BILLY WHISKERS’ STORY                             149

   XIV POLLY AND THE MONKEY MAKE TROUBLE                 163

    XV THE CIRCUS BREAKS CAMP                            171

   XVI THE ESCAPE FROM THE CIRCUS                        177




ILLUSTRATIONS


  Billy ran between the short, fat legs of the cook and upset him.

  Billy and Nannie were on either side of the bull, sticking their long
    horns into him.

  He succeeded in lifting the bride into a crotch of the tree, but
    before he could climb up the bull was upon him.

  “My mother stretched out her trunk and threw the hunter over her
    head.”

  On that long table, set for a hundred fifty persons, each animal
    found something to his taste.

  “Follow me, Nannie!” called Billy and ran under the hook-and-ladder
    auto.




_Billy Whiskers Out for Fun_




CHAPTER I

BILLY WHISKERS, NANNIE, STUBBY AND BUTTON START ON A PLEASURE TRIP


“My dear Nannie, what do you say to our seeking the sunny South for
the winter? I am getting too old to enjoy huddling up to the lee side
of a strawstack to keep warm or sleeping in a drafty barn. Here it is
the first of September and by traveling slowly and taking our time, we
could reach southern California by the first of November.”

“California! Did I hear you say California?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“I thought you meant Florida or Mississippi or some of those states
when you said _South_, for I always think of California as West and
cold, not warm.”

“Oh, no! I don’t like Florida and those Gulf of Mexico States as well
as the warm climate of California. They have too many crocodiles and
snakes to suit me.”

“But, Billy, think what a hard trip it would be to travel all those
thousands of miles.”

“Not at all, my dear! We would travel only when we felt like it. At
other times we could find some nice farm on which to live or a small
town to stay in and we would enjoy the change of scenery as we traveled
along from day to day. I have been on the move so much that I feel it
would be positively impossible for me to stay here on this old farm
away up in Wisconsin where nothing happens from one month’s end to the
other all winter.”

“I know, dear, you have the wanderlust in your blood, and rather than
have you stay here and be unhappy, I will go with you.”

“That is said like a darling little wife, and I know you will never
regret the trip. It will do you good and liven you up.”

“We will ask Stubby and Button if they don’t want to go with us.”

“No use asking them if they want to go for you know perfectly well that
nothing would keep them from going unless you positively forbade them
and then I doubt not that they would follow you at a close distance.”

All this conversation had taken place beside a strawstack on the farm
where Billy Whiskers had been born. As he and Nannie stood beside it
chewing the full wheat heads that had escaped the threshing machine,
Billy had thought out the plan of crossing the continent on foot just
to be doing something.

“Hi, there, Stub, you and Button come over here a minute! I have
something to tell you.”

“From the way Nannie’s eyes are sparkling, I bet it is something
exciting,” said Stubby.

“If so, hurry and tell us and relieve our feelings,” implored Button.
“I hope to goodness it has action in it, for I can’t stand this
monotonous life much longer with nothing to do but eat our three good
meals a day.”

[Illustration]

“You will find that what I have to propose to you has action in it. It
has nothing _but_ action. It is to take a short walk of three thousand
nine hundred miles or so from here to where the Pacific Ocean laps the
shores of Southern California.”

On hearing this, Stubby began to run round after his tail for joy.

“Hurrah for you!” exclaimed Button. “I am with you!” and he started to
chase the chickens around the barnyard.

After they had run off some of their excitement, the two quieted down
and Stubby came back and wanted to know when Billy proposed starting.

“This very night,” replied Billy. “There is no time like the present.
Besides, the roads are in excellent condition for traveling as we have
just had a rain that has laid the dust. It is full moon, too. We will
wait until the family have all gone to bed, then we will give a hasty
good-by to all our friends on the farm and start. And I think we better
go across the field and down through the woods at the back of the farm
buildings than along the road, as we would surely meet some farmer who
would know us and tell Mr. Windlass in which direction he had seen us
going.”

“There is only one drawback to our going and that is leaving behind
Billy Junior, my son, and his wife and darling twin grandchildren. I
hate so to say good-by that whenever I go I feel like sneaking off and
not letting anyone know I am leaving. It does no good to say good-by
and only makes me feel sad. But Nannie thinks differently. Wild horses
could not pull her away if she did not get a chance to say farewell.
There she goes now to say good-by to the chickens that have been shut
in that coop to fatten for market, but they don’t know that and they
just stuff themselves with the food that is given them and quarrel over
it, entirely oblivious of the fact that every mouthful they take puts
on more fat and brings them that much nearer the day of their death.”

Five hours after this conversation when all good-bys had been said, had
you looked you would have seen two splotches of white weaving along in
the high grass of the meadow, followed by a yellow splotch and a black
splotch. For the long journey to California had begun.

They soon crossed the meadow and came out on the railroad track that
led to Chicago by way of Milwaukee, Racine and Sheboygan. They followed
this track as it was good walking between the rails and they were in
no danger of being seen by farmers. Consequently they made good time
and stopped to rest just before daylight on the outskirts of a small
town. It was just light enough to see the smoke from the chimneys of
the houses when the four friends awoke and sat up on their haunches and
held a consultation as to whether they should go through the town or
around it.

“I need a shave,” said Billy. “Let’s go through it.”

“You don’t mean to tell me,” said Nannie, “that you would be willing to
go through the experience you once had when you were tied in a barber’s
chair and the barber shaved off your beard, would you?”

“Oh! I had forgotten about that. But you fail to mention how I stood
around the place and waited for him to go to dinner, and how I butted
him over a grocer’s wagon that was standing in front of his shop, and
when he landed, it was in the middle of a mud puddle,” and at the
memory of it Billy laughed until his sides shook.

“I too say we go through the town,” said Stubby, “for I haven’t had a
piece of butcher’s meat for ages and I should like to feel the blood
trickling down my throat when my teeth sink into it and listen to the
sound of my teeth grinding the bones. Yes, I say we go through.”

“That juicy meat sounds pretty good to me,” said Button. “I would not
mind a steak myself even should it happen to be a tough one.”

“Well, Nannie, what have you to say to our plans? Should we be unlucky
enough to be shut up, we are to baa, bark, and meow three times in
quick succession and repeat three minutes apart. This is to be a guide
to Nannie should she come back looking for us. If you hear a goat
baaing, you are to listen and see if he baas naturally or baas as the
signal says, three times every three minutes. The same way if you hear
a dog or cat, you are to make sure whether it is Stubby or Button or
some strange dog or cat.”

“That is all right for us, but what are we to do if we come to _our_
trysting-place and find no Nannie?” said Stubby.

“If I am hiding somewhere, I too will baa every three minutes. But if
you don’t hear me, you are all to begin hunting for me. For who knows
but what a farmer with a big dog might come along and carry me off in
his wagon so you could not follow my trail, or his dog chase me into
some yard where I might be shut in?”

“Never you fear, Nannie,” said Stubby. “With my nose to scent you out
and Billy’s horns to butt both the dog and farmer into next week, we
can’t lose you. No, dearie; don’t be afraid! Your dear husband isn’t
too old yet to rescue his little wife from dozens of farmers and their
dogs.”

“Oh, she will be for going around,” spoke up Billy. “_Safety First_
with her.”

“You are right, Billy. I should prefer avoiding all danger where it is
possible. Besides, it will take up much more time to go through the
town than around it.”

“Yes! But the fun and excitement we may miss!” replied Billy. “We are
out for fun and adventures as much as to get to California.”

“I have an idea!” exclaimed Button. “You go around the town, Nannie,
while we go through it and we will meet you the other side, two miles
from the limits, on the main road that runs due south. For there must
be a road running in that direction to Chicago where we make our first
turn to the West.”

“An excellent idea, Button,” declared Billy. “What say you, little
wifey?”

“Yes, I think it a good plan, for I hate excitement and crowds and
hubbub. All of which you three adore and would rather be in than not.”

And so it was decided that Billy, Stubby and Button should go through
the town and Nannie around it, meeting them the next day at noon. But
should they not appear by the day after she was either to wait for
them another day or come back and find what had happened to them. So
they all rubbed noses together, their way of kissing, and baaing,
barking and meowing good-bys and wishing good luck to each other, they
separated, Nannie going to the west to circle the town and Billy,
Stubby and Button following the railroad that led through the center of
the town.

Had they known what was in store for them, they would not have kissed
good-bys so cheerfully, I’m thinking.




CHAPTER II

BILLY WHISKERS, STUBBY AND BUTTON VISIT THE COUNTY FAIR


Just as Billy, Stubby and Button were about to continue down the
railroad track, Billy chanced to glance to the east and there he saw
a cluster of long buildings that looked like barns and great open
grandstands roofed over like baseball and football grounds and all
enclosed with a high board fence. But what attracted him most was the
number of flags, banners and pennants he saw waving from hundreds of
flag-poles.

“Gee, fellows! That looks interesting to me, for those flags tell me
there must be a County Fair going on over there, as this is the time
of year they always have a big Fair. And I can well remember the one I
went to when I was quite young. I never had such an enjoyable, exciting
time in my life. What say you that we postpone going into the town and
go over to the Fair instead?”

“Fine, just fine! I would like it above everything, for I haven’t been
to one for years. I, like you, remember the time I was there, only
I was such a little puppy that I was under everybody’s feet and was
nearly run over several times, until at last my little master took me
up in his arms and carried me. But I have always thought I should like
to go back and see what it was like when I was old enough to take care
of myself.”

“As for me,” replied Button, “I am ready for anything, just so I get
something to eat pretty soon, for I am as hungry as a hedgehog.”

“That settles it!” said Billy. “And I can promise you the best things
to eat and plenty of them. The country women bring all their good
things to the Fair to contest for prizes, from the best roast chickens,
cured hams all roasted and garnished with cloves stuck in them to make
them tasty, to pickles and jellies of all sorts. As for pies, they
would just melt in your mouth. But I forget you don’t care for jelly
and spices. Very well then, there is a dairy exhibit where you can
bathe in cream, there is so much of it.”

“Come along, come along! The very sound of cream makes my mouth water.”

The Chums soon arrived at the fairgrounds and it being so early, the
only ones going in were the owners of exhibits and the men to feed
and water the live stock, chickens, geese and ducks that were on
exhibition. They watched their chance and slipped in when no one was
looking, Billy walking in under a load of hay while Button rode in on a
pole sticking out from the hay load and Stubby trotted in fearlessly
as if he belonged to a man driving a wagon full of milk cans.

[Illustration: BILLY AND NANNIE WERE ON EITHER SIDE OF THE BULL,
STICKING THEIR LONG HORNS INTO HIM. (PAGE 72)]

Once in, they hid under the seats of the grandstand until they laid
their plans--what they would do, where they would go and where they
would meet.

“There is no use of our trying to keep together,” said Billy, “for
if we do we will be stoned and clubbed and have no fun, so I say we
separate and each amuse himself in the way he likes best, but that we
all meet the other side of the town where we are to join Nannie.”

“The plan suits me to a tee,” said Button.

“And me too,” said Stubby.

“I think the first thing I will do will be to look up that dairy you
were speaking of,” said Button.

“As for me,” replied Stubby, “I shall smell out those roast chickens
and ducks. Where do you plan to go first?”

“I was just thinking I would go over to the fat stock show and while I
looked around for old friends I would incidentally eat up some of the
corn and oats that had been given to them. There is sure to be plenty
left as their owners will be stuffing them to keep them fat.”

“Gee! Look at the crowd pouring in. And it is so early. We better get
started before the crowd is so great we can’t get near anything. _Au
revoir_, fellows, until we meet again! And be sure you turn up at the
trysting-place!” And with a whirl of his tail Billy was off, running
under the seats toward the fat stock exhibit.

[Illustration]

Button followed him for a way, then he spied the dairy building to his
left and made a bee line for it. When he reached the door, he found two
dairy maids standing in the open door talking, and they were so excited
over what they were saying that he sneaked in right beside them and
was lapping the cream first from one pan and then from another. All of
a sudden one of them turned round and seeing Button, she gave such an
outlandish scream that it startled him and he fell headlong into the
pan. In a minute he came out dripping, cream streaming into his eyes so
he could not see. In his endeavor to get away, he fell into another as
there were several pans cooling in a vat of ice-water. One of the maids
grabbed up a broom and came for him. He jumped straight toward her and
as she dodged him she slipped and fell into the vat of cold, cold
water, upsetting every pan in the vat. Button landed on the floor and
the jar shook the thick cream from his eyes so he could see. And you
just better believe it did not take him long to escape. He had his fill
of cream for once.

On his way to the fat cattle, Billy chanced to pass a pastry show
and the delicious odor of hot molasses cakes floated to his nostrils
through the open door.

“Oh my! Don’t those cookies smell good? I shall just have to have some
for I haven’t had any old-fashioned molasses cookies for ages and I
adore them. I also smell pumpkin pie which I like just as well. Guess
I’ll just tarry here a while and eat some. Think they would taste
better than corn or oats at this particular time. How I wish Nannie was
not so timid! Then she would be here so she could get some, for I know
she adores molasses cookies. If that big fat cook doesn’t stop standing
in that doorway wasting his time, I shall have to butt him out while I
go in and eat what I want. There, he is moving, and I smell something
burning. Serves him right when he neglects them and wastes his master’s
time and money standing at the door instead of attending to business.
But ‘It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good’ for now he will be
so busy looking after his things that he won’t see me helping myself.”

When Billy arrived at the front door, the cook was disappearing out
the back door with the pan of burned cookies, mumbling to himself:

“Gott in Himmel! See what happens to me when I just step to the door
for one breath of air! My Gott! My Gott! Mr. Swabenbach will kill me
for wasting his butter und eggs und sugar und flour.”

“Yes, and he will feel like beating you to a jelly when he sees what
has happened to his pies, for I have already tasted four different
kinds,” thought Stubby.

Just then the cook returned, still muttering to himself. But when he
saw Billy up on a table eating a pie and several others ruined by being
trampled upon he nearly fell backward in alarm. Then with a roar like
a bull he started for Billy, throwing his empty cookie pan at him. He
threw it so hard that when it hit Billy’s sharp horns, they made two
holes in it and it stuck to Billy’s head and slipped half over one
eye. Billy immediately jumped to the floor, hitting the pan a bang on
the side of the table and completely covering one eye. This made Billy
angry and when he saw the cook approaching him with a long-handled
soup boiler in his hand, Billy turned and, running between the short
fat legs of the cook, he upset him, sending hot soup all over him, for
it turned upside down on his head and spilled carrots, turnips and
potatoes all over him. Billy ran out the back door and jumped a fence
which brought him into a chicken yard. As he went over, the cookie pan
on his head hit the fence in just such a way that it knocked it off his
horns, much to Billy’s delight.

His arrival in the chicken yard caused a fresh commotion as it
surprised the fowls so they flew in all directions and set up a loud
cackling which brought the owner to see what was the matter. When he
spied Billy he thought one of the prize goats had escaped from the
cattle show, so hurried over there to tell them their goat was in his
chicken yard. A man with a rope came back with him to capture Billy,
never even stopping to see whether or not one of their goats had
disappeared.

But when they returned not a goat was to be seen or a chicken either,
for that matter, as the chickens had coaxed Billy to butt down the
fence so they could escape and he had done so. And the minute it was
down, the chickens in the yard flew and ran through the opening out
into the fairgrounds and made for the outside fence.

Billy hurried away from this scene of mishaps and as he was now nearly
to the fat stock pavilion, he decided to follow the crowd a way and see
where all the people were going. He soon discovered that they were on
their way to the race track to see a game of auto polo.

“Gee, I bet that will be exciting! As I never saw one, I think I will
stop and watch it for awhile.”

Around the field, in and out, went the small polo autos after the ball.
It was the most exciting thing he had ever watched and he wondered how
in the world the players were not all killed, for the autos turned
upside down, collided, skidded and ran head-on into each other. But
after each mishap the men seemed to get up, shake a little dust off
their clothes, wipe the dust from bleeding noses, and go right on with
the game.

He was wildly excited and was watching with straining eyes a brilliant
player when a heavy hand was laid on him and a gruff voice said: “Here
you, old fellow, come along with me! You have caused all the trouble
you are going to since your escape. And don’t you know it is almost
time for your race around this ring in the donkey and dog race?”

“Gee! He takes me for some goat that is down to run a race with some
donkeys and dogs, I take it. Well, I am game! I’ll go along and race to
suit him. And I bet on myself to win that race.”

Billy was right. That was just what the man wanted of him, and with
little preliminaries Billy was led to the starting place and hitched to
a little racing sulky that a little darkey boy was to drive. Near by he
saw two little donkeys, two big dogs and one goat hitched to sulkies
like the one to which he was being harnessed.

[Illustration]

He was led into the ring, the others were led up also and all of them
stood in line. Then a bell rang, and they were off. It had been a long
time since Billy had been in a race. Being out of practice running, he
was left behind at first as his legs felt stiff and he was a little
out of breath. But his pride got the better of his short breath and
stiffness when he saw they were all ahead of him. He could not stand it
to be beaten. He who had won every race he ever had been in. Oh, no! He
would show them he was not too old and stiff to beat them. This was to
be a three-lap race, which gave him encouragement.

“They can have their first lap; I’ll have my second wind and all my
stiffness will be gone on the second. Besides the ones who start off
the briskest often come in last.”

“Here, Billy, what is the matter with you? You must be sick to lag
so on this race. Get a move on you or your rival, the slate-colored
donkey, will beat you!” urged the boy that was driving him, never
doubting that our Billy was the goat he had always driven.

With a bound forward that nearly threw the boy off his seat, Billy
started on a mad run. Off he went, rounding corners and ever increasing
his speed until he had passed all but his rival, the slate-colored
donkey. When he came abreast of him, it was nip and tuck to the poles,
but Billy came in a neck ahead.

But what was the surprise of the boy, his keeper and all the racing
people to see another goat exactly like Billy standing in the gateway
to the racing ring!

“Well, I’ll be switched!” exclaimed the boy. “Where did that goat come
from that is so much like ours? We better nab him; he would make a
great mate for ours.” Then he attempted to take hold of the collar on
Billy’s neck, expecting to find the collar their goats always wore,
but there was none. His surprise was unlimited, and he called to a man
standing near their goat to feel for the collar and there it was.

“Well, I’ll be hanged! If I haven’t driven a strange goat and never
known it was not our own!”

Everyone thought it was the strangest thing they had ever heard of and
many followed the boy and Billy into the yard where he was unharnessed
and then led away and tied up with some other goats and sheep.

They had just left him alone when whom should Billy see but Stubby
sticking his head through a hole in the fence near him.

“Billy, I came to congratulate you on the race. I never saw a prettier
one, but my heart was in my mouth for awhile, you were so long getting
started. And now what are you going to do? Here you are tied up and it
is time we were going on or Nannie will be looking for us.”

“Why, I am going to start in a few minutes, just as soon as they give
me a drink and I eat a bite or two. I am rather tired and thirsty from
my race.”

“But you are tied and they won’t untie you for a while, I can tell you.”

“Oh, Stub, you make me tired at times! Especially when you think any
old rope will keep me from escaping. Here comes my drink of water.
Vamoose to the other side of the fence and as soon as I have eaten and
drunk my fill I will baa and then you crawl under the fence and come
and help me chew this rope in two.”

“All right, I will,” barked Stubby.

After twenty minutes Stubby, who was about to fall asleep, heard Billy
baa and under the fence he went. Within a very short time they had
chewed in two the rope that held Billy and he had run to the fence
where he butted a couple of boards off to make a hole big enough for
him to crawl through. No one noticed his escape, for at that time of
the day that part of the grounds was almost deserted.

Billy and Stubby proceeded toward town and they decided to sleep
outside the village that night, and not go in until morning.




CHAPTER III

WHAT BEFELL THE CHUMS WHILE IN TOWN


When they did go in the town they found the inhabitants were just
getting up to breakfast, for they could smell bacon and potatoes frying
and coffee boiling as they passed the houses. There were few people
on the streets as yet so the Chums could go wherever they wished
without being molested. But the odor of bacon and fried potatoes was
so tempting to Stubby and Button and made them so hungry that they
declared their intention of having breakfast before they traveled
further. This food did not appeal to Billy but fresh lettuce and
carrots with dew on them did, so he proposed that Stubby and Button try
to get some bacon and potatoes while he jumped some garden fence and
feasted on fresh vegetables until Stubby barked the signal for them all
to move on.

But alas, these plans were made only to be broken.

Billy soon came to a house with a beautiful garden in front in which
were climbing roses and many other kinds of flowers, while at the back
was a big vegetable garden. On the way to the garden he nibbled off the
fragrant, sweet tasting, full blooming red roses, taking care not to
let the thorns prick him.

“Well, I declare!” said Billy to himself, “I never knew roses were so
deliciously sweet and tasty before. Why, they are better eating than
carrots or lettuce! The only trouble is that I can’t get a big mouthful
at a time on account of having to look out for the thorns. Gee, I am
caught in the bush! Wish I hadn’t tried to reach that big red rose on
the topmost branch. I have gotten myself all tangled up. I know that
rosebud looks very pretty in my beard and the one behind my left ear
is equally jaunty and fetching, but jumping cats! those old thorns do
scratch my sides like the dickens.”

Just then “Bow-wow, Bow-wow, Bow-wow!” barked a big dog at his back.
The dog had sneaked up so suddenly and quietly behind Billy that he had
not heard a sound. The first “Bow-wow” startled him so that he gave a
bound out of the rosebush, leaving bunches of hair pulled out of his
sides and strands of long hair pulled out of his beard. Encouraged
by his jump, the dog thought Billy was afraid, so ran after him. But
by this time Billy had recovered from his surprise and instead of
continuing to run he whirled quickly and faced the dog. This move was
so unexpected to the dog that he ran full force into Billy before he
could stop himself and there they stood for a second, nose against
nose. Being quick-witted, Billy recovered from his surprise first and
before you could say Jack Robinson he had butted the dog head over
heels out into the middle of the road. He picked himself up and went
yelping home with his tail between his legs. And Mister Billy proceeded
on his way to the vegetable garden back of the house where he jumped
the fence. Finding a nice bed of lettuce, he planted himself in the
middle of it and began to eat as quietly and placidly as if he had
never seen a dog in his life. And while he is eating lettuce, we will
see what luck Stubby and Button had finding a breakfast.

[Illustration]

As soon as Billy left them they separated, one going on one side of
the railroad track, the other on the other side. Then they ran along
in front of the houses, smelling to find a place where they were
cooking meat or potatoes. Stubby had run around to the back of a house
where he had thought he smelled fried potatoes but what was his joy
as he passed the kitchen window to smell the delicious odor of fried
beefsteak as well as potatoes.

“Here is the place for me,” thought Stubby to himself. “I’ll stay right
here until someone opens the kitchen door, then I shall sneak in and
grab some of that steak.”

He hid under the back porch, and as he impatiently waited, he could
smell the steak and hear it sputtering in the frying-pan until he was
so hungry and wanted a piece of it so badly that he felt he could eat
the whole cow instead of one steak. He was losing hopes of anyone ever
opening the kitchen door when the cook did so and left it open to let
the smoke out, for while she was in the dining-room the potatoes had
burned to a crisp and filled the kitchen with smoke. While she and her
mistress were fussing over the burned potatoes, Stubby slipped in the
door under cover of the smoke and jumped up on the table where the
steak was on a platter ready to be served. With one grab he had it in
his mouth and was running out the door before they saw him. Then with a
scream of rage and surprise, the cook grabbed a broom and gave chase.
Stubby ran down the railroad track and then dodged into a back yard and
crawled under a fence into an alley and ran until he came to an empty
packing box leaning on its side. Into this he dodged and dropped the
meat to rest his jaws while he stuck his head around one side of the
box to see if the cook was still pursuing him. Through a crack in the
fence opposite the box he caught a glimpse of her still running down
the railroad track with a broom waving in mid-air and crying, “Stop
thief! Stop thief!” So he knew she had lost him for good, and with a
sigh of relief and contentment he lay down by the steak and began to
eat it hurriedly. It seemed to him he had never tasted anything so good
in all his life.

He was just about gorged and feeling sorry he could not eat it all, it
was so good, when who should stick his head around the box and peer in
but Button.

“For mercy sakes! What are you doing here?” asked Button.

“Can’t you see?” replied Stubby.

“Looks to me as if you had been stuffing yourself on beefsteak.”

“I have, and you are just in time to save me from killing myself by
over-eating. Come on and finish it for me.”

“Think I will, but I can’t eat much as I have just dined on roast
goose.”

“Roast goose for breakfast! Who ever heard of _goose_ for breakfast?”

“No one, I guess. This goose was not for breakfast. It was for dinner,
but the cook had roasted it so she would not have to watch it so
closely when all her other things were on the fire. Then just before
they were done she had intended putting this back in the oven and
finish browning it. They are having a birthday party there to-day. She
had put this on the window sill to cool and I saw it so I just jumped
up on the sill, ate my fill and escaped without being seen. Gee, won’t
she be mad when she finds what has happened? She will think a rat ate
it.”

“My, what Billy and Nannie miss in the way of eating by being
vegetarians! I really can’t see how they stand it,” remarked Stubby.

“Well, I have eaten all I can. I wish we had pockets in our skins so we
could carry what is left for future use when we have no way of getting
a morsel of meat,” said Button. “But as we can’t, don’t you think we
better be moving on to find Billy?”

So they left the remains of the steak and continued down the alley. As
they emerged, they looked down the street which faced the yard where
Billy had feasted in the garden and they saw him running out of the
yard, chased by a big fat cook with a dipper of hot water, a gardener
with a rope, and a coachman with a long whip. But the Chums could see
that Billy had such a good start that there was no likelihood of their
catching him.

Then things began to happen. The cook stubbed her toe and fell flat.
The gardener ran into a clothes-line which caught him under the chin
and threw him back ten or fifteen feet. The coachman on seeing this ran
back toward the stable. Then Stubby looked for Billy to come to them
in the alley. He saw the three men standing there laughing to see the
fat cook try to get on her feet again and the gardener go reeling off,
holding his hands to his neck. At this moment the coachman appeared
on a bicycle and, spying them, he made straight for them. Before they
could get out of his way he was slashing them right and left with his
long lashed whip, calling to them in an angry voice: “Take that, will
you, you old garden thief!”

[Illustration]

But he had a chance to beat each only once for Stubby crawled under
the alley fence and Button ran up the fence and jumped down the other
side, while Billy ran on, then stopped suddenly so the man would hit
him and he would pitch head foremost off his wheel. This is just what
happened. The wheel struck Billy, who was braced for it, and over the
handle bar flew the coachman.

While he was picking himself up, Billy ran out of the alley and baaed
for Stubby and Button. They answered, and soon the Chums were together
again, hurrying down the railroad track.




CHAPTER IV

BILLY HAS AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE


The two Chums ran down the sidewalk until they saw the outskirts of the
town ahead of them and it being too early to meet Nannie, they decided
to separate at the next street and go into the business part of the
town and see what kind of a place it was.

“I see a good-looking yellow cat down the street I am going to talk
to,” said Button.

“Very well,” replied Billy. “If I don’t see you again, be sure and be
at the trysting-place by six o’clock this evening.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up my mind.”

And he never had a chance to make up his mind for at that moment a coat
was thrown over his head from behind and many hands grabbed him. Ropes
were slipped around his neck and legs and thus, half hobbled and half
pulled, he was dragged up a short pair of steps into a barber shop,
where amid much laughter which seemed to come from five or six throats,
he was lifted and pulled into a barber’s big chair. Here he was
securely held so he could not move a muscle and then the coat was taken
from off his head and he found himself sitting in a barber’s chair
before a glass with five big strong young boys around him laughing in
his face.

And the ringleader spoke up and said: “Now, Tony, get to work and fix
him up as I gave you directions!”

It seems these were college boys who were out for a lark and they were
looking for a white goat when they chanced to see Billy. What they were
up to was to catch a goat and shave him so his beard would be the same
shape as that worn by one of the professors at the college whom they
detested. He had a long face and pale blue eyes with the expression of
a girl, so they were sure they could fix Billy up and dress him in the
professor’s clothes so he would be taken for the professor himself in a
semi-darkened place.

They wished to play a joke on the Junior class. The class had been
up to some mischief and no one knew of it but these Seniors and they
decided to make the Juniors believe that the professor knew all about
it and was about to expel them. So they proposed to dress Billy up as
the professor and tie him in a chair at a desk in the recitation room,
and then tell the Juniors that the professor wished to see them there
at nine o’clock.

“All ready, Tony! First cut his beard into a long point, then trim his
hair on the side to look like side whiskers, and fix the hair on his
upper lip to look like a long mustache. Then dye them all black but
leave the rest of his face white. And oh yes, blacken his eyebrows and
lashes!”

“Heavens, what am I to do to get loose? Think what I will look like
with black beard, mustache, eyebrows and lashes. I really can’t stand
it to have them do it. I will be a sight all the rest of my life with a
face like that and a pure white back.”

[Illustration]

Poor Billy! He tried to open his mouth to baa, but it was tied shut.
He tried to move his head to look, but he was so securely tied he
could not even turn his head one inch. Then he tried to kick, but
his hind legs were tied together and his forelegs bound to the arms
of the chair. He was absolutely helpless! He closed his eyes and
wept for Billy was very proud of his size and good looks and to be a
laughing-stock to every person that laid eyes on him hereafter was too
much for his strong spirit to stand. So I know you won’t blame him if
he wept for once in his life. But he promised himself that when he did
get loose that he would spend the rest of his life getting even with
those five boys and the barber.

“Clip, clip, clip!” went the shears and at every clip the boys and
barber loudly howled with delight at the change it made in Billy.

“Now for the dye!” said the barber. “That will complete the likeness
and I know it is going to be perfect.”

Billy felt some cold stuff around his face and soon the barber took a
soft brush and put the cold liquid on his eyebrows and lashes.

“Oh, isn’t he a scream?” chuckled the boys.

“Come now, Mr. Goat, open your eyes and look at yourself in the mirror
before you,” said the barber as he finished his job.

But Billy would not open his eyes until the barber threatened to shave
the rest of the hair off his back unless he did open them. So he opened
them and looked. There gazing at him from the mirror was not Billy
Whiskers at all but a long-faced man with black whiskers, mustache and
eyebrows under which shone two blue eyes which grew larger and larger
as he stared at the face in the mirror. But where was he? For surely
that black-bearded person was not Billy Whiskers! No amount of dye
could change a goat to look so like a man. He was so taken by surprise
that he just sat and stared and stared at the reflection, while the
boys fell over one another in fits of laughter and clapped each other
on the back and howled with delight.

“Here, Tony, is five dollars for you for doing such a wonderful job.
Now where shall we hide him until it gets dark enough to lead him to
the college?”

“I’ll put him in my cellar until you come for him,” said Tony.

“That will be fine! Give him plenty to eat and drink, for we don’t want
to starve or hurt him in the least, and we will let him go the minute
the joke is played out. Good-by, Tony, good-by!” called the boys as
they filed out of the barber shop.

Tony shut the outside door and then cautiously untied Billy--all but
the rope around his neck. With this he led him to the cellar. Billy
could have butted him easily and made his escape, but he was too
disappointed to fight at that moment. Besides, he wished to go to some
cellar or dark place and hide until the dye wore off his beard and he
looked like himself again.

The barber led Billy to the cellar where he took the rope from his
neck and left him in a large room while he went to get him something
to eat and drink. When he came back he said: “Now, old fellow, you
better eat and drink what I have brought you and then take a rest for
if I am not mistaken you will have a wild night of it when once those
Junior college boys find out a goat has been palmed off on them as the
professor.” So saying, he walked out and shut the door.

For a few minutes Billy lay still. Then he decided he better eat and
drink if he was to be in trim to combat the boys. After he had eaten
all he cared to and had a drink of good cold water, he felt so much
better he said to himself: “I am a chump to give up like this! While
there is life there is hope. I’ll just look round this room and see if
I can’t find some window open or a rickety door I can butt down.”

He walked around and around the cellar but found the windows were too
high from the floor to jump through and the doors too heavy to butt
down. But as he inspected the door he saw that it had an old-fashioned
round knob for a handle.

“I have an idea,” he said to himself. “If I wiggle that knob, it may
turn the latch and I can open the door.” And in a second Billy had that
knob in his mouth and was twisting and twisting it in every direction
to try and make the latch slip back. It would go half way, then when he
could not turn his head any further, it would slip back. At last Billy
grew angry, he grabbed the knob between his teeth and gave it a quick
turn and lo and behold! the door flew open.

Well, it did not take Billy long to get out of that room and run down
a long, dark hall until he came to a pair of steps that led up, he did
not know where, but he expected into a hall that would eventually lead
to some outside door. Anyway, he took the chance and mounted them.
When he arrived at the top he heard someone coming and seeing a door
standing ajar, he quickly pushed it open and stepped inside.

[Illustration]

It was pitch dark in this room and the air felt damp and sultry. Billy
stood perfectly still until the sound of footsteps died away. By this
time his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and he could
distinguish small, long narrow windows five or six feet from the floor.

“Funny place for windows! And a queer room, I must say, with this
heavy, damp air in it. It is so dark I’ll walk cautiously over to one
of those windows, stand on my hind feet and find what I can see through
them.”

Billy took two steps and found himself falling into inky blackness.
Then he went kersplash! into deep water. He had fallen into a swimming
tank. As this building was given over to Turkish bathrooms, barber
shops and so on, Billy had fallen into the swimming tank, that was
all. In a minute or two he realized where he was and he began swimming
around to find some place to get out of the water. At last at one end
he found a long board running down into the water to the floor of the
tank, put there for the little boys who went swimming to climb out.
So up this board he went. Then he walked around the platform that
surrounded the tank until he came to the door. Once there, he stood
still and listened to find if he could hear anyone coming, but all was
still. He poked his head out the door and feeling a draft, he stepped
out into the hall and ran along searching the cause of the draft, which
led him to an outside door as he had supposed it would. It opened into
a long back yard which ended on an alley. And just as he left the
building, he heard the voices of the five boys as they came in the
front door after him. He had made his escape none too soon. And as he
leaped the back yard fence into the alley, who should he nearly land on
but Stubby.

“Well, this is luck! But come on, Stub, don’t stop to ask any questions
now for there are five boys on my trail this minute!” With a whirl of
their tails, the two Chums disappeared down the alley.

When they stopped running, Billy said to Stubby: “Thank you for not
laughing at my appearance. You are a true friend, Stub.”

“But why should I laugh at your appearance? You look just the same to
me.”

“Look just the same? Come, Stub, that is going too far with friendship!
How can you say I look just the same with my beard and eyebrows dyed
black?”

“Beard and eyebrows dyed black! Are you crazy, Billy, or what is the
matter with you? Your beard is no blacker than it ever was. You must be
blind to think so.”

Billy now cast his eyes down at his long beard and, sure enough, it was
white as snow, just as it always had been.

“Could I have dreamed it all?” thought Billy. “No, for I am as wet as a
rat from my swim in the tank.” Then the thought came to him: “The water
must have washed off the dye. But who ever heard of dye coming off in
one washing of cold water?”

Billy never had, but what had been put on Billy was not a regular dye,
but only some coloring matter that actors and actresses use when they
wish to change from blond to brunette. It is a perfectly harmless
preparation and washes off easily.

When Billy realized he was looking his old self, he began to caper
around and baa with joy until Stubby thought he must have taken leave
of his senses. But when he stopped skipping around and told Stubby how
the barber had fixed him up, Stubby said he would have given up his
luncheon to have seen him, especially when Nannie and Button had their
first glimpse of him.




CHAPTER V

BILLY HAS ANOTHER EXCITING EXPERIENCE


Billy and Stubby continued down the alley together until they came to
a corner drug store. Here they separated, Stubby going down the side
street and Billy going inside to get some gumdrops he saw displayed in
the window.

Before going in, he looked through the window to be sure there was no
one in sight, then he cautiously sneaked in the open door. By a coil
of cigar smoke he saw rising from behind a partition where he knew the
prescription desk was, he thought the proprietor must be putting up
some medicine. As for the man who belonged at the soda fountain, he
could see him talking to two young ladies in an auto outside to whom he
had just served chocolate sodas.

“My! That foamy chocolate soda looks good and makes me thirsty! I think
before I eat my gumdrops I’ll just step behind the soda fountain and
see if he has left any setting round.”

Of course he had not, but what Billy saw that looked quite as good to
him were several small boxes of little pink and yellow cakes standing
up before some bottles on a shelf.

“Me for the cakes before I get my drink!” And Billy slipped his tongue
around one of the pink cakes and before he knew it, it had slipped down
his throat, leaving a nasty taste in his mouth and causing a thick foam
to fill his mouth and throat.

[Illustration]

“Horror of horrors! I have swallowed a cake of soap instead of one made
of flour. Whatever shall I do to get the taste out of my mouth?”

Just then he spied a tub of water in which they washed the soda water
glasses, and he hurried to it and began taking long gulps. But alas!
the more he drank, the more foam came up into his mouth until he was
nearly strangled and he felt quite ill.

“Oh! Oh! I must get outdoors immediately, I feel so sick.” And instead
of running around the counter, he tried to jump over it, thinking it
would be the shorter way. Alas, alack! His horns hit the spigot that
turns the fizz into the soda water glasses and in a second Billy was
blinded by the flying, sizzling fluid. It went in his ears, eyes, nose
and mouth and for a minute or two he did not know which way to turn.
In his blindness he turned the wrong way and instead of going toward
the door, he landed behind the counter again, upsetting the ice-cream
freezer and sending the ice and salt over the floor and knocking the
lid off the can in which the ice-cream was packed.

At this critical moment the man came out from behind the partition to
see what the racket was and the clerk who had served the sodas to the
ladies came in also. As he went behind the counter he was met by a big
billy goat foaming at the mouth. Of course he thought him a mad goat
and he began to cry: “Mad goat! Mad goat! Look out, everybody!” and he
ran out the door calling this as loudly as he could.

The ladies in the machine hearing the cry and seeing the man running
from the store started the machine, but not before the man crying “Mad
goat! Mad goat!” had had time to jump on their running board and tell
them to “Drive on, drive on!”

Just as they started, Billy came running out of the drug store foaming
at the mouth and close behind him the proprietor of the store, a broom
held high over his head to chase Billy. But just as he reached the
front door he stepped on a piece of ice from the ice-cream freezer and
both feet slipped out from under him. He shot out the door and down the
steps, landing beside Billy at the edge of the sidewalk, where poor
Billy was coughing up great puffs of foam. At last up came what was
left of the cake of soap and Billy soon felt relieved.

The proprietor of the store, on seeing this, knew that Billy was not
mad but only sick and this provoked him so that he raised his broom to
hit Billy. Now Billy was in no mood to be beaten, so when the broom
came down on his back he turned to chase the man, who ran back into the
store with Billy after him.

Back of the counter ran the man and when he rounded the corner he
slipped again on the ice-cream that was now running out of the freezer.
He slid along on the end of his backbone about five feet when he came
up against the tub of water, upsetting it all over him, while Billy,
who had jumped up on the counter, stood watching him.

“You squint-eyed, pig-tailed, crooked-legged old goat! I’ll break every
bone in your body if I ever catch you, for causing all this mess!”

But while he was getting up Billy jumped from the counter and was
about to run out the door when whom should he run into but a squad of
policemen who had come in the ambulance to capture the mad goat the
soda fountain man had reported was running wild.

Billy never faltered a minute. He and all policemen were sworn enemies,
so before they knew what had happened to them, he had butted each one
over on the grass or into the gutter and was off down the street. And
when Billy turned to see if they were following, he saw them all piling
into the ambulance preparatory to starting for him. But Billy had too
much of a start for them to overtake him. He was just thinking of
leaving the town to go to meet Nannie when he heard a terrible racket
down an alley he was about to cross. Just before he reached it out ran
Stubby with a tin can full of stones tied to his tail, chased by five
or six hoodlums each with a stick in his hand.

On seeing them Billy said: “So that is your game, is it? I’ll teach you
not to tie a tin can on a dog’s tail and then chase him and beat him
when he has done nothing to you. Well, I’ll show you how it feels to be
hurt and, what is more, I will give you full measure, so you and the
rest of your gang will never tie another can to a dog’s tail again.”

Then he baaed to Stubby: “I’ll take care of this gang. You go chew the
rope off your tail and I will be back and help you the minute I have
butted every one of those boys into the middle of next week.”

The largest and foremost of the boys was about to strike Billy when,
my, Oh my! what was the matter with his back? It hurt him so he felt
it must be broken and here he was flying skyward as fast as he could
go! Had he been blown up by a bomb or was a mad bull trying to kick him
over the moon? Surely a goat could not butt one like that.

And while he was thinking this, Billy was chasing the other boys down
the alley as all had taken to their heels when they saw their leader
going skyward after Billy butted him. One boy jumped over the fence
into a yard and climbed a tree; another climbed up on the roof of a
shed; a third jumped into a milk wagon that was standing in the alley,
while a fourth ran through a yard and into a kitchen where he saw the
door open. This one Billy followed straight into the kitchen and when
the boy saw Billy still pursuing him, he ran upstairs and jumped in bed
and pulled the covers over his head.

After butting the fat cook down the cellar stairs when she tried to
stop him, Billy followed the boy upstairs and leaped on the bed,
butting and kicking him until he cried for mercy. After a few minutes
of this, thinking the boy had been punished enough, Billy jumped out
the open window on to a low shed roof and from there to the ground.
Then he hurried into the alley again to hunt up the other boys, for he
had made up his mind he would punish them all. The next boy he saw was
the one that had tried to get away from him by jumping into the milk
wagon. All Billy had to do was to walk up to the horse and give him a
slight hook in the stomach which startled him so he ran away. The boy
was tossed around among the rattling milk cans like a pea in a pod,
hurting his toes and giving him a bloody nose besides.

The next boy Billy came to was the boy in the tree. He tried to climb
the tree but of course could not. So then he butted the tree until it
shook so it knocked the boy out. When he tried to jump up and run away,
Billy was after him and he chased him until he was within a few feet
of his home. Billy spied a big hogshead of rainwater and into this he
butted the boy and left him crying for help.

Now the only boy left was the one on the shed roof who had sat there
and laughed as he watched Billy chasing the other boys. He had laughed
until his sides ached and called to Billy to “give it to them, you old
clummergudgen!”

“Oh! You can laugh at your chums’ misery, can you, you cowardly sneak,”
baaed Billy, “because you think you are safe? Now let us see which side
of your mouth you will laugh on when you find I too can climb up on a
shed roof.”

Billy was right. This boy was the worst sneak and coward of the gang,
so when he saw Billy coming up on the shed roof after him, his hair
fairly stood on end and he yelled for help as if wild Indians were
after him. But no one heard. The alley was deserted at this time of
day. Billy chased him around and around the roof for some time, giving
him little butts just to show him what a big butt would be like. Then
when he got to the place on the roof where he wanted him, Billy gave
him a mighty butt that sent the boy fifty feet off the roof out in a
straight line over the cowyard fence where he dropped on a pile of
manure. And here Billy left him and went to find Stubby.

[Illustration]

When he reached the place where he had left Stubby, he found he was in
good hands. A kind-faced lady with a big heart for hurt animals had
picked Stubby up in her arms and was carrying him home where she could
cut the string around his tail and bathe the wound in warm water and
witch hazel. The boys had tied the string on so tightly that she could
not undo the knot, so was taking him home where she could get a pair of
scissors and cut it off.

Billy followed them closely and waited until Stubby came out of her
house with his tail wrapped up with a witch hazel bandage, and as he
stood eating from a plate of food she had given him, Billy told him
what he had done to his four boy tormentors.

“Thank you so much, Billy! But how I should have loved to have seen you
butting them right and left and skyward! My, that is a nice lady who
fixed my tail! I like her so much, I’d like to stay with her always
if it were not for our trip west. And it seems mean to run away from
her without saying good-by after she has been so good to me. But the
best of friends must part some time. I am going to promise myself to
come back and see her when we return from our trip. As soon as I have
finished eating this delicious luncheon she has given me I will be
ready to go with you to where Nannie is waiting for us.”




CHAPTER VI

BILLY FINDS NANNIE IN BAD HANDS


But when they reached the trysting-place, there was no Nannie. After
waiting an hour, they decided something must have happened to her, as
it was long past the time she should have been there. So they put their
heads together and formed plans as to how to search for her.

Billy was to go to the right to a farmhouse whose chimneys he saw
sticking up above the treetops to the right of the road. Stubby was to
go round a big turn he saw to the left and Button was to stay there at
the trysting-place in case Nannie came while they were away.

“I feel quite sure someone has caught her and tied her up somewhere,”
said Billy.

“So do I,” replied Stubby. “But it won’t take us long to rescue her
when we once find her.”

In the wiggle of a lamb’s tail Billy disappeared from sight down a
ravine and Stubby under some bushes on the other side of the road. When
they had gone Button climbed up into a tree and fell asleep.

It seemed to him he had been napping but a short time when he heard
Billy and Nannie talking under the tree. Billy had gone straight to
the stable yard of the farmhouse whose chimneys he had seen above the
treetops and as he approached, he heard a goat moan as if in pain.
He stopped short to listen. Could that be Nannie’s voice? If so, and
someone was hurting her, it would not be well for them. Again the hurt
cry reached his ears. Yes, surely that was Nannie’s voice! He redoubled
his speed and arrived at the fence that enclosed the farmyard just as
three boys were trying to hitch Nannie to a little milk wagon that
had three cans of milk in it. When they buckled on the harness, they
buckled in a piece of her flesh, but what cared they? This hurt so it
made her moan. Then they struck her over the head for not standing
still, and dear knows what else they _would_ have done to her if Billy
had not jumped over the fence with one bound and come to her rescue.
One boy he butted into a watering trough and another over the garden
fence where he landed in an asparagus bed. The last boy he butted
straight through the open barn door, knocking over the hired man who
was coming out with a pail of milk in his hand, upsetting it and
spilling it all over the barn floor.

Then he turned to Nannie and said: “Now run for your life and jump the
fence. When the wagon hits the fence it will break the traces and you
will be free.”

[Illustration]

Being a good jumper, especially when frightened, Nannie did exactly as
Billy told her to do. And as the hired man and the boys were picking
themselves up, they heard a crash. Looking in the direction from which
the noise came, they saw Nannie and Billy jumping the four-rail fence
as a steeplechase horse takes a fence. The traces broke and the little
wagon, which had been pulled up on its hind wheels, toppled over and
spilled out all the milk cans and the milk, while Nannie and Billy
landed safely on the other side and ran for dear life to where Billy
had left Button. Every once in a while Nannie would give a frightened
look over her shoulder to see if the boys were following her, but she
need have had no fear for the boys were too bruised to chance another
butting.

The hired man was so angry that he called their bulldog and sent him
after the goats. Billy heard him coming and told Nannie to run to
Button and he would wait for the dog to overtake him, then he would
give him the surprise of his life. This dog was used to frightening
anything he ran after. Little did he know Billy or he would have
tucked his tail between his legs and turned and ran home. Billy stood
perfectly still and pretended he was eating grass. On came the dog,
yelping and barking as if he were going to eat Billy alive. And he was
a ferocious looking dog for he was a bulldog with undershot jaw. A few
feet from Billy was a deep pond with steep sides so Billy thought,
“I’ll just butt him into that pond and he will have a good time getting
out for the sides will give way and crumble in the minute he touches
them.”

“Bow-wow-wow!” barked the dog, showing his teeth as he jumped at Billy
from a high bunch of long grass. Pang! went something flying through
the air followed by a yowl of pain, and the dog landed in the middle of
the pond and went straight down to the bottom.

When the hired man, leaning on the fence to watch his dog chew up
Billy, saw this, he roared with rage, picked up a pitchfork which was
handy and started for Billy. But when he reached the pond he found he
had to give all his attention to his dog, else he would drown as the
bank crumbled and gave way, carrying him back into the water every time
he tried to climb out.

Billy ran on and soon the friends were all together for the man and
his dog did not follow them. The Chums started on down the road that
led away from the town and toward Chicago, for which place they were
bound. They traveled straight down this road until midnight. Then they
went into a woods beside the road to sleep and rest until morning, but
Nannie scarcely closed her eyes, for she had become so frightened she
could not sleep.

“My dear little wife,” said Billy, “don’t be afraid! I won’t allow
anything to hurt you. Come over here and sleep close to me so I can
protect you.”

So at last Nannie fell asleep, but it was almost worse than being awake
for she had terrible dreams of being chased by bulldogs that bit pieces
right out of her side as she tried to run away from them.

In the morning she felt as tired as if she had not slept at all, and
the long journey ahead of her made her feel ill at the very thoughts
of it, with its hardships and adventures. She thought of it all the
morning and at noon she said to Billy: “My dear, I hope you won’t be
disappointed, but I have made up my mind that it will be better for all
concerned if I return home and let you and Stubby and Button continue
your trip without me.”

“Why, Nannie! What do you mean? Are you going to desert us at the very
beginning of our journey?” asked Stubby.

“Yes, Stubby. I feel I am getting too old to enjoy leaving my peaceful,
quiet home, my children and grandchildren, to go roaming all over the
continent just for the excitement and adventure. It may be all right
for you unmarried ones, but for a grandmother, NO! I believe my place
is at home and I am going to start back to-night before we are so far
away I can’t find my way.”

All this time Billy had kept still and was watching Nannie to see how
much of this she meant, and he was surprised to find that every word of
it was in earnest. Then the thought flashed through his mind: “Perhaps
she is right. She always has been a home-loving body and very timid,
and I believe with her that this trip would be too much for her. I
will go back with her to within sight of the farm so I shall know she
reaches there safely. Then I shall come back and join Stubby and Button
and we can continue our journey.”

Nannie noticed Billy was very quiet and she was afraid to look at him
for fear he would be angry at her for backing out. So she felt greatly
relieved when she did look at him to find he was smiling at her and
nodding his head for her to go.

“You certainly are a darling, Billy, to let me have my own way in
everything, but you need not escort me back home. I can find the way,
and if I can’t, I can call on the crows and blackbirds to show me the
way.”

“No, my dear; I shall feel better if I see you home--at least the other
side of the village where the boy captured you. If we travel fast, I
can join Stubby and Button here by day after tomorrow. And what is two
days lost when one is not in a hurry and going away for a year?”

So they rested all that afternoon and just before dark Billy and Nannie
started back to the old farm. They traveled rapidly until they came to
a high hill that looked down on the old farm and the rolling country
around it with its placid lake and wooded slopes on one side and the
equally pretty country through which they had just passed on the other.

“Billy,” said Nannie, “you need not come any farther with me. I can go
on alone from here in perfect safety.”

“Oh, I might as well go all the way with you.”

“No, you need not, for it would only make you have to say good-by to
everybody again, a thing you hate to do.”

“Very well, if you say so and if you feel all right about my leaving
you here, I will. But I do _so_ wish you were going with us! Every
mile I have been traveling in bringing you back has made me feel more
lonesome as it will be many months and perhaps a year before I see you
again, and at our time of life we haven’t as many years to be together
as we once had, you must remember.”

“Oh, Billy, don’t talk that way or I shall turn right around and go
back with you no matter how afraid I am of the unknown dangers I will
have to pass through.”

“No, no, dear! I would not have you go for worlds, if you were going to
be afraid all the time. Now you start ahead and I will stand here and
watch you out of sight.”

“No, indeed, that is what _I_ am going to do. I am going to wait here
until you disappear over that farther hilltop.”

“Oh, very well, if you wish it.”

And with many, many rubbings of noses and sides in lieu of kisses, the
two old lovers parted. Billy ran as fast as he could down the hill and
Nannie strained her eyes to see him come out of the grove of trees at
the bottom and begin to climb the hill. She could easily locate him by
the white spot he made on the green landscape.

But what was the matter with her? Every time he disappeared her heart
fluttered so she felt she would suffocate and the tears sprang to her
eyes in such numbers that for a minute or two she could not see him
when he did emerge from the bushes and trees that had hid him. And all
too quickly he was approaching the top of that terrible hill where,
when he once stepped over the top, she would not see him for--what had
he said?--weeks, months and perhaps a year!

No, it must not, could not be! She knew it now by the flutter of her
heart that fear, children or grandchildren could not keep her from
following her own darling lover-husband. And with a long jump she was
down the side of the hill, baaing for Billy to wait for her.

Poor timid, loving Nannie! Her love had cast out fear as it always
does in life if we love enough. Nannie ran so fast that she did not
look where she was going and she had many falls and turned many
somersaults before she reached the top of the hill over which Billy
had disappeared. And when she at last stood on the brow of the hill
she expected to see him miles ahead of her. But what was her joy on
reaching the crest to see him quietly drinking out of a little stream
at the bottom.

“He has his back to me, so I will just creep up and surprise him,” she
said to herself with joy in her heart that she had found him so soon,
“and never, no, never will I leave him again of my own accord.”

After drinking all he cared to, Billy waded out into the middle of the
stream where the water was deep, to let it wash over his back to clean
his long hair. He was so busy with his bath that the first he knew of
her presence was when he saw a shadow in the water beside him.

Can you appreciate his surprise when he looked up and saw his little
Nannie whom he had thought so far away standing beside him?

“Why, Nannie, my darling, how you surprised me! When I saw your shadow
I thought you were some animal that had waded into the stream for a
drink. Whatever brought you back? Oh, I don’t care what it was, so you
are here, for I was so lonesome without you that I was about to turn
back and coax you to come with us or stay behind myself.”

“Were you really, Billy? How nice! Now I know you will feel all right
when I tell you I have decided to go with you and never be separated
from you again if I can help it.”

“Have you really decided to do that, Nannie, and not just come to tell
me something you forgot to say to me?”

“Indeed I never was more in earnest in my life! My fears are all gone,
or rather they are as nothing to the lonesomeness I felt when I saw
you going from me and I realized how long it might be before I saw you
again.”

[Illustration: HE SUCCEEDED IN LIFTING THE BRIDE INTO A CROTCH OF THE
TREE, BUT BEFORE HE COULD CLIMB UP THE BULL WAS UPON HIM. (PAGE 94)]

“Hurrah! Hurrah for you, you sweet little wife of mine!” and Billy
began to prance around in the water so he nearly drowned her.

“My, but this water feels good and cool to me after my long hot run to
catch up with you,” said Nannie.

“Won’t Stubby and Button be surprised when they see you come trotting
back with me?”

“Yes, and they will think I am the biggest goose that ever lived.”

“But a fine one at that, for both Stub and Button are very fond of you.”

After Billy and Nannie left them, Button said to Stubby: “Well, what
shall we do with ourselves while waiting for Billy’s return?”

“I don’t know,” said Stubby, “but when I went over to that big barn you
see the other side of the road, looking for Nannie, I met the cutest,
curliest Saint Bernard puppy you ever saw. I guess I will go back and
play with it awhile. And by the way, Button, I saw a spotted cat over
there too, so you better come along with me and probably we can manage
to pass away the time happily until Billy’s return and get a good
square meal or two besides.”

When they came within a short distance of the big barn they saw the
haymow door was open and on the ledge basking in the sun lay the
spotted cat Stubby had seen when he was there before. She seemed to be
eating something nice and juicy. “It must be a mouse,” thought Button.
When he got right under the door, he meowed: “Good-morning, Mrs. Spot!”

This so surprised the cat that she let fall from her mouth what she was
eating and it fell at Button’s feet and he discovered immediately that
it was the head of a squab.

“Excuse me,” meowed Button, “I did not mean to startle you. I thought
you had seen me coming. Wait a minute and I will bring up to you this
delicious morsel you have just dropped.”

Not to be outdone in politeness, the spotted cat meowed back:

“Oh, no! Don’t trouble yourself to bring it back. I have plenty more
and if you would care to have some and will come up here, I can give
you all you can eat.”

“I am sure that sounds most alluring. I’ll be right up if you will tell
me how to get there.”

“Wait a minute and I will come down and show you the way.” And before
Button expected her, the spotted cat crawled out of a hole from under
the barn. Just then the cat saw Stubby for the first time and not
knowing he was with Button, he spit and flew at him in a rage and would
have scratched his eyes out before Stubby could have defended himself
had not Button meowed:

“Don’t touch him. He is my friend and won’t hurt you. He only came over
to visit the little puppy while I talked to you.”

The spotted cat apologized most profusely and invited Stubby to join
them at their feast of squab up in the hayloft. But when Stubby tried
to squeeze through the hole under the barn he could not, so he was
forced to stay outside with thoughts of having a whole squab dropped
down to him from the loft.

“But how comes it that you have so many squabs to eat at one time?”
asked Button.

[Illustration]

“It happened in this way. As you know, there is going to be a wedding
here this afternoon and these squabs were raised to serve at the
wedding feast. But the boxes their nests were made in, up in the pigeon
loft just over our heads, broke loose and spilled out all the young
squabs and no one knows it but me and the mother pigeons. Haven’t you
observed how excited the old pigeons are and how they keep flying in
and out of the loft looking for their babies? My, but there will be
a terrible commotion at the house when they discover that the squabs
are gone. So come ahead and follow me. We must hurry and eat our fill
before the people at the house discover their loss.”




CHAPTER VII

WILD EXCITEMENT IN THE BARNYARD


The spotted cat led Button under the floor of the barn until he came
to a round hole in the floor that led to the main barn where the grain
bins were. Through this hole they squeezed themselves and from there
crossed the barn floor to a ladder that led up into the haymow.

Once in the hayloft they hurried over to the door that was directly
under the window where the pigeons went in and out to their nests, but
there on the hay, wriggling and crying, were the baby squabs who opened
their mouths so wide they nearly fell over backwards when they heard
the spotted cat and Button approaching. They thought every sound was
their mothers coming to feed them.

“Now help yourself, Mr. Button. Pick out the plumpest, and fall to. But
before we begin we better drag to the door a couple of squabs and drop
them down to your friend.”

Though their intentions were good, only trouble came from it, for
just as the squabs fell from the open door, the farmer happened to
be passing and they hit him on the head. This surprised him greatly
and he immediately came running up into the hayloft to see what had
happened to his squabs.

And there he found that a whole row of boxes which held the nests had
fallen down from the upper window into the hay and spilled out nearly
all of his nice fat squabs that were to be one of the delicacies at the
wedding feast. This was bad enough, but it infuriated him to find a big
stray cat and his own cat eating them up as fast as they could and he
grabbed up a pitchfork that was sticking up in the hay and ran toward
them.

Button saw by the angry gleam in his eye that he would as soon run the
pitchfork into them as not, so he ran for the door, preferring to take
the risk of having his neck broken by the fall to being run through
with the pitchfork.

The loft was high--at least fifteen or eighteen feet from the
ground--but Button took the leap without a moment’s hesitation, not
even casting his eyes down to see where he was going to land, for he
had felt the prongs of the fork prick his tail as he left.

Imagine his surprise on landing to find himself sitting on the broad
back of a big Durham bull! Also imagine the surprise of the bull at
having a pincushion land on his back filled with pins that stuck into
him when he was doing nothing but standing quietly in the yard!

Button had scarcely touched his back when the bull bounded forward.
Of course this made Button stick his claws deeper into the hide of the
bull to keep from falling off, and of course this hurt the bull and
made him try to shake off whatever was on his back. He started around
the yard on a run, jumping up and down and shaking himself, but no
matter what he did the sharp prickling thing on his back stuck on.

Just then he spied a little dog coming around the corner of the barn.
He hated dogs at any time and now being hurt and cross and looking for
some person or animal to vent his spite on, he started for the dog who
was no other than Stubby.

Seeing Button on the bull’s back and the bull running around like mad,
Stubby barked and ran up to the bull to try to drive him into a corner
of the barnyard and keep him there just long enough for Button to
loosen his claws which had become embedded in the bull’s hide by this
time, and give him a chance to jump off.

But Stubby missed his calculations. He thought the bull was too fat to
run fast, so he ran straight toward him, barking as he went. But alas!
with a lunge forward the bull’s horns slipped under Stubby and tossed
him up in the air so high that he thought he must surely be going on
up over the moon. Then all of a sudden he started to come down and
from the speed he knew when he hit the ground that the breath would be
knocked out of him so hard that it would kill him. Just when he had
made up his mind that he had to die, he hit something soft and opening
his eyes to see what it was, he found he had fallen in the middle of a
load of hay.

Now when the bull saw Stubby up in the hay, he tried to get to him and
went bellowing round and round the hay wagon, butting his head into
the hay and trying to scratch Button off by rubbing his sides against
the load. But the first time he did this, with a mighty pull Button
loosened his claws and with a spring he found himself safely on top of
the load beside Stubby.

[Illustration]

Just at this critical moment Billy and Nannie came trotting into the
barnyard and the bull ran straight for them with head lowered ready to
toss them over the barn. But this time he had met something that could
hook and butt quite as hard and much faster than himself. And when he
got to the place where he had seen two goats standing, he found no
goats in front of him, but one on either side of him sticking their
long horns into him. With a bellow of rage he ran forward and Billy
and Nannie chased him until they came to a little shed whose door was
open. Into this they dodged and let the bull go raving and bellowing to
his heart’s content.

And while they describe their sensations to each other, I will tell
you what became of Spot, for that was the name of the black and white
spotted cat. When her master went after Button with the pitchfork, she
ran up the side of the barn and hid on one of the rafters away up high
where her master could not possibly reach her. And there she stayed
until her master left the loft. When he did so there was murder in his
eye, for he had taken one look out the loft door just in time to see
Button riding on the back of his pet Durham bull, and it was at that
moment the bull tossed Stubby up on the load of hay.

“I have them now!” he cried. “I’ll run into the house and get my gun
and shoot both of them. I won’t have any stray dog and cat coming round
here and eating up my squabs and sticking their claws into my prize
bull’s back!”

The minute Spot’s master left the barn, she climbed down from the
rafters and going to the door meowed to Button and Stubby who were
still on the load of hay only a short distance from the door. She told
them to jump off the load and hide somewhere as her master had gone
to the house for his gun and he intended to shoot them on sight. “But
don’t go away. Hide until dark and then come back and we will feast on
what is left from the wedding supper.”

“All right,” they meowed and barked, and jumping from the opposite
side of the load of hay from which the bull was still pawing the
earth and bellowing with rage, they ran to an empty corn crib at the
further side of the barnyard. They crawled up through a hole in the
floor of the crib and found a place of shelter as no one would ever
think of looking for them there. Besides being safe, it was situated
in a very advantageous place, for from its latticed sides they could
see the farmhouse between the end of the barn they had just left and
the cluster of sheds and outhouses. Now they could see everything that
went on, both in the barnyard and at the house. They could see the
bridegroom, the minister, and all the guests arrive, to say nothing of
the bridal procession they could watch as it left the house on its way
to the church whose tall, sharp steeple they could see piercing the
clear, blue sky.

“Here Spot’s master comes now, running around the barn with his shotgun
in his hand and the Saint Bernard pup at his heels.”

Just as the farmer came around the corner and was looking wildly in all
directions for the cat and dog that had eaten his squabs and hurt his
bull, the bull spied him and being of a cross, disagreeable nature, he
wished to vent his anger on someone. Here was a good chance, a man and
a dog. He cared not that the man was his master and that the dog had
never even so much as barked at him. They were something to hurt and he
wished to make someone smart and burn as did the scratches that Button
had inflicted on his back.

Consequently Farmer Stevenson was more than surprised when his own bull
came toward him at full speed, bellowing as he came. And he had just
enough time to turn and run for his life before the bull was upon him.
Then the chase began. Mr. Stevenson headed for the house with the bull
close at his heels. He would have caught him had the bull not spied
the dog and ducked his head to toss the poor puppy up in the air to
land on the shed roof. Then the bull continued the chase and he caught
Mr. Stevenson’s coat tails which were flying out behind him in his mad
flight and ripped the coat straight up the back from hem to shoulder.
His long sharp horns did not touch Mr. Stevenson and luckily he escaped
through an open gate into the yard of the farmhouse and slammed it in
the bull’s face.

As it shut it hit the bull in the nose which hurt him considerably and
made him madder than ever. Now he began to kick and paw the gate down.
It held for awhile, but when he threw his big broad sides against the
fence, it gave way and a whole section fell into the yard. The bull
walked over it, bellowing and shaking his head as he made straight for
the kitchen door, through which he had seen Mr. Stevenson disappear.

Now _here_ was a pretty how-de-do--a wedding in preparation in the
house with the guests about to come and a mad bull running wild on the
premises. The maids preparing the wedding supper were scared nearly out
of their lives and went fluttering and squealing around the kitchen
like a flock of chickens. The mother of the bride and the bridesmaids
looked out the upper story window in alarm while the bride fainted for
fear the groom would arrive on the scene and the bull would kill him.
Of course Mr. Stevenson would shoot him at any minute but he did not
want to kill his prize full-blooded, pedigreed Durham bull and sell the
carcass for beef, as this would make him lose three thousand dollars,
the amount at which the bull was valued. He was hoping the bull would
quiet down and go back into the pasture if he saw no one to infuriate
him. But how was he to get out of the house and warn the guests, who
would soon be coming? He could go out the opposite side of the house,
but what good would that do, for he must shut the bull out of the
barnyard and he could not do that without being seen.

“Milly,” he said to one of the maids, “peek out of the window and see
what he is doing now.”

Milly looked out and saw the bull standing but a few feet from the
window pawing the earth and throwing it over his shoulder in his mad
rage, bellowing all the time so loudly you could have heard him a mile
away.

“Oh, it is terrible the way he is pawing and hooking all the geraniums
out of the bed!”

“I know why he is doing that,” spoke up another of the maids. “It is
because they are red and they say a bull hates red. He thinks someone
is waving a red flag at him. Look! Look! There go two plants he has
uprooted flying up in the air! Let us beat on a tin pan and see if we
can’t attract his attention before he uproots the whole bed.”

So they brought a tin pan and opening one of the windows began to
pound on it. The bull heard, paused, listened, looked, and seeing two
or three faces at the window stopped pawing and with a mighty roar he
rushed for the window. It was too high and small for him to go through
as it came half way up to his shoulder, but he raised himself on his
hind legs and tried to get his head in just the same.

Mr. Stevenson had shut the window when he saw him coming. This made no
difference to Mr. Bull; he just ran his sharp horns along the outside
of the window and every pane was shattered and fell over his head.

Just at this crucial moment Mrs. Stevenson called from upstairs that
she could see two or three buggies coming down the road with wedding
guests in them. They must be stopped for in his present state of mind
the bull would gore the horses and perhaps kill some of the people.

“It is the minister in one buggy and the groom in another,” called
out one of the bridesmaids who was keeping watch at one of the upper
windows. “What shall we do? What shall we do?” she wailed.

“One of you girls,” said Mr. Stevenson, “keep banging on the pans to
attract his attention while I sneak out of the house and go warn them.”

He ran down the front yard trying to get to the road to stop the guests
before they turned into the lane. Then the bull, on hearing the horses
coming, stopped trying to get in the window and turned his head in the
direction the sound came from. He rolled his upper lip over the end of
his nose as bulls do sometimes when intent on smelling something that
is far away, and immediately he detected the odor of perspiring horses.
Now here was something nice and big to vent his spleen on. He stopped
pawing the ground and butting the window, and was about to turn and
run out after them when to his dismay who should he see coming toward
him but those two horrid goats that had butted him and stuck their
long horns into him in the barnyard. He did not wait for them to come
nearer, but hustled his fat self round the corner of the house and ran
down the yard toward the road as fast as his great bulk would let him.

He arrived at the foot of the yard just as the first buggy reached the
lane. On seeing the horse, the bull threw his whole weight against the
rail fence and it fell over like a pack of cards and over it he went
after the horse.

[Illustration]

The horse hitched to this buggy was afraid of bulls, so he reared,
plunged and then bolted down the road on a dead run with his driver
pulling on the reins as hard as he could. The young lady with him
hung on to the side of the buggy to keep from being thrown out, while
her hat flew off and lit on one of the bull’s horns. This he soon
demolished by lowering his head and throwing the hat in the mud and
stamping on it.

This horse having escaped, the bull ran down the road to meet the other
buggies he saw coming. The next horse, driven by the minister, turned
straight around in the woods, upsetting it and throwing the minister
over a rail fence, where he landed in a squashy turnip bed, leaving the
tails of his long coat as he went over the fence.

The third horse became frightened also and in trying to turn around he
ran his buggy into the overturned one, locking the wheels and breaking
himself loose, as well as throwing out the groom, for it was none other
than the groom himself in this buggy. Then with a snort of fear he ran
down the road with the bull close to his heels.

When he recovered from his dazed feeling, the groom found himself in
the muddy road under the two overturned buggies. He tried to extricate
himself and get out from under the wreckage, while his bride, who had
seen all this from her window, fainted again when she saw his buggy
upset. But presently the man whose horse had bolted down the road
succeeded in getting him under control. He came back, and with his
help and that of Mr. Stevenson and the minister, they soon were able
to rescue the groom from the wrecked buggies. And just as soon as this
was done they shut the gate and reinforced it with logs so that should
the bull come back, he could not break the gate down and come into the
farmyard after them again.

[Illustration: “MY MOTHER STRETCHED OUT HER TRUNK AND THREW THE HUNTER
OVER HER HEAD.”   (PAGE 140)]

Nothing else happened and very soon the bride and groom were locked in
each other’s arms, rejoicing over the narrow escape of the groom. The
minister was given a coat in place of the one with the tails torn off
and everyone else calmed down and the wedding preparations went on as
smoothly as if no bull had ever been around.

“Well, I never saw such a mix-up as that before, did you, Stub?” said
Button.

“No, I never did,” replied Stubby. “Hear that Saint Bernard pup howl!
He has been up on the shed roof ever since the bull tossed him there
and he is afraid to jump down. I’ll bark to him to go to the other side
and jump on a heap of straw I see piled up against it.”

“You better not. Someone will hear you and find out our hiding-place.”

“Oh, no, they won’t hear me! They are all too much excited over their
narrow escapes from being gored to death to hear me. Besides I won’t
bark loud.”

This he did and soon the Saint Bernard puppy had joined them in their
hiding-place and he was telling them all about the runaway horses and
wrecked buggies that he had seen from his high place on the shed roof.




CHAPTER VIII

THE BURGLAR IN THE CELLAR


All the time the Saint Bernard puppy had been telling Stubby, Button
and Spot what the bull had done the barnyard had been filling with
buggies, wagons, automobiles, hay wagons with straw in them to cover
the rack and quilts to cover the hay so it would not stick in the
girls’ dresses. Soon the yard was filled to its greatest capacity and
the guests were beginning to drive into the yard where the corn crib
was in which the Chums were hiding. It was a beautiful day and all had
come to the wedding that could possibly get away.

“Boys,” said Button, “we will have to find another hiding-place for all
these wagons and buggies have shut off our view.”

“Where shall we go?” asked Stubby. “Spot, you and the pup here know the
place better than we do so perhaps you can suggest some place.”

“Let me see,” said Spot, holding her paw up to her face as old ladies
do their forefingers to their mouths when thinking. “The only place I
can think of is the cellar. But how we are to get in there without
being seen by some of these people is more than I can tell.”

“I have it!” spoke up the puppy. “We can sneak out of here and go
away around back of the barn and farm buildings and through the
orchard until we come to the fence that separates the orchard from the
farmhouse lawn. Then we can crawl through and approach the house from
the back. There will be no one around there now as they are all busy at
the other side of the house where the summer kitchen is. We can creep
along from the back of the house to the side window of the cellar that
is always left open and we can jump through. It is over the potato bin
which is in one corner of the cellar and we can stay in the bin until
the family start for church. Should anyone come into the cellar they
would not see us, as it has high sides and, besides, it is always dark
in that corner.”

“You’re right,” agreed Spot. “That will be a dandy place to hide. But
hiding isn’t the best part of the plan. We will be in the house to
eat up what goodies are left from the feast. And we might be able to
find and pick up a tidbit or two from the floor while they are at the
church. If we were outside the house, we would probably be locked out,
but once inside we don’t care if we are locked up for an hour or so.”

This plan was considered a good one and in a few minutes you could
have seen first a white cat with black spots poke her head under the
orchard fence and peer around cautiously in all directions before
pulling her whole body through the fence. Then she made running leaps
toward the open cellar window and in a jiffy disappeared through it.
Close on her heels came a black cat, and then a puppy, but he was
too big to crawl through the hole. He had to stop and dig it out
so he could squeeze through and while he was doing this, a little
stubby-tailed dog took a flying leap over the fence, followed by two
white goats, all of which made straight for the cellar window and
jumped in. But just before they jumped, Stubby and Button stared in
amazement at Billy and Nannie, for it was the first time they had seen
them since their return. How was it that Nannie had come back with
Billy? But they hadn’t time to ask any questions now.

The potatoes were piled high in the bin close up against the wall. This
eased their jump from the window to the floor. But when they landed,
it sent the potatoes rolling and they came bang up against the wooden
partition at the bottom and made a racket. It chanced that a maid was
just leaving the cellar with a pan of milk. Hearing the racket in
the dark corner of the cellar, she thought it must be a rat. Being
particularly afraid of rats, she screamed and ran for the stairs. In
her hurry she stepped on the front of her dress which threw her on her
face on the stairs. She dropped the pan of milk which turned over and
went rattlety bang to the foot of the stairs and along the cellar floor.

[Illustration]

“Now there will be the dickens to pay!” exclaimed Billy. “That maid has
made such a racket, she will bring the whole household upon us. We must
hide quickly. Nannie, run under the cellar stairs and squeeze yourself
in the corner as far as you can. I’ll hide behind that big packing box
in the opposite corner.”

All this noise attracted the attention of Mrs. Stevenson, who hastened
to the cellar door.

“Why, Hulda! What is the matter? Are you hurt?”

“No, ma’am, but there is a rat in the cellar and I am afraid he will
get me.”

“You silly girl to make such a fuss over a rat! It won’t hurt you.
Don’t you know that they are more afraid of you than you are of them?”

“Maybe, but I hate them and am afraid they will get on me. Do help me,
Mrs. Stevenson! I am all mixed up in my dress and can’t get up.”

She had stepped on the front breadth and instead of stepping off
it backward, she was still walking up the front, tearing it as she
struggled.

While Mrs. Stevenson was helping her, something deplorable happened.
Stubby sneezed. He absolutely could not help it.

“What was that? Who is there?” asked Mrs. Stevenson in a frightened
voice. She thought right away that it was no rat Hulda had heard, but
a burglar who had hidden himself in the cellar to steal the wedding
presents when the family had left the house to go to the church. She
grabbed Hulda by the shoulder and they both flew up the stairs and
slammed the door.

“Now we are in for it!” said Stubby.

“Yes, they will tell the men and in a jiffy they will be down here with
sticks, canes, stove-pokers and brooms,” said Button. “We must get out
of here as quickly as we can, and stay out until they are gone.”

“But how am _I_ to get out?” said the puppy. “I am so fat that I had
to squeeze through the window and then fall in, but I can’t jump up.”

“You are about the color of potatoes,” said Stubby. “Get in the darkest
part of the bin, keep your eyes closed and your head between your paws
and you will look like an old piece of carpet or a fuzzy mat. But
on your life don’t open your eyes! They will shine in the darkness
and give you away. Now hurry and crawl down and I will roll a lot of
potatoes on you.”

“Hark! I hear someone coming. I must go!” and Stubby hunched himself,
jumped through the window and joined the others just as three men armed
with revolvers, pokers and canes, carrying lamps and candles high over
their heads, entered the cellar. The puppy could hear them but he did
not move and he kept his eyes shut and his head between his fore paws.
He could hear them rummaging between boxes and barrels and talking
all the time. They loudly ordered the burglar or whoever was there to
come out and give himself up before they found him and beat him to a
jelly. “If you come out and give yourself up, we won’t beat you,” they
promised.

At that moment one of them stepped on a board and it flew up and hit
him on the shins. This noise made the man with the lamp jump and he hit
the chimney on a hanging shelf which knocked it crooked. To straighten
it he put it down on the packing box Billy was hiding behind. But
horrors! what was that he heard? Just like someone breathing, and at
that moment he spied two big eyes looking at him. He dropped the lamp
into the box and it would soon have set fire to the house as it was
full of old papers, had not Billy, in his endeavors to save himself,
upset the box. This turned its contents on the flames and put them out,
while Billy ran across the cellar and jumped out the window.

[Illustration]

In his haste to escape he ran into one of the other men, knocked him
over and out went the candle. The remaining man stepped in the spilt
milk and fell in front of the two whose lights had gone out. There
all three lay in a heap on the floor imagining the burglars were after
them. At this moment someone opened the cellar door and let in a flood
of light. Seeing three men on the floor with their legs and arms
flying, they thought it was a fight, so shut the door, bolted it and
ran for help.

When Nannie saw the men fighting and Billy jumping out the window, she
left her hiding-place and started to follow Billy. But alas! in her
hurry she did not see a tub of cucumber pickles and she fell head first
into it. She stepped out with brine dripping from her hair into her
eyes and a lot of little pickles strung on her horns. When Billy saw
her, he rolled on the grass with laughter.

“The fool!” exclaimed one of the men on the floor. “Why didn’t she
leave that door open so we could see?”

At last they untangled themselves and got up and tried to find the
stairs in the dark. Having no matches, they could not relight their
candles. The only ray of light in the whole cellar was a faint gleam
from the window over the potato bin. One man went toward it, hoping to
find it large enough to crawl through, but when he was within a few
feet of the bin, he thought he heard someone breathing. He listened.
Yes, it was surely a person breathing regularly. This frightened him
until his legs trembled under him and he tried to run but they wobbled
so he could not. He tried to call to the other men but his tongue clove
to the roof of his mouth and he could not make a sound. While this
was happening, another man had started for the window and in groping
his way toward it he touched the frightened man who was standing still
in the dark. He turned to run he knew not where, but just as far as he
could get from the man he had touched. In his hurry he did not heed
where he was going. The next thing he knew he stubbed his toe and he
too fell headlong into the tub of pickles.

By this time more men appeared at the head of the stairs and came down
into the cellar with a lantern. They searched and searched but all they
found was the three frightened men and a little old woolly mat in the
potato bin. So they left the cellar, some arguing there was no burglar
there, while the others argued there was. What could sneeze and breathe
and feel like flesh and blood? The last the puppy heard of them they
were calling one another cowards and fools, as they slammed the cellar
door. But he heard one man say: “I thought I came to a wedding, but I
seem to have come to a bull fight and a burglar chase! Goodness knows
what else will take place before they are really married!”

Now this wedding was to be an old-fashioned one like they have in the
rural districts of Europe, where the bride and the bridesmaids in all
their finery without hats or wraps, the groom and all the guests walk
in a procession along the country roads or over the fields to the
church. The Chums had decided to wait until the wedding procession
left the house and then go into the kitchen and look for goodies. At
last all had gotten over their fright of bulls and burglars and were
smiling and happy as they left the house, little dreaming of what was
going to happen then.

The Chums all hid behind some bushes in the yard to watch the bridal
party start. First came a boy of about sixteen, dressed in knee
breeches, white shirt and blue velvet waistcoat, with a tiny red
cap embroidered in gold set on one side of his head. As he led the
procession he played on a much beribboned flute.

At a signal the bride and groom followed him, and behind them the
father and mother of the bride, and after them came the rest of the
guests two by two. It was a bright, beautiful day and the wedding
procession made a very picturesque sight as it wound its way across the
green fields and over the stile at the bottom of the hill. There too
they had to cross a little gurgling stream on stepping stones and then
wend their way up a shaded path to the church on the top of a hill.

But the fates must have been against them that day, for they were only
half way up the first hill when who should come running at full speed
toward them but the big Durham bull chased by none other than Billy
Whiskers himself and another goat like him. Once the bull stopped and
turned to show fight, but Billy and Nannie made a plunge at him from
either side and ran their sharp horns into him. He turned and raced
down the road. All he thought of then was to reach his stall in the
barn where he would be safe from these awful bossy, cross old goats
that were so quick he could not get a chance to hook them, kick them or
stamp on them.

But alas! when he reached the lane, the gate was locked and barred.
Though he threw his weight against it, he could not break it down. He
ran on down the road, looking for some place to slip in to dodge the
old goats. He had gone only a short distance when he came to a place
where the bars were down where the wedding party had passed through.

Through this he went, and seeing a lot of people in the distance he
ran toward them, thinking perhaps they would drive off his tormentors.
All unconscious of impending disaster, the wedding party was wending
its way to the church, keeping time to the music of the flute and some
of the guests singing as they went. It must have been the singing that
prevented their hearing the bull’s heavy tread as he ran toward them.
He had gotten within fifty feet of them when he stopped running and
gave a loud bellow.

If a thunderbolt had sounded from the clear sky, they could not have
been more surprised, and of course it threw them in a panic. They ran
in all directions, the men either dragging the girls along with them
or catching them up in their arms and running for safety. The poor old
father and mother of the bride were so stunned and frightened they
could not move from where they stood. They just dropped to their knees
and prayed to be saved.

The bride, groom and piper were considerably ahead of the others. The
groom, seeing a big tree with low limbs ahead of him, picked the bride
up in his arms and ran to it. He succeeded in lifting the bride into a
crotch of the tree between two big limbs, but before he himself could
climb up, the bull was upon him. He dodged around the trunk of the tree
and the bull plunged full force into it. He butted it so hard that
for a few seconds he stood still, showing it had hurt him badly. Then
seeing a long white thing flopping in the breeze and wrapping itself
around his head and tickling his nose, he backed off to give it another
butt. Just then those terrible goats came running after him again and
gave him such a hooking and butting that he turned and ran for the
ravine. Billy and Nannie were close on his heels, hooking him every
time he tried to slow down to get breath.

But alas! He was carrying the bride’s veil away with him. It had become
fastened around his horns and when he started to run it had jerked it
from the bride’s head. After the wedding party had watched the two
goats chase the bull down into a ravine out of sight, they all got
together again and one of the bridesmaids saw the veil on the ground
where it had fallen and ran and got it. After straightening it out, she
put it on the bride’s head, not much the worse for its hard usage. The
procession started again for the church, and I am happy to say that no
other mishaps befell them. Had there, I am afraid the bride’s nerves
would have given way entirely.




CHAPTER IX

THE BRIDAL SUPPER


And now we will go back and see what the Chums did while the family was
at the church.

After they had watched the bridal party out of sight, they jumped
through the cellar window and running up the cellar stairs, they found
to their joy that in the hurry the family had forgotten to shut the
cellar door. So all they had to do was to walk into the kitchen. As
they did so, the delicious odor of roast chicken, spiced ham, salads,
jellies and untold goodies reached their nostrils. And there in the
oven, all ready to be served, were the chicken and mounds of mashed
potatoes whipped until they looked like heaps of snow they were so
feathery and white, while beside them were dishes of candied sweet
potatoes and pans of peas, turnips, and beets. On another table were
extra wedding cakes, some covered with chocolate icing and others with
white icing with English walnuts sprinkled on top, and piles of nut
cakes and little spice cakes. On another were salads, jellies, salted
nuts, sweet pickles, sour pickles and red preserves, while between
these dishes were plates heaped high with all kinds of sandwiches so
daintily made that they would melt in one’s mouth.

“My! Oh, my! Did you ever see so many good things all at one time in
your life?” said Stubby. “They have enough to feed a regiment. We could
all eat our fill and then they would have plenty left, but I think it
would be a mean thing to do, especially after all the trouble the bride
has gone through to-day. It would nearly kill her to come home and find
all her wedding supper messed up. Besides, we shall find plenty of
scraps to more than fill us up when they are through eating. And we can
get them without any trouble whatever for they will set pails full of
the scraps outside the door for Spot and the Saint Bernard puppy.”

“I think you are right, Stubby,” said Button and all the others agreed
it would be a shame to touch the things.

“Yes, I know,” replied the puppy, “but I am so dreadfully hungry and
these things smell so good, I wish I could bite just _one_ chicken
wing.”

“Oh, no! Then they would know that someone had been here.”

“Look! See what I have found!” meowed Spot.

They all looked and over in one corner of the kitchen under the table
was a big pail heaped full of scraps and good things to eat.

“Come here!” meowed Spot. “We can eat all this for this is the pail
that holds the scraps they feed to the pigs.”

In a jiffy they were all eating from the pail, each picking out the
morsel they liked best. They ate and ate until the pail was empty, and
they even ate up the scraps that fell on the floor.

“It is too bad Billy can’t have some of this good stuff,” said Stubby.
“I think I will go after him and bring him back so he can get some
before the family returns.”

With Stubby to think a thing was to do it, so he ran down the cellar
stairs, jumped out the window and ran to the field where he had seen
Billy and Nannie chasing the bull. After sniffing round a bit, he
picked up the scent of Billy and away he went across the field down
into the ravine where they had disappeared from sight when the wedding
party was watching them. At the foot of the hill the bull had run into
a little stream and Billy had followed him. Consequently Stubby lost
the scent, but he soon found it by running downstream until he saw
where the limbs of some low hanging bushes had been broken off and
there were some cattle tracks in the soft mud. Climbing out here, he
took up the scent again and was running rapidly up a hill when he heard
Billy baa: “Where are you going in such a hurry, Stub?” and looking up
he saw Billy standing on a ledge of rock high above him.

“Where is your bull?” Stubby asked.

“Oh, he is worn out and lying down a little way from here.”

“Well, leave him and come with me back to the farmhouse where you can
get a splendid supper of chicken, potatoes, jelly and vegetables of all
kinds.”

“Thank you very much, Stubby, for thinking of me, but you forget that
I prefer uncooked food and vegetables, grass and grain to meat and
potatoes.”

“You are right, I surely _did_ forget. I was enjoying them so, all I
thought was that I wished you could have some too.”

“Stub, you are the most generous dog I ever knew--you are always
thinking of your friends. I know if a friend were cold or in trouble
that you would give away your skin and your head also, if they were not
fastened to you. But I will come back with you anyway, and watch the
return of the bride.”

When they reached the farmhouse they heard the puppy barking to them to
come where they were. But though he barked and barked, they could not
see him. It sounded as if his bark came from the roof of the carriage
house. Presently, however, Billy spied him standing in an open door of
the second story of the carriage house. They hurried along until they
stood under the door, then they called up to him to tell them how to
get up where he was.

“Go around to the back and you will see a big hole under the house.
Crawl in that and you will see another hole in the floor that comes out
at the foot of a pair of stairs that leads to where we are.”

They hurried along but when they got there Billy was too big. He could
not crawl through the hole though they dug it deeper. And even if they
had succeeded in making it larger, the one in the floor could not be
made big enough for him to get his horns through.

“Never mind, Stubby; you go up to them. I’ll find some good place to
hide,” which he did. He saw one of the low loads of hay and he and
Nannie jumped up on it and lay down on one of the soft quilts. Both
were soon fast asleep for they were tired from chasing the bull.

[Illustration]

How long they slept they did not know, but they were awakened by
laughing, chattering voices beside the hay load and one girl was
coaxing another to climb up the ladder first onto the load.

“So they are coming up here, are they? Well, we will just duck our
heads under this quilt and if they see our fur they will think it a
white fur rug.”

That is just what they did think. But it proved disastrous to Billy and
Nannie, for a big fat girl weighing nearly two hundred pounds dropped
down on them, half on Billy and half on Nannie, and nearly broke their
backs. Billy let out a groan and raised his head. When he did that,
it frightened her so that in rolling off him she rolled clear off the
load and came down kerplunk on the opposite side of the wagon. At this
moment another girl appeared at the top of the ladder, but on seeing
the goats she screamed and fell over backwards, carrying the ladder
with her.

All this commotion brought their beaux to the scene and when they saw
two billy goats standing on the hay load, they all laughed and made fun
of the girls for being so afraid. One of the men jumped up on the load
to drive them off, but he made the mistake of taking a club with him.
Had he let them alone the goats would have jumped off the wagon and not
hurt anyone. But the young fellow wanted to show off before the girls,
so he hit Billy a crack with the club and the next thing he knew _he_
was flying through the air over the girls’ heads and when he came down
he landed in the pig pen, astride a big fat pig. He was not hurt in the
least, only surprised, but his pride had had a bad fall and the girls
all laughed at him, making it ten times worse.

Billy and Nannie now jumped off the wagon and, kicking up their heels,
they ran under the wagons and around the autos that were standing in
the yard so fast that none of the men could catch them, and soon they
disappeared behind the barn. From there they hid between three or four
strawstacks where they could easily dodge anyone that should follow
them. But no one did. Now the wedding guests had started to go home,
it took but a little while to clear the barnyard of all the wagons,
buggies and automobiles crowded in there.

Soon everything was as still as if there had been no wedding or any
other excitement. When it was nearly dark, the cats and dogs came
out of the carriage house loft and found Billy and Nannie behind the
strawstacks where they all spent the night. Early the next morning
before anyone was astir in the farmhouse, our Chums bade the spotted
cat and Saint Bernard puppy good-by and continued their pleasure
journey.

“Here we have been away from home over a week and we have fooled along
so that we are not more than one hundred miles from home yet.”

“But what is the use of hurrying?” asked Button. “We are only out for
pleasure.”

“You are right, Button. And what do you two say to our not going to
California as we have been there two or three times before, but to
going directly west from here, visiting South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana,
Idaho and Oregon? We would probably see a good deal of ranch life and
some magnificent mountain scenery as soon as we get beyond the desert
and treeless plains of Dakota and part of Wyoming. It will be a much
harder trip, but who cares? We are used to hardships since the Great
War.”

“We are with you!” barked Stubby and meowed Button.

“Billy,” spoke up Stubby, “I believe we would have a much pleasanter
time if we followed some main railroad track. If we go straight in a
northwesterly direction from here we will strike the Northern Pacific
Railroad at St. Paul and by following that it will take us just where
we want to go on the Pacific Coast. What is more, by simply going
a little out of our way we can visit the Yellowstone Park, one of
America’s largest and most interesting natural parks. There tame bear,
deer, buffalo and other wild animals rove about free, protected from
the hunter by game laws. And what is more, we can see the wonderful
hot geyser springs that throw sprays of boiling water up into the air
from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and seventy feet high, for
four-minute periods every sixty-five to seventy minutes. So regularly
does one of these springs throw up this spray that it has been named
Old Faithful. Then there are many other wonderful springs, falls and
rivers to see there besides the native forest of huge trees two or
three hundred years old.”

“That all sounds good to me, Stubby,” said Billy. “What say you,
Nannie? For it will be something entirely new that none of us has ever
seen before.”

Nannie being in favor of the plan, they traveled steadily this way
with few adventures or mishaps until they reached St. Paul. Here they
prepared to stop to rest and have several good meals of meat before
starting off on their long journey across the treeless plains where
there would be nothing but prairie dogs, sand birds’ eggs, and such
things for Stubby and Button to eat and sagebrush and long, coarse
grass for Billy and Nannie. As for water to drink, they did not know
where in the world they would get it, as there is only one river of
importance in North Dakota, the Missouri, and few streams in the
country they would be passing through. But for all that, they were
going to try it.

They were all resting in a quiet back yard they had found, Button
asleep on the top of a shed and Billy and Nannie on the ground beneath
him, when a big gray cat stuck its head through the gate that led
into the alley. When he saw Billy, Nannie and Stubby asleep, he crept
cautiously up to them and stood watching them as they slept. After he
had scrutinized them all he wished to, he meowed two or three times
in a low voice which did not awaken Billy, Nannie or Stubby, but did
Button. He stood up and meowed back to the cat which surprised it so
it was about to run away, for it had not seen Button.

“Don’t hurry away!” said Button. “Did you wish to speak to the goats or
dog?”

“Yes, if this one goat is the celebrated Billy Whiskers that has
traveled all over the world and been in the Big War in Europe. I have
an invitation for him.”

“He is the one you are looking for then, for that goat is none other
than the celebrated and world-renowned traveler, Billy Whiskers. And
the dog beside him is the same dog that has traveled with him and been
in all the wars with him. The other goat is Nannie, his wife.”

“You don’t mean to say that that little yellow dog is Stubby, Billy
Whiskers’ lifelong friend and companion? If that is so, you must be
Button, the celebrated big black cat that has also been his chum and
traveling companion.”

“You are right. I am his friend and chum but I don’t claim to be very
celebrated.”

“Well you are, and every dog, cat and goat in this city has heard of
you three. And I hear you are now making a trip to the coast alone and
on foot, and are going to brave the dangers of the desert and treeless
plains. You little know what dangers you are facing. Many, many dogs
and cats have tried but their bones now lie bleaching on the desert
sands or they have come back more dead than alive. I beg of you not to
attempt it on foot and without someone to look after you.”

“Oh, don’t fear for us! We are too experienced travelers to be afraid
of deserts and treeless plains. But I thank you for your solicitude in
our behalf.”

For quite a while Billy, Nannie and Stubby had been awake but had kept
their eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. Now they opened them and
spoke to the gray cat.

“My friend,” said Billy, “will you kindly tell us how you heard we were
coming here?”

“Certainly I will tell you. When you were in Minneapolis some sparrows
who had gone to roost in a cluster of lilac bushes in the park heard
you talking to several dogs and cats who had gathered there to hear you
tell of some of your adventures when in the Great War. And the sparrows
were so interested that in the morning they told the pigeons living on
the court house roof they must find you and hear you speak on the War.

“They flew in all directions but they could not find you until in
the late afternoon they met a cat who had heard you talking the very
evening before. She told the pigeon that you had all left Minneapolis
for St. Paul early the next morning before the city was astir. And
she added that you were traveling fast as you wished to get across
the treeless plains and semi-deserts you would have to cross before
reaching the Yellowstone Park, at which place you were going to stop
before continuing your journey to the Pacific Coast. The cat added that
she had told a carrier pigeon to take the news that you were coming to
St. Paul and for them all to be on the lookout for Billy Whiskers, the
world-renowned traveler, mascot and fighter, who was on his way there
with his two equally well-known Chums, Stubby and Button.

“And so you see that is the way the news reached St. Paul. The sparrows
told the pigeons, the pigeons told the cat, the cat told the carrier
pigeon and the carrier pigeon told me, and both of us told every dog,
cat, goat, donkey, horse and cow we met that you were coming and for
them to speak to you if they chanced to see you and try to coax you
to meet them in the park at twelve o’clock to-night and give them a
reminiscence of your adventures and travels.”

“I am sure it is more than kind of you to take all that trouble and
interest in me and under the circumstances I don’t see how I can refuse
to give a short talk.”

“Thank you so much! Now I am going to ask another favor, and that is
that your friends Stubby and Button will also give talks and relate
some of their hairbreadth escapes when on their travels.”

“Thank you very kindly,” replied Button, “but I am no speaker and I
refuse to take up the time that would shorten Billy’s talk.”

“Oh, no! You don’t get out so easily, Mr. Button,” spoke up Billy. “You
have to talk as well as I do. And you too, Stubby, so you need not try
to sneak out of that gate, for you also have to speak or I won’t.”

“That is it, Mr. Whiskers! Bring them up to the scratch so I can count
on you three being in the middle of the park at twelve o’clock sharp
to-night. I hope your wife also will honor us with her presence.”

“Yes, we will all be there unless we are locked up in the police
station or some other bad luck befalls us.”

“Au revoir then until to-night,” and with a profusion of thanks and
scraping and bowing, the gray cat backed out the alley gate and
disappeared to spread the news of the coming lectures to be given by
Billy, Stubby and Button.




CHAPTER X

A THRILLING EXPERIENCE


As early as eleven o’clock sneaking dogs and cats, galloping horses,
mules and donkeys as well as slow walking cows could have been seen
entering the park by all entrances and hurriedly hiding themselves
behind and under bushes or in dark shady nooks. And it was a good
thing that there were few policemen guarding the park at that time of
night, and that what were, were mostly fast asleep on the benches in
secluded spots, else all these loose animals without any owners would
have excited comment and they would have been caught and carried off to
the pound in the patrol wagon. But as they were only seen alone and not
in groups and then only by disinterested autoists bent on getting home
as quickly as they could, they were not molested. They kept coming and
coming until scarcely a bush, tree or statue but concealed an animal
hiding behind it waiting for the hour of twelve to strike.

At last off in the city somewhere a clock was heard striking and on the
last stroke of twelve, away out in the still moonlight night Billy,
Stubby and Button and the gray cat stole out from some bushes they had
been hiding in and proceeded to the center of the park. All the other
animals did likewise and now there were three hundred of them standing
in a semi-circle around Billy, Stubby, Button and the gray cat, who
introduced the Chums to the assembled multitude as soon as the crowd
became quiet. Billy began:

[Illustration]

“My dear friends! I feel most flattered to have been invited to address
such a distinguished audience. And it will give me much pleasure to
tell you of my adventures in foreign lands.”

“One of the most exciting and thrilling adventures I ever had in my
whole life was when I was in the Island of Sicily where the earthquake
occurred that buried Messina, one of its largest cities, under the
mud and dirt that was carried over the fallen city by the huge tidal
wave which swept along the shore of that beautiful city, burying it
under a coat of soft mud many, many feet deep. The earthquake was bad
enough, but the tidal wave was much worse. Then to add to the worries
and troubles of the inhabitants, Mount Etna, one of the largest active
volcanoes in the world, was in a state of eruption and might at any
moment cause another earthquake or throw out a shower of hot ashes that
would bury the remaining inhabitants under it as Vesuvius had buried
the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

“Now for the part I had in this excitement. As it happened, I chanced
to be on the Island when all this occurred and not only on the Island,
but in the very city of Messina. For days Mount Etna had been throwing
out huge volumes of black and yellow smoke and occasionally great
bowlders would be seen flying up with the smoke, followed by tremblings
of the earth for many miles around. The smoke increased in volume,
the rumbling and trembling of the earth became more severe with each
earthquake and two or three small cone-shaped holes appeared on its
sides through which molten lava poured forth like rivers of fire. When
this happened, the peasants who lived on the mountain sides left their
vineyards and fled from the fast traveling rivers of lava before they
could overtake them and bury them as well as their vineyards under
their creepy, crawly molten streams.

“I had always wished to see a volcano in action, and I was now to
get my fill of the sight, for I came near staying too long and being
buried also. I was standing gazing at its many cones--for Etna, unlike
Vesuvius, has many, many small cones on its sides through which smoke
and lava escape when it is in a state of activity. Well, as I said
before, I was standing near the base of the mountain when I was thrown
violently to the ground by an upheaval of the earth, and directly where
I had been standing appeared a fissure crack three feet wide and many
feet long that ran up the volcano’s side to a small cone. As I was
picking myself up I saw the slow-moving, thick stream of lava begin to
roll out through the crevice just made and come toward me.

“Perhaps I did not pick myself up and begin to run! At least that is
what I tried to do, but alas! I could not walk, much less run, for the
constant shaking of the earth which threw me down repeatedly and shook
me up as easily as if I had been a rag goat. Bruised and bleeding as I
was, I kept on trying to get off the mountain on to steady ground, but
it seemed as if the whole mountain for a time was but a trembling mass
ready to fly to pieces and destroy everything on it.

“At last like a drunken man I stumbled and fell and as the sides of the
volcano were very steep here, I rolled clear to the bottom, hitting
stones and stumps and bouncing through the rows of grape-vines in the
vineyards like a rubber ball. But at last I reached the bottom more
dead than alive and stopped rolling. Not waiting to discover how badly
I was hurt, I took to my legs and ran as I never have run before or
since.

[Illustration]

“And while I was doing this, the big earthquake had laid Messina low
and the tidal wave had swept over it and washed the sides of their
plaster homes away, leaving the inside of their front rooms exposed to
view, showing the bedrooms with bed, dresser and chair just where the
inhabitants had left them. But alas, the water had washed the plaster
from the walls around and over them so that they were completely
embedded in the soft plaster and mud and could not be gotten out by
one unless they ran the danger of pulling the whole house down on their
heads. And many, many people were caught in their homes and buried in
this soft mud, the same as the furniture. The tidal wave had come too
fast for them to escape. My narrow escape from being dropped into that
boiling, sizzling crater of molten lava was the most exciting adventure
of my life.

“I thank you, friends, for your close attention and I will now step
aside and give Stubby a chance to tell you of one of his hairbreadth
escapes.”

With pawing the ground and bellowing in lieu of handclappings, the
animals made night hideous for awhile with their applause. And at last
Billy had to baa for them to stop or they would bring the police down
upon them.

Stubby being so small, they could not see him if he stood on the
ground, so he had to jump up on Billy’s back and from there to a
horse’s back and from there to a high vase of flowers. There he was
above the heads of the animals and they could all see him when he
talked. And he certainly looked cunning with his saucy little face, one
ear cocked high on one side peeping out from among the flowers.

“My dear friends,” began Stubby, “I am trembling in every limb at the
thought of addressing such a distinguished crowd. Especially after my
friend Billy, who is a noted after-dinner speaker. I am no speaker and
what I have to tell you will seem tame indeed after the recital of his
wonderful escape.”

“We are not critical,” called out the animals. “Go ahead and tell us
anything, for we know you have been through the War and must have had
many narrow escapes.”

“Yes, I have. If you would care to hear of one of them I can tell you
of one of the closest shaves which was at one of the battles Billy
and I were in when we were in the war between Japan and Russia, and
it happened when we were close up against the enemy trenches and not
fighting at long distance. It was a couple of days before the final
battle when my master was assigned some spy duty. This meant creeping
out in the dead of night close up to the enemy’s front. I heard the
order given and I determined to follow him. I knew he would forbid my
going for fear I would be shot or maimed in some way, not because he
was afraid I would give him away, for I had been with him on too many
just such dangerous duties. So when he started I pretended to be asleep
on the foot of his bed where I always slept.

“But what do you think he did to keep me behind in case I should wake
up? He threw a blanket over me and pinned me in with big safety pins,
and then sneaked out. I only waited long enough for the sound of his
footsteps to die away in the distance when I tried to get out of the
blanket. I felt sure there was some hole I could crawl through where
the pins were not too close together. But alas! He had done his work
too thoroughly. There was not a space I could even get my head through,
so I rolled over on my back and began to scratch and claw at that
blanket like mad, but the fuzz and dust got in my eyes and my nose so
I had to stop or be suffocated, pinned in as I was. Consequently I
stopped the clawing and scratching and tried to think of some other way
to get out. I did not want to bark as that would awaken the soldiers
and they would find out my master was missing. This I did not want them
to know, for when an officer goes out on a secret task, the fewer that
know it the better.

“As I lay there resting and wondering what I should do, the thought
struck me: ‘Use your sharp teeth, chew a hole in the blanket and when
big enough for you to get your nose through, tear it the rest of the
way.’ And in a jiffy I was doing this and in another jiffy I was out
and nosing around to get on the scent of my master.

“This was easy to do, but to my surprise I found he had crawled under
the back of the tent instead of going out the front way. What was more,
I soon perceived that he was wiggling along on his stomach instead of
walking. He did this until he had crossed the bare place where the
tents were pitched and had entered a thick woods. Now of all dangerous
places, this woods was the worst as it was filled with spies of both
armies trying to find out the number of men on the opposite side or
secure any information they could pick up. And one was as likely to be
picked off by a bullet from one of his own men as by an enemy, unless
he gave the proper signal and gave it quickly at that. When my master
was well into the woods, he stood up and seemed to move cautiously from
tree to tree, selecting big ones to hide behind. All of a sudden I came
to a bush that had had half of its branches broken off, and all around
it where the branches were off I could smell my master’s tracks.

“‘Heigho!’ I thought, ‘I know what he is up to now. I have seen him
play this same trick on the enemy before. He is covering himself with
branches so when he stands still he will look like a bush and the
enemy’s sentinel will pass him in the dark.’ To find his own way he had
a tiny little electric searchlight which he could flash on for a minute
at a time but so small was it that it had the appearance at a distance
of being a firefly, should anyone see him using it.

“But all of a sudden he seemed to be running and taking long bounds,
for he could not possibly have taken such long steps as I found he was
taking. It made it very hard to keep on his trail. Once when I lost it
completely and was sniffing round for it I came upon the scent of a
Russian police dog. And I knew immediately what had caused my master to
use long steps and jumps. He was in flight. Probably he had found he
was discovered and followed, or else a soldier and his dog had passed
along the same trail, not knowing a man was fleeing before them. But I
should soon find out. With my heart in my mouth, I started to trail the
police dog, fearful of coming upon my dead master at every bend in the
trail. Suddenly I came upon a big tree and there lying at its foot was
a Russian soldier and his police dog, both dead but still warm. I knew
from that that they had just been killed. And I thanked God that it was
they and not my master that was dead.

“I did not waste much time on them but began to hunt around to see in
which direction my master had gone. But though I sniffed and sniffed
and ran around like mad, I could not pick up the scent. Every scent
led to the big tree where I had found the dead soldier and dog. All
of a sudden, chancing to look up in the tree, what should I see but a
firefly in the midst of a thick bunch of leaves! And of course I knew
it was no firefly but my master’s little electric searchlight. He must
have seen me at the same time I spied him, for in a second he came
climbing down the tree and when he was down he patted me on the head
and whispered in my ear: ‘Stubby, I thank God it is you! I heard you
running around in the dead leaves under the tree and I thought you
were another Russian or a police dog.’

“Just then he went white and nearly fell over in a faint. At the same
time I smelled fresh blood and on looking down I saw a bullet hole in
his boot-leg from which the blood was oozing. The next second I licked
his face and jingled my collar on his nose. He felt the cold contact
of the bottle that was around my neck and raised himself enough to
unfasten it and take a drink. This revived him enough for him to detach
the adhesive plaster and sterilized cotton he had carefully rolled up
in a tin box and fastened to my collar alongside the flask of brandy
I always wore when out on scout duty for just such emergencies. My
master had fixed it all up himself but had never had occasion to use it
before. And my! but wasn’t I thankful that he had, and also thankful
that I had insisted on following him?

“With the brandy and the stopping of the flow of blood he soon was
himself and he began to search the Russian soldier for any valuable
papers he might have on him. To his joy, he found the man was not a
common soldier but one of their most valued spies. For hidden in his
helmet which had a false top, he found exceedingly valuable papers
telling of the movement of the very division of the army that his
division was now fighting. And just as he was finishing searching the
spy, he chanced to look at the police dog and saw under his long bushy
hair a leather collar fastened round his neck. For some reason he took
it off and examined it. And lo and behold! folded between the lining
and the outside he found other dispatches but they were in cipher.

[Illustration]

“At this moment I heard stealthy footsteps approaching and we just
had time to sneak farther into the woods when another Russian soldier
appeared and close on his heels was another police dog. The soldier
passed us unheeded, taking my master for a bush. Not so the dog. He
smelled me and also my master, and in the twinkling of an eye was upon
me. He was three times my size and one of those long, wire-haired dogs
with short, pointed ears, sharp nose and sharper teeth. He should have
been named Sharp, for of all the dogs I ever came in contact with, this
breed of dog is the sharpest witted for police service.

“But luckily for me, when he flew at my throat, his teeth closed not
on my throat, which would have ended my life then and there, but on my
metal collar and the tin box. He bit so hard that he broke the points
off several of his teeth. And while he was preparing for a second bite
and his master was approaching to bayonet me, my master bayoneted him
as he was leaning against my master thinking he was a bush. The soldier
fell dead. With the next thrust my master killed the dog and then we
both hurried back to camp with no more mishaps, where we arrived just
as the sun was coming up. And I think that was one of the closest calls
to being killed I had while in the war, but of course I had many others.

“I thank you all for caring to hear my story and will now bid you all
good-night.”

“My, oh me!” sighed an old cow. “I am all in a quiver from hearing that
exciting tale and I don’t believe I have drawn a long breath since he
began speaking.”

“Nor I!” replied the cow by her side, while a third one said: “And
here they are starting out to cross the continent in quest of new
adventures. Wouldn’t you think they had had enough excitement and
narrow escapes to last them for the rest of their lives?”

“I surely would,” said the fourth cow.




CHAPTER XI

UNEXPECTED HAPPENINGS


Button was about to begin to tell them one of his thrilling adventures
when several policemen appeared and began clubbing and driving the
animals out of the park. One of them said, “Sure and I would like
to know how these animals got into this park without me seein’ um.
Somebody must have drove um in thinking it was a free pasture.” Another
one said, “But did ye ever see such a motley bunch? There are cows,
horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, cats and dogs. Will ye tell me
where they come from? When I just saw um I thought I must be dreamin’.”

“I did sure!” called out the first policeman.

“Hey, there, stop runnin’ over them flower beds, will ye?”

It was astonishing how all the animals seemed to disappear so suddenly.
One would have thought the earth had opened and swallowed them whole.
But Billy, Stubby, Nannie and Button had started for the Northern
Pacific railroad track, which road they were to follow all the way to
the Pacific coast. The gray cat showed them the way so they would not
get on the wrong track as there were so many it would be hard to tell
which was the right one. But the grey cat knew them well. So after that
they said good-by to the cat and thanked him for all the trouble he had
gone to to entertain them.

“Not at all! Not at all! It was no trouble I assure you, but a pleasure
to have the honor of introducing three such distinguished travelers to
my friends.”

“Toot! Toot!” whistled a train behind them, and they jumped off the
track just in time to save themselves from being run over. And as they
stood at the side of the track, they read on the cars these signs which
had been stretched the whole length of each one:

“Ringling Brothers Three Ring Circus.”

“Gee Willikins!” exclaimed Billy. “If here isn’t the very circus I used
to act in! Let’s stay over, Chums, and see if we can’t meet some of our
old friends. It has been so many years that probably some of them are
dead or sold to other circuses, but there are sure to be one or two of
them left.”

“Charmed to stay over!” said Button.

“Delighted, I am sure!” replied Stubby.

So the four of them ran down the track after the train until it came
to a halt at its unloading platform. Then they pushed forward to the
cars that held the wild animals and waited for their cages to be run
off the train. Of course their cages were all shut up tightly with only
breathing places at the top, so the people could not see the animals
unless they paid to get into the circus. But the elephants and camels
were so big they had not shut them up, and who should Billy see walking
off the train but his old, old friend Jumbo, the oldest and finest
specimen of elephant in America. He must have been nearly two hundred
and fifty years old, his keeper said. Elephants frequently live to be
that age and sometimes three hundred. After Jumbo came Maggie, dear old
complaining Maggie, the old maid camel of the flock.

When she saw Billy and Nannie, she gave a nervous cough, stretched
her neck out as long as she could and squeaked out in her complaining
cracked voice: “Billy Whiskers as sure as I am alive! I am really
glad to see you, though the last time I saw you I remember I was so
furious at you that I was ready to chew the hair off your back. But we
will bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones.” Just then a most
terrific bellowing was heard coming from the elephants. Old Jumbo had
spied Billy and was calling to him to come over where he was tied to a
telegraph pole until the circus people had time to erect the tents.

So Billy hurried over to where he was and introduced Nannie, Stubby and
Button to him. And while they were taking in his great size, he seized
Billy round the middle of his body with his trunk and held him high
in the air over his head, and then let out a trumpeting that nearly
deafened poor Billy.

[Illustration]

“If you don’t say you are as glad to see me as I am to see you, I
will crush every bone in your body!” trumpeted the elephant. Then the
good-natured beast set Billy on his feet and began asking questions
by the yard, like this: How was Nannie? Where had he been since they
last met? Had he seen anything of the war? until Billy called a halt by
saying, “One question at a time, if you please, and for every question
you ask me, I am going to ask you one.” Billy began by asking these
questions as fast as he could: “Have you the same ringmaster that I
butted into the mud puddle? Is that green parrot that hated me so still
alive? Is it better or worse being with a circus these days than it
was years ago when I was with you?”

“Why, Billy Whiskers, how did you ever happen to get here?” heehawed
a little burro. And turning, Billy beheld his old friend Bettina, the
smallest burro on earth possessed with the longest ears, it was said,
and the loudest voice.

“Why, Bettina! Are you still with the circus? I thought you must be
owned by some private party long ere this.”

“And are you still traveling alone and doing as you please?” asked
Bettina.

“No, I am not alone this time. I am with my wife and friends,”
and Billy baaed for Nannie, Stubby and Button to come over and be
introduced.

The elephant, camel, burro and the Chums were all standing talking and
reminiscing on the long ago and asking after friends, when whiz! a rope
flew over Billy’s head and he found himself lassoed and a voice saying:
“That is the time I caught you off your guard, you old rascal! You see
I remembered you of old and knew if I wanted to catch you I must do it
quickly and talk to you afterwards, or you would kick up your heels
in my face and be off. And thereby the circus would miss one of the
best performers and drawing cards it ever had. Well, how are you, old
fellow, and how has the world been using you? But I need not ask, for
my eyes tell me you look younger and more frisky than you did when last
I saw you, and that was several years ago. I do hope your temper has
cooled down some since last we met, for I have a distinct recollection
of how fiery it was and of being butted over a fence and you running
away from me.”

Just then Stubby and Button each felt a rope slip around their necks
and they found themselves like Billy--caught.

When Billy saw this, he had to laugh to think how easily the three of
them had been captured. They did not lasso Nannie for they knew she
would follow Billy wherever he went.

Stubby, who hated performing either in the circus or the movies, was
most downcast, while Button looked mad enough to chew tacks.

“Cheer up, Chums! The best is yet to come!” said Billy. “I hear that
this circus is on its way to the Pacific Coast, so if we stay with it
we can be carried out there on their train instead of hoofing it. And
all we will have to do will be to perform a trick or two each day.
In the meantime they will feed and take good care of us clear to the
Coast.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of!” whined Stubby. “I want to take care
of myself and live a free life even if it is a harder one. And I am
going to run away the first chance I get.”

“So am I!” meowed Button. “Me for the wild free life!”

“Those are generally my sentiments too,” said Billy, “but not in this
case when thousands of miles of treeless plains, semi-deserts and
alkali pools are before me to hoof it over when I could ride. Me for
diplomacy until I get across the continent and when once in California,
the free life again.”

“I guess you are right after all, Billy. When I think of those sandy
wastes with only alkali water to drink, which means death, I believe I
would prefer to perform a few tricks, much as I dislike to, to enduring
cold nights, hunger and lonesomeness out on the plains,” spoke up
Stubby.

“And I say the same,” said Button.

“Oh, yes, do let’s stay with the circus! It will be so much safer,”
said Nannie.

Late that night after the evening performance was over and all the
circus people but a few night watchmen had gone to bed, and most of
them were asleep, the Chums, elephant, camel, burro, giraffe, zebra and
Sacred White Bull from Egypt were all tied at equal distances round
the sides of the circus, around which ring were the animal cages that
belonged to the circus.

[Illustration]

Billy kept his eye on the watchman and soon he had the pleasure of
seeing him throw himself on a bundle of straw and go fast asleep, and
presently begin to snore. Billy had been waiting to assure himself that
the watchman was sound asleep. When he heard the snores he stood up and
walked as near the center of the tent as his rope would permit. Then
he baaed softly for the other animals to join him. And they all came
as near as their ropes would let them. Then putting their heads down
close to the ground so their voices would not carry so far, they began
to talk to each other and have the time of their lives relating the
experiences they had had and exchanging gossip. Presently Billy said:
“Say, fellows, I tell you what let’s do! Form a Club and every night
we will come here as we are now and each relate the story of his life
up to the present time. It will be most interesting and instructive to
those that are listening. For just see from what different quarters
of the globe we have come. Here is old Jumbo who came from Asia two
hundred and fifty years ago. He was old before you were born. Then
here is Maggie, who has crossed the Sahara desert, which is in Africa.
And Polly from the jungles of South America; the zebra and giraffe
from Africa, Big Ben, the baboon, also from Africa, the kangaroo from
Australia, and Stubby, Button and myself from North America. So you
see we have all the continents and one of the islands of the globe
represented here.

“This being a Club, we must have a president, secretary, treasurer,
speaker and directors, elected to office by the members. The dues to be
paid in food, not money, as we animals have no use for money. The dues
of the Club are to be paid monthly instead of yearly, as we may not all
be together for a year, owing to the circus breaking up into four parts
to do smaller towns. What say you all to my proposal?”

Wild bellowings from the Sacred Bull, trumpeting from the elephant,
growls from the baboon and heehaws from the burro; whinneyings from the
zebra, squeaks from the parrot, barks from Stubby and meows from Button
were here accompanied by the stamping of feet in lieu of the clapping
of hands to show their approval of Billy’s suggestion to have a Club.

“Hush!” hissed Button. “We are awakening the night watchman!”

Immediately there was dead silence and each animal went back to its
place and stood stock still as if sleeping, while the watchman rubbed
his eyes, looked round and seeing all the animals in their places,
thought he had dreamed he heard them bellowing and stamping.

As soon as he fell over on the straw again and they heard him snore,
they all came back to the middle of the ring where they were before,
and Bettina, the burro, suggested that they elect Billy Whiskers
president. But he refused to take it, saying the elephant should be
president as he was much the oldest member.

“Then you must be speaker,” they all said. This he consented to be.
Stubby was elected secretary and was to notify the members by word of
mouth instead of writing them. Button was treasurer and was to look
after the food until it was eaten.

The directors of this Club were to be the animals that could get out of
their cages to attend the Club meetings. Those who could not were to be
honorary members. Polly was elected to fly from cage to cage and sit
on the top and tell the animals in them what had been said at the last
meeting.

Now the Club was organized, all it needed was a name. Each director
selected one and when they were voted on, the Good Fellowship Club had
the most votes. Then the next thing to do was for them all to go round
to the different animals in the cages and tell them about the Club and
ask them if they wished to join and be honorary members.

The business of starting a Club being finished, the animals went back
to their places to lie down and see if they could not get a little
sleep before the circus was astir in the morning. Polly awoke first
and just as day was dawning, she flew from cage to cage and told
the animals in them about the new Club. Every animal in the entire
circus joined except the hyenas and wild boars. The other animals
were glad they did not, because these animals were much disliked, the
hyenas because they ate human flesh,--and the boars for their boarish
disposition.

When the names of the members were read off at the next Club meeting,
it was found they had as members walruses, lions, bears, sacred bulls,
hippopotami, wild cats, tigers, wolves, camels, giraffes, elephants,
dogs, leopards, elk, water buffaloes, rhinoceri, foxes and angora
goats. The only ones of the monkey troop invited were the big baboons
and chimpanzees. The members were afraid that if they invited the
smaller monkeys to join they would chatter and make such a racket that
it would waken the night watchman, who would break up the meeting.

They were to assemble once a week on Wednesday evenings when not on the
road. Should they be on the move, the meeting would be postponed until
the first evening they went in camp. It was decided that the first talk
was to be by the president, the elephant, who was to tell them all he
knew about elephants. The next talk was to be by the longest necked
giraffe in the circus, followed by the oldest zebra.




CHAPTER XII

THE ELEPHANT’S STORY


The next night being Wednesday, the day they had decided to have
their Club meeting, all the animals that had joined the club appeared
promptly at the appointed hour, which was eleven thirty, in the middle
of the circus tent. This tent being rather small and very quiet at
that hour of the night, it was found that all the animals in the cages
surrounding the ring could hear plainly every word the speaker said.
And the night watchman being such a sound sleeper, their conversation
did not awaken him. So without any fear the elephant began his story.


The Elephant’s Story

“Dear friends, I am about to tell you not only the story of my life
which will seem a long one to you, as I am in my two hundred and
fiftieth year, but many things about elephants. As this is to be a Club
not only for amusement, but for education as well, I hope you will bear
with me if I seem tedious. It is astonishing how little any of us know
of the lives and habits of our friends in their free and native state
in the countries where they live so far away from us. All we know of
them is just what we see of them day by day in the circus, so in my
talk to-night I will try to tell you as much as I can about elephants,
leaving out all unnecessary details.

“The first thing of importance in my life I remember distinctly was
walking between my father and mother (two magnificent looking animals)
behind a herd of nine elephants in a wonderful, huge, beautiful forest
in Siam, a country in Southern Asia bordering on the Indian Ocean.
While walking along I was wondering how the big trees five and six
feet in diameter get there with their long limbs and good tasting
leaves. For while I was only a baby elephant three or four months of
age, I distinctly remember admiring the many different colored and
shaped flowers that bloomed on the trailing vines and seemed to festoon
themselves everywhere. But beautiful and sweet smelling as the flowers
on these vines were, my father and mother did not appreciate them for
they tore them rudely aside as the ropelike festoons hindered their
progress through the jungle. I have often heard my father complain to
my mother that these vines and the sharp thorns on the thorn bushes,
with the rotting logs under one’s feet, quite spoiled all the pleasure
of walking in the jungle, and he would greatly prefer walking on the
plains if it were not for the broiling hot sun and no trees to shade
one.

“Just then a loud trumpeting was heard from the leader of the herd away
ahead to warn the herd that there were hunters in sight looking for
them. Quick as a flash my father pointed with his trunk to a thick,
dark clump of trees and told my mother to take me and hide there while
he went to reconnoiter. All elephants are very brave when their young
are attacked and will defend them with their lives. The male elephants
always try to protect the females and young by keeping them in the rear
of the herd when on the move, while they march ahead.

“My mother and I were scarcely concealed behind the big trees, drooping
vines and low bushes when I saw a tall, slender native with only a
breech cloth round his loins push his head through the bushes close
beside the place where we had been standing when the leader trumpeted
his warning. This man held in one hand a long spear with a sharp
arrowhead top, and a coiled rope in the other. And I heard my mother
give a frightened sigh and say to herself: ‘The king’s head elephant
hunter! He has been on our track for days. We surely are lost for
he always gets his prey. He has captured four of our most splendid
elephants recently.’

“At that moment the man happened to cast his eyes down and I saw a
slow, cruel smile of triumph spread over his face as his big red lips
opened and disclosed his sharp, white teeth. He had discovered our
footprints in the soft mud at his feet. Looking around quickly in all
directions and peering into the bushes and dark places in the forest,
I felt he must see us, he looked so straight in our direction. Then he
drew himself to his full height and sniffed the air, and again that
cruel, triumphant smile lit his jaw. My mother, who was watching him as
closely as I, drew in a frightened breath and whispered to me: ‘He has
scented us! We are lost! But he may pass us by. Don’t move a muscle or
take a deep breath.’

“Closely following the tracks, nearer and nearer he drew to us without
stopping until he came to the place where my father’s tracks left ours
and went north. Here the man hesitated and looked closely as if to
decide which of the tracks to follow. Then he lay flat on the ground
with his ear close to it and listened, and when he got up he had
another of his hateful smiles on his face, straightened himself and
again sniffing the air, he started and came straight as an arrow to the
place where we were hiding. But as he separated the bushes behind which
we were standing, my mother stretched out her trunk, caught him around
the neck and threw him over her head. I heard him go crashing between
the big limbs of the trees and fall to the ground.

“‘There, _he_ is done for,’ said my mother, ‘but it was a close call.
His friends, if they ever do find him, will discover him dead from a
broken neck.’

“Just then she gave a groan of pain and sank to the ground, but as she
fell she sent out an agonizing trumpet of pain and warning to my father
and the herd. By a miracle the man’s neck had not been broken and on
regaining his feet he had thrown his sharp, murderous spear at her and
it had penetrated her back in a tender part and killed her.

[Illustration]

“I was wondering what to do when my father, in answer to her death cry,
came charging back, followed by the leader of the herd and two other
strong elephants. Discovering my mother was dead, they became furious
and began looking for the person who had killed her, for they knew on
seeing the spear how she had met her death as they had been hunted so
much and knew from experience what those cruel spears would do. They
began tearing up young trees by the roots and stamping the ground in
the hopes of finding the person who had killed her hiding under a log
or up in a tree. But no one could they discover until with a bellow of
rage my father’s hind foot was caught in a slip knot of a rope thrown
from the limb of a big tree by the native who had killed my mother. The
tree was too big for my father to uproot but he began to tear off all
the limbs he could reach, but to no purpose--as he tore off the lower
ones the native only climbed up the higher.

“‘Ha! Ha! My fine fellow,’ laughed the native, ‘I have you at last! I
have gone without sleep, rest and much food to catch you for the king’s
stables. He wants just such a good-looking elephant as you to train to
carry him in his houdah on your back in the next state procession. So
the quicker you get over your fury and become docile, the better you
will be treated. Yours will be a life of ease, and no pulling of heavy
logs in the river out in the broiling hot sun. You will have a cool,
shady pagoda to stay in when the sun is up and a cool deep marble bath
to bathe in, and plenty of good food to eat. What more could you wish?
And when you take my master for a ride on your back in his houdah you
will head the procession of elephants with the nobility and flower of
Siam on elephants behind you. Your houdah or seat for the king and all
its trappings will be of crimson velvet embroidered in gold, set with
precious stones, while theirs will be of silver. Come now, stop that
struggling or I shall have to tie up another leg and fasten you to a
tree. You won’t? Then here goes!’ and he put his fingers to his lips
and gave the sharpest, most penetrating whistle I ever heard or hope
to hear. From the bushes on all sides of us appeared other half naked
huntsmen, bringing a trained elephant with them to help them subdue my
father. And with the elephant’s help they soon had my poor tired father
hobbled so he could scarcely move. And here the head huntsman left my
father with the natives and returned to the king’s palace to acquaint
him with his find.

“Elephants are also caught by drawing a herd into a strongly
constructed enclosure by frightening them with noise and fire until
the poor things are so confused they don’t know where they are going.
Once in the enclosure, with the help of tame decoy elephants, they are
quickly fastened to trees by tying one leg at a time. Here they are
kept until they become docile and tame enough to be taught what the
natives wish them to do.

“There is one interesting thing about elephants and it is this: If for
any reason one elephant leaves a herd or is driven from it, he is not
allowed to join another or come back to his own. He is forced to lead
a solitary, lonesome life and he soon becomes morose and ill-tempered
and takes delight in destroying everything. These elephants are called
rogues.

“And while I am about it, I will tell you a few more facts about
elephants before I go back to what happened to myself.

“The tusks of elephants are nothing more than enormously elongated
front teeth. They grow to be seven or eight feet long and often weigh
from one hundred to two hundred and fifty pounds. This with the weight
of the animal is considerable, as they frequently weigh from four
thousand to nine thousand pounds. Their usual height is from nine to
ten feet but they have been known to reach the height of fifteen feet.
Though so large and strong, they are rather delicate in captivity
and require being fed with care. When working they are fed two
hundredweight of green food, half a bushel of grain and forty gallons
of water each day. When once tamed and trained, they are of immense
value in the East where they do the heavy work like pulling and hauling
logs, road building and so on as well as being used by royalty on state
occasions to carry them on their backs in gaudy houdahs, a kind of seat
with a canopy or top over it. At such times the elephants are bedecked
in great splendor with head pieces of gold and silver set with precious
stones.

[Illustration: ON THAT LONG TABLE SET FOR A HUNDRED FIFTY PERSONS, EACH
ANIMAL FOUND SOMETHING TO HIS TASTE. (PAGE 160)]

“You have heard of the Sacred White Elephants? Well, there is a dispute
about them. Some authorities say they are simply albinos, which means
a person or animal all white with red eyes. Others say the white hair
is due to a skin disease. Whichever way it is, the people of India
consider them sacred and great care and attention is lavished on them.
They have pagodas of their own, cooling baths and servants to look
after them.

“Elephants are found in Africa, Asia, and Ceylon. The African elephant
differs from the species in Asia in being taller, having larger ears
and a different shaped forehead. The African elephant is hunted for its
tusks which are of great value when made up into ivory trinkets, toilet
articles and other things. The natives of Africa in the jungle count
their wealth by the number and size of the elephant tusks they have.
They are more fierce than the Asia elephants and are not used as beasts
of burden so much on that account.

“Now I have given you a few statistics about elephants in general and
will go back to where my father was caught and I was still undiscovered
beside my dead mother.

“As night came on I began to grow terribly frightened, for in the
darkness I could see the blazing eyes of wild beasts around and snakes
peering at me through the bushes. They had been attracted by the smell
of blood and were only waiting to pounce upon my mother and eat her
when they found out whether she was alive and sleeping or dead.

[Illustration]

“The natives had built a fire and were preparing their supper not
twenty feet from my father who stood stock still now, having completely
worn himself out fighting and straining to loosen the ropes that bound
him. The natives’ fire made a patch of light in the inky black forest
and I was truly thankful for it, as it made me less afraid. But the
blazing eyes kept creeping nearer and nearer where I stood until I was
trying to make up my mind to brave the natives and run to my father
when my mind was made up in a hurry. Hearing the leaves above rustle, I
looked up and what should I see but a big tiger about to spring on me.
With one bound I was out of the bushes and running toward my father. On
seeing me he caressed me with his trunk and told me not to be afraid
but to be brave. My sudden appearance surprised the natives very much
and with one accord they jumped up and came toward us and before I knew
it, I was tied up.

“The natives were very good to us and when my father saw that they
did not intend to hurt either of us, he soon had confidence in them.
At the end of two weeks the natives thought my father was docile and
tame enough for them to start out of the forest with him to the king’s
stables.

“I have had many, many masters and trainers in my long life, but none
that I loved as I did the first one that brought me out of the jungle.

“I should like to tell you about my trip to America in the big ships
across the oceans, but I see I have already talked over my time. So
thanking you for your kind attention, I will bid you good-night,” and
with much applause Jumbo returned to the side of the ring to listen to
what the next speaker had to say, which all had voted must be Billy
Whiskers.




CHAPTER XIII

BILLY WHISKERS’ STORY


When the animals were all quiet again, Billy said:

“Kind friends, I think I will tell you of an experience Nannie and I
had when we were on a ranch out in New Mexico and I was leader of a
large flock of sheep. You know that most flocks of sheep have several
big goats to help guard the sheep against the attack of wolves.

“We had been doing this for a long time and had grown weary of the
dangerous, monotonous life. We decided to run away, cross the mountain
and make our way East. This ranch was directly at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains and as this was a good time of the year to travel,
there being plenty of grass and water, and little snow on top of the
mountains, we determined to start immediately. We only waited for the
herders to drive the sheep into the corral for the night and then we
started.

“We had been out about ten days climbing straight up and up, higher and
higher, and the nights were getting colder and colder, and the food
scarcer and scarcer. We determined we must make a rush trip the next
day and get over the top of the mountain or we would be snowbound and
starve to death. That night we went to bed very early so as to be up at
sunrise. As luck would have it, we had found a small cave hid away up
the side of the mountain among the rocks which would protect us against
the high winds, and we were congratulating ourselves on finding it for
now we could have a good sleep undisturbed by wind or rain.

“We must have been asleep for three or four hours when Nannie awakened
me by huddling up close and whispering in my ear: ‘Oh, Billy, I am so
afraid! I thought I heard wolves howling in the valley!’

“As she finished speaking I heard them myself and from the howls I
judged there must be six or eight. But as you know the howl of one wolf
sounds like two or three, so I could not be sure. Of one thing I _was_
sure and that was that they were on our track and coming fast, and two
goats against six or eight wolves hadn’t much show. The only advantage
we had was that we were in a cave and so protected on three sides. If
we could hold the entrance and keep them out, we might be able to pick
them off one by one.

“I had some hope of saving our lives this way but should they decide
to attack in a bunch we could not hope to fight them off. Nannie would
be practically no help unless she got over her fright to some extent,
for now she was panic-stricken and could not think. And one wants his
brain in good working order when fighting wolves.

“On, on came the cruel beasts, nearer and nearer, and Nannie shook so
by this time she could not even stand up. I knew this would never do
so I said: ‘Nannie, my dear, unless you stand up and fight, and fight
as you never did before, we will be torn to pieces in less than ten
minutes, for the wolves are almost here. I can’t fight them off alone,
but with your assistance we may be able to save our lives.’

[Illustration]

“Just then a big black wolf with mouth open and red tongue hanging out
between sharp white teeth, appeared at the entrance of the cave. As
if gloating over us, he raised his head and gave the pack cry for the
others to come on; that he had found their prey.

[Illustration]

“Now was my chance. While he had his head raised to give the cry, his
eyes were turned upward and his chest expanded. So with a mighty spring
forward I buried my sharp horns in his chest, piercing clear through to
his heart. He dropped dead. I had just finished with him when two more
came in sight.

“‘Come on, Nannie! You take the smaller one to the right and I will
take the big one to the left. Be sure to spring upon them the minute
they reach the spot in the path where that big stone is. It will take
them so by surprise that it will give us the advantage, for they expect
us to run away instead of fight.’

“And now that there was real danger at hand, Nannie bounded up as she
always did and she and I sprang at the wolves at the same instant and
knocked them over the steep cliff down into the canyon below. And we
could hear them rolling with the stones they loosened, down, down, down
into the rocky stream below.

“Now two more wolves came from one direction and three from another,
and none of them knew what had happened to their comrades for the
killings had taken place out of sight and in such quick time that none
of the wolves had let out so much as a peep.

“‘Keep close to me, Nannie, so I can help you a little,’ I said.

“Just then the wolves spied us, and they all gave a howl of pleasure
and quickened their pace. ‘Now is where we fight as we never did
before, or die,’ I thought.

“With mouth open and tail swinging high in air, the foremost and
largest one of the five jumped straight for me. He was so much larger
than I that for a second he bore me to the ground with his teeth in my
neck, but as luck would have it the collar I always wore kept the wolf
from closing his mouth so his sharp teeth only grazed my skin instead
of sinking into my throat as the wolf intended they should.

“Nannie, on seeing me down and the wolf on top of me with blood flowing
from my wounds, thought of course I was killed. And forgetting herself,
she charged on the wolf, and while he was preparing for another bite at
my neck, something ran in his side and he knew no more. Nannie’s sharp
horns had pierced his heart. She had just time to pull her horns out of
his side when the other wolves were upon her.

“Seeing them coming, I squirmed from under the heavy dead wolf that
was pinning me down and was on my feet beside Nannie before the wolves
reached her. But what was our surprise to see the wolves stop short
when within six feet of us, lift their noses in the air, sniff and
start past us on a gallop. The wolves had smelled the blood of the
first wolf that had been killed and Nannie and I had no charms for them
compared to fresh blood, even though it was the blood of one of their
own pack. They fell upon the wolves Nannie and I had killed and fought
and tore at the carcasses until not a shred of meat was left on any of
the bones.

“‘Now is our time to escape, Nannie, while the wolves are gorging
themselves with fresh meat,’ I said, and so we started up the side
of the mountain in double quick time. By morning we had reached the
summit and crossed over and were down the other side beyond the snow
line before we stopped traveling. But we had to halt and get our breath
and rest very often as one has to in high altitudes.

“Needless to say, we reached the valley in safety or we would not be
here now. I thank you for your kind attention.”

       *       *       *       *       *

At the close of Billy’s story he stepped into the center of the ring
and announced that he had been loose all day and allowed to roam at
will, and while hanging around the kitchen tent, he had heard the night
watchman, cooks and other caretakers of the circus talking about a big
ball that was to be given in the skating rink in town that evening for
the circus people. They had all declared their intentions of going, for
they were quite sure everything would be all right at the circus for
the two or three hours they would be away, and the owner of the circus
would be none the wiser.

“The cooks are to make cakes and ice-cream, broil and glaze ham and
other meats for them to have when they come back from the ball. And it
is all to be set on the table before they go, so all they will have to
do when they return will be to make hot coffee and then sit down and
eat. Now I propose we go over and eat up that supper while they are
away. They will think some hoodlums from the town came out and did it.
It will be great fun and give you animals a chance for once in your
lives to taste the food humans eat. You may not like it; still you may
as I have yet to meet the animal that does not like sugar or salt,”
said Billy.

“Your proposition sounds fine for a lark, but will you kindly tell us,
Mr. Billy, how we are to get there when we are all tied and shut in a
circus tent?”

“Easily enough! Half of you animals don’t know your own strength or
power or you would not be here. Now listen to my plan. The elephant,
camel and moose will have to pull with all their strength on their
ropes until the pegs in the ground to which they are tied fly out. I
know they will. You all just think you can not uproot them, so you
never have tried. So much for what thought will do for an animal as
well as for a person. What we truly think turns out to be true if we
only think hard enough in the right way.”

“Those of you who are not noted for your strength but for your sharp
teeth will gnaw your ropes in two, and when you are all free we will
hie us to the banquet tent.”

“But how are we to get out of this circus tent?” asked the giraffe.

“The elephant will stick his sharp tusk through it and tear a hole in
it large enough for you big animals to squeeze through.”

“It sounds very plausible but I don’t believe it can be done,” said the
elephant.

“’Fraidy cat! ’Fraidy cat!” squeaked the parrot.

“Shut up, Polly! Someone might hear you and then you would spoil the
whole party!”

“Come now, you animals with sharp teeth, begin to gnaw on your ropes!”
called Billy.

The poor giraffe was in despair. So was the zebra, for they both had
large but flat teeth and could not chew a rope in two in a month.

“Don’t worry, you two; I’ll fix it so you can get loose. I’ll chew your
ropes for you,” offered Stubby, “and I’ll get Button to help me.”

And then for many minutes all you could hear in the circus tent was a
sound like thousands of rats gnawing. Their jaws were getting pretty
tired from this unusual work when Billy thought of an excellent plan to
lighten the task. He ran out of the tent and over to where the grain
for the horses was kept. And here he found over a hundred rats eating
the grain that had been spilled when the horses had been fed.

He ran in their midst and said: “Stop eating a minute and listen to me,
good friends! You can eat this stuff every day for it is always here,
but I have a plan whereby you can get dainties to eat that you love
with no fear of poison or of being caught. But before I tell you where
you can get it, you must do me a favor. It is an easy one that will
take but ten minutes. Then you will be free until morning to eat the
dainties I have told you of if you so wish. Will you do it or not?”

The spokesman rat asked: “Where are these dainties you speak of to be
had?”

[Illustration]

“I cannot tell you until you have done what I ask you to do. Should I
tell you first, you might give me the laugh by running off and eating
them up before you did the favor I am asking.”

“Well, what is the favor?” asked another old rat.

“It is to gnaw a few ropes in two. Come, hurry and decide for time
flies, which makes the time all the shorter for your feast. Think of
it, cakes, pies, pudding, meats, cheese of many kinds, all for the
eating, and no danger! Will you or will you not come?”

“Yes, we will come. Now lead the way to where the ropes are you want
chewed.”

And I know even the men and the girl in the moon would have laughed had
they chanced to look down and had seen a big white goat leading an army
of rats into a circus tent.

When the animals saw Billy coming with the rats they were too
astonished to speak, and before they had time to ask any questions the
rats were gnawing the ropes like mad.

“Billy, for plans and strategy you certainly take the cake!” said the
elephant. “You should have been human. With your brain you would have
made a wonderful major general for some army.”

In a jiffy the ropes fell apart and then the rats attacked the hole the
elephant had made in the tent and helped him to tear it. When the hole
was big enough for them to squeeze through, Billy said:

“Now follow me, rats and animals, and I will lead you to the festive
board where all the goodies are spread out for you to feast on them.”

Once inside the tent every animal and rat tasted the things that looked
most tempting to him. The leaf eaters ate the salad; the meat eaters,
the ham and cold tongue; the rats ate the different cheeses and cakes;
but the giraffe, being thirsty, was looking for a drink of water when
he spied the ice-cream freezer. While nosing around he accidentally
knocked the lid off, so he stuck his tongue in to taste it. Being hot
and thirsty, it tasted good and felt cool to his throat. He was thus
amusing himself when Billy found him. He would lick up a mouthful and
then stretch his neck up as high as it would go and shut his eyes to
enjoy the cool, sweet stream running down his long neck. He called to
the elephant to come and try it, which he did but the elephant did not
like it. He much preferred the salted nuts and went from place to place
eating the nuts in the individual dishes.

The camel liked the sweet cakes and so it was that on that long table
set for a hundred fifty persons, each animal found something to his
taste. And those greedy animals and rats did not leave until there was
not a morsel of food left and the plates were licked as clean as if
they had been washed.

On going to the flap of the tent to look out to see about what time
it was, Billy spied a long, straggling line of people coming down the
street straight for the tent. He recognized them as the circus people
coming home from the ball.

[Illustration: “FOLLOW ME, NANNIE!” CALLED BILLY AND RAN UNDER THE
HOOK-AND-LADDER AUTO. (PAGE 179)]

It took but a minute for him to notify his friends and in less time
than it takes to tell it, every animal and rat was out of the tent
and hurrying as fast as fast could be to get back to their places in
the tent before the night watchman got there or any of the returning
crowd saw them. After they had seen that all the animals were back
in their places standing beside their gnawed ropes, Billy and Stubby
and Button ran back to the dining tent and secreted themselves so they
could hear what the circus people said when they entered their tent and
found the food all eaten.

The first to come was the head chef and one of the bareback lady
riders. On throwing back the flap of the tent to show the lady what
mountains of goodies he had prepared for the feast, the chef was struck
dumb by the sight of the empty table. At first he thought there must
be some practical joke about it and that someone had hidden the food
and put down empty plates. So he rushed in and looked under the table
to see if they had hidden the food there. But no! Then to the kitchen
to look in the oven and cupboards for food, but no food appeared. He
was wringing his hands and pulling his hair when the rest of the crowd
arrived wanting to know what kind of a practical joke he called it to
have no food and only an empty table to show an impatient crowd when
they arrived from the ball hungry as wolves. Cries were heard of “Throw
him in the river! Throw him in the river!”

“No! No! Stop that howling! Can’t you see the poor man is beside
himself at the loss of the supper? Don’t you see he has played no joke
on you, but someone else has played a joke on him?” said the lady with
him. “But I am with you to find out who _did_ play this mean trick.

“Anyway, we can have some ice-cream, for I see the ice-cream freezer
at the end of yonder table. Each get your saucer and spoon and I will
serve you.”

But alas! when she got there she found the top of the can on the floor
and the ice-cream all gone.

“Who has done this? Who has done this?” they all asked one another but
no one knew or could even guess. And they have not found out to this
day and that was over a year ago.

The next day the circus was to be divided, half going to Duluth and
half to Bismarck. All the animals were in a flutter to know how the
division was to be made and who was going with whom.




CHAPTER XIV

POLLY AND THE MONKEY CAUSE TROUBLE


About the middle of the next morning the animals were discussing their
next move and telling one another what they had heard their trainers
and caretakers say of the places they were going and which animals were
going to Duluth and which to Bismarck, when a scream rent the air and
Polly began scolding and squeaking in her loudest and most angry voice.

The lion roared out: “Can’t you be still and stop your squeaks for a
few minutes at least? You chatter, chatter an endless chain of nonsense
all day long and just when one is about to catch a little nap without
being bothered by people sticking their canes and umbrellas into one’s
sides, you have to squeak as if you were being killed.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me, you old grouch! You need not think you are the
_only_ one that can make a noise in this circus! I guess you let out
an ear splitting roar whenever _you_ wish without asking permission or
thinking if _you_ will disturb any afternoon naps!” and Polly gave
another of her discordant squeaks and flew up onto a trapeze that was
hanging from the top of the tent.

“I guess you would squeak too if you had had a handful of feathers
pulled out of your tail by a monkey,” said the old maid camel.

“Oh! that is it, is it? The monkey is at his old tricks plaguing his
enemy, the parrot,” replied the lion.

Here the conversation was interrupted by squeaks and more squeaks,
followed by the loud chattering of a monkey. Every animal in its cage
and those tied in the ring looked up to where Polly and the monkey were
having a terrible fight high on the trapeze. First Polly would be seen
swinging from the under side by her bill, then the monkey. Then they
would both sit on the bar and fight each other. Polly would peck with
her bill and strike out with her claws while the monkey would slap her
and grab out a handful of feathers.

At last Polly had a chance to spread her wings and fly from the trapeze
into the passageway that led from this tent into another where the
performers’ dressing-rooms were. The monkey could not fly but he could
do something almost as well. He could swing and jump, so he set the
trapeze to swinging out farther and farther, then jumped and caught
hold of a long rope that swung to the ground. This he caught and
nimbly climbed down it. Once down, he ran into the passageway after
Polly. Polly, turning, saw him coming as she was walking slowly along
thinking she was rid of the monkey for a while at least. But when she
saw him, her fright returned and with a squeak she spread her wings and
flew until she saw an opening into one of the private dressing-rooms.
Through this she flew and lit on the first thing she saw which, sad to
relate, happened to be the golden head of the peroxide blonde bareback
rider, who was in the act of bleaching her hair. She had the bottle
raised over her head to pour some on her hair when Polly lit just where
she was going to pour the liquid. Being so startled, she did not know
what she was doing and poured the liquid just the same. It went all
over Polly and slowly turned her green feathers to a bright golden
color.

[Illustration]

Then seeing the monkey and being deathly afraid of them, the circus
girl threw the bottle at him and the rest of its contents spilled over
the monkey, making him also a bright gold color.

On seeing this, Polly ha-ha’d with laughter but it was cut short
when, happening to look down, she saw her own body slowly turning the
same yellow the monkey’s was. On perceiving this she began to squeak
and cry, “Murder, murder!” while the frightened circus girl called
“Help, help!” and the monkey squealed as loudly as he could to add
to the confusion. Of course all the racket brought the circus people
running to the tent to see who was being mistreated. Nor did their
cries attract only the circus people, but the outside spectators and
policemen as well. The people stopped to listen and stare while the
policemen made a run for the tent.

When the monkey saw the first policeman coming down the passageway
with club upraised, he ran toward the screaming circus girl and
tried to hide under her dress. This of course made her cry “Help!
Murder!” louder than ever and she kicked so hard she upset the chair
she was sitting on. When the policeman appeared in the door she was
lying on the floor under the overturned chair, still screaming. The
police thought someone must have knocked her down with the chair and,
perceiving no one in the room, took it for granted they must have made
their escape by crawling under the tent, so he too crawled under.
At that moment he saw a man running away from the tent as fast as
he could, so he called to the crowd, “Stop him! Stop him!” But too
late--the man had cleared the crowd and was by this time running with
long strides and arm raised like a professional runner.

Seeing this, the policeman took a long breath and started after the
man, determined to overtake him if it took all day. He had run several
blocks and was about winded and ready to drop when the man dodged
into a yard, and went up the front steps, and into a house, slamming
the door behind him without even turning around to see how near the
policeman was on his trail.

When the policeman arrived at the house he tried the door but of course
it was locked. He pounded on it with his club, calling out at the same
time: “Open the door if you don’t want me to break it down!” He had
raised his club to give it another fearful whack when it opened in a
hurry and in the doorway stood a tall, dignified man dressed in the
long black coat of a clergyman, who said in a low, impressive voice:
“My good man, why all this racket? Why did you not ring the bell
instead of pounding on my door?”

“Stand aside and let me pass or I will have you arrested for harboring
thieves!”

As he said this a voice from the head of the stair said: “What is the
trouble, father?”

“There he is now, the murderer!”

“Murderer! What do you mean by calling my son a murderer?”

The policeman did not reply but attempted to push by the clergyman with
a rough hand.

“Here, you minion of the law, use a little respect to my old father
or I’ll chuck you out on the sidewalk,” and coming down the stairs, a
young man added: “Here I am! Now tell us what this murder business is
you are talking about.”

“Well, as I was on me beat just about to pass the circus, I heard
cries of ‘Help! Help! Murder! Murder!’ and I ran in to see who was
being murdered when I came to a room with a woman lying on the floor
screaming murder. She had been knocked over with a chair and seeing the
sides of her tent moving, I thought the murderer had just escaped by
crawling under the tent. So I ducked under too and, sure enough, what
should I see but this man here running for dear life. I called to the
crowd to stop him but he ran so fast and pushed them off so when they
tried to catch him that I know he was the man that had done the deed.
So come on back wid me to the tent and see if your victim is dead or
only scared. For it is you in the coop if she is dead.”

At the end of this harangue the young man laughed so he had to hold his
hands to his sides, while his father and the policeman stood by and
looked at him.

“Come in and sit down, officer, while I spoil all your circumstantial
evidence.”

“Not so fast now, young man! You can tell me right here what ye have to
tell. I’m not at all tired and can stand a little longer.”

“Well, you see it is this way. I am a professional runner and I usually
run stripped to the waist with the regular running togs on, but to-day
I thought I would run in my ordinary clothes to see if it made much
difference whether one was dressed for it or just in ordinary clothes.
I left a crowd of fellows on the college steps so if you want proof
that I am not the man you are looking for, I’ll go back with you to the
college and you can talk to them or, better yet, step inside and call
up the college and they will tell you I was there when this supposed
murder took place.”

“Not on your life will I telephone, for while I am doing it you will
slip away.”

“Not at all! You may handcuff me while you telephone.” This he did and
on telephoning to the college received an answer that cleared the young
man entirely.

“Now, officer, just to show you there is no ill feeling, join me in a
glass of sarsaparilla, for I am terribly thirsty after my run and I
know you must be.”

“Thank you very much. I will,” and the two shook hands to show there
was no ill feeling.

On his way back to the police station, the policeman stopped at the
circus to see if the murderer had been caught or if there had been no
murder after all, but just a cry of murder. He found the lady giving a
last pat to her elaborately dressed peroxide-colored hair and laughing
at a little monkey in a cage and a gold colored parrot with a green
tail sitting on a perch on one side of her tent, while the parrot was
saying in a singsong voice: “Never again! Never again!” But the monkey
sat all crouched up in one corner.

“Oh, officer, is that you? Did you find the man that murdered me?”

“I sure did and he is the gamest young man I ever tried to arrest on
the false accusation of a crazy-headed girl!”

“Get right out of here! How dare you call me crazy-headed?”

“Because that is what ye are! You scream ‘Help! Help! Murder! Murder!’
and disturb the peace.”

On hearing this Polly began to cry: “Help! Help! Murder! Murder!”

“Shut up, will ye, ye evil-eyed bird, or I will drown you!”

“Shut up! Shut up! Hear him! Hear him!” squeaked Polly, at which the
policeman beat a hasty retreat to the music of the circus lady’s
laughter and Polly’s screeches.




CHAPTER XV

THE CIRCUS BREAKS CAMP


That night after the performance the circus broke camp and the
friends were separated, the elephant, camel, monkey and parrot going
to Bismarck while the moose, zebra, giraffe and sacred bull went to
Duluth. But this was not the worst division that was made. Billy was to
be sent to Duluth and Stubby and Button to Bismarck. Now here was an
unforeseen catastrophe and the circus people, having observed the close
companionship of the four, took precaution to lock Billy and Nannie in
a cage by themselves and Stubby and Button in another.

“Never mind,” counseled Billy. “You and Button go on with the circus
for it is headed in the right direction for us and Nannie and I will
run away from the circus and join you, never fear, just as soon as they
let us out of this pesky cage.”

“I _knew_ something like this would happen if we stayed with their poky
old circus!” grumbled Stubby.

“I know you did, old fellow, but cheer up, we won’t be separated long.”

It was astonishing how quickly the circus people folded their tents,
gathered up the long lines of seats, and started their wagon cages
toward the circus train that lay in the yards with steam up, all
ready to start at a moment’s notice. Everything about a circus is
systematized so that the minute the evening performance is over,
everybody jumps to his or her appointed task and works with a will, so
that where there were tents with flags and banners flying at night, the
next morning there is only a deserted sawdust ring. Circuses spring up
over night like mushrooms and disappear as quickly as the dew on the
grass when the sun comes up.

By midnight the circus train was well under way and Billy and Nannie
found themselves in a cage between the zebra and giraffe. About two
o’clock the train stopped at a siding to let a passenger train pass. It
being very late they had to wait as all regular trains had the right of
way over a special like a circus train.

As this siding was beside a stream on the outskirts of a sleeping
little town, it was as still as death with the exception of the frogs
in the pond and the katydids quarreling with each other in a tree
beside the cage Billy and Nannie were in. Now if there was anything
that made Billy nervous and depressed, it was hearing frogs and the hum
of insects and katydids. It gave him the blues. At last he could stand
it no longer and he baaed to the zebra and giraffe to see if they were
awake. Both were and each declared himself wildly nervous and unable
to sleep with the incessant repetition of “Katy _did_! She _did_! She
_didn’t_! She _did_! She _didn’t_!” until Billy bawled out:

[Illustration]

“Who cares a tinker’s dam whether she did or did not? Can’t you shut up
and let some poor tired animals sleep?”

“Yes,” whinnied the zebra, “for mercy sakes give us a rest! I should
think you would need one yourselves the way you have been calling out
‘She _did_! She _didn’t_!’ faster and faster until I thought your heads
would fly off, and to tell you the truth I wish they _had_!”

“I feel as if my ears were growing as big as my neck,” said the
giraffe. “Just listening to any noise I don’t like makes me feel that
way. But I don’t mind the katydids as I do those confounded frogs with
their ‘Mudger-ka-rum, mudger-ka-rum. Knee-deep, knee-deep!’”

“Is that what you think they say?” asked Billy.

“Yes; what do you think they are calling?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound to me as if they were saying what
it does to you.”

“Well, perhaps it would not sound that way to me but I once heard one
of the keepers say the reason people think frogs say mudger-ka-rum
was because there was once an Irishman going home late at night, half
drunk, a jug of rum under his arm, and he thought the frogs were
calling to him to give them his jug of rum as mudger-ka-rum sounded
like _my jug of rum_.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed the giraffe. “That is a good one! And hereafter
whenever I hear frogs I shall think of that saying. Listen now; it
really _does_ sound as if that was what they were calling.”

“I can’t go to sleep until the train starts, so let us tell stories
until it does,” proposed Billy.

“Very well, I’m willing,” agreed the zebra and giraffe.

“You tell the first one. Tell us something about your experiences in
the war,” added the giraffe.

“Oh, for mercy sakes don’t say war to me! I am sick of the very name of
it and I can’t bear to even think of its horror, much less tell about
the black deeds I saw. You two tell me about your homes in Africa.”

“Very well,” replied the zebra. “I’ll tell you what a merry chase I
gave my pursuers when they were trying to catch me. You see white with
many, many black stripes in it is hard to see at a distance. It seems
to fade into the background. That is why during the war they painted
the sides of the ships black and white so as to camouflage them.”

“What does camouflage mean?” asked the giraffe.

“You ought to know,” replied the zebra, “as your coat is camouflaged,
though not just like mine as it has round black and white dots. They
make it just as hard to see as stripes like mine.”

“Is that so? I never knew that before. But I do know that it is almost
impossible to shoot us when on the run, as our coats make it very
difficult to judge the distance we are from the hunter. But I never
knew it was due to our spots and color.”

“Well, as I was saying,” continued the zebra, “where I lived there is a
kind of tall growth of vegetation with long leaves just the width of
our stripes and the branches grow straight and tall above our heads.
When there is any of that kind of vegetation around and hunters get
after us, we make for it and we are seldom seen after we enter, for
the waving leaves throw black shadows across us and unless a hunter
runs directly into us he will pass within a few feet of us and never
discover us.”

Just then the train gave a jerk that threw the zebra off its feet,
bumped the giraffe’s head against the top of its cage and sent Billy’s
head bang up against the end of his cage and Nannie’s short horns into
his side.

“Plague take this old train anyway! Why can’t the engineer toot the
whistle and give a fellow warning that he is going to start? Now we
can’t hear the rest of your story until we stop again as the train
makes too much noise.

“Good-by, you old frogs and katydids, I hope I never, never, never hear
you peep again as long as I live!” said Billy.




CHAPTER XVI

THE ESCAPE FROM THE CIRCUS


The next morning the circus arrived in Duluth. The tents were pitched
and then hurry and confusion began as everyone was getting ready for
the usual morning parade through the down-town streets of the city.
This was just what Billy had been waiting for, as he intended to watch
his chance and run away from the circus while it was on parade. But
imagine his disgust when one of the circus men brought a little flat
saddle and strapped it on his back and then put a fancy headpiece on
his head and brought the monkey that had had the fight with Polly
and tied it to one of his horns with a rope just long enough for it
to reach the saddle, where the monkey was supposed to dance as the
procession moved through the streets.

“I’ll run away even if I have to drag the monkey with me, for I shan’t
stay with the circus another day!” thought Billy. “I am so sick and
tired of it. Besides, all the time we are here Stubby and Button are
going farther and farther West away from us.”

At exactly half past ten the circus procession filed out of the main
tent headed by a band of twenty pieces following which came the
bareback riders on snow white horses or jet black ones, with horses and
riders all fixed exactly as they would be seen in the circus ring that
afternoon, the women riders in their short tulle skirts with bare necks
and arms and the men in their tights. Behind them came the performing
animals and gilded chariots drawn by tiny Shetland ponies driven by
little girls dressed as fairies or little boys dressed as princes.
After them came the elephants, camels, sacred bull, zebras and so on,
led by their keepers dressed in uniforms of black pants and red coats
trimmed with gold lace and cords. Following all this were the cages
with the animals in them, and one could see the giraffe sticking his
head out of the hole in the roof so he could rest his long neck, and
the tigers and lions pacing up and down their cages trying to get out.

All the time the procession was making its way slowly through the
streets the clown walked beside it talking to the crowds on the
sidewalk. Oh, it was most exciting to the small boys and girls who
never had seen a circus procession go by.

But oh my, how deadly tiresome it was to the poor performers and
animals that had to take part! Billy and Nannie happened to be about
the middle of the procession and as bad luck would have it, one of the
clowns had selected just that place to walk. Billy was growing more
desperate every block they went at not seeing a single good chance
to escape. For should he start to run away the clown would give the
alarm and one of the guards of the procession in policeman’s uniform
and mounted on horseback would give chase and capture him. Besides, he
would have to butt his way through the crowds of people who were lining
the sidewalks so closely it would be like butting through a stone wall.

“Oh! What shall I do?” and Billy had dropped his head in disappointment
and was paying no attention to the monkey on his back who kept on
dancing and hitting his head with the little tambourine he had in
his hand. All of a sudden he heard a great clattering of wheels and
tooting of horns coming down a side street and just as his part of
the procession got to the corner it parted so the fire engine and
hook-and-ladder could go across the street.

Now was their chance. “Follow me, Nannie!” called Billy and with a
bound forward he reached the middle of the street and ran under the
hook-and-ladder auto, though it was going at breakneck speed and he
ran the chance of being killed instantly. So did Nannie. Still it was
Billy’s way to take a chance every time, no matter how dangerous it
was. Once under the machine, they ran for all they were worth to keep
covered by its long ladders so no one could see them. Their escape had
been so sudden and just at a time when all eyes were on the fire engine
and hook-and-ladder, that no one belonging to the circus saw them.

The poor little monkey on Billy’s back was nearly scared to death so
when he saw the ladders over his head he jumped from the little saddle
on Billy’s back up on them. Luck was with him for the sudden jerk on
the rope untied the loose knot and he found himself free, much to his
delight as well as Billy’s.

Presently the hook-and-ladder stopped and Billy could smell smoke and
see fire ahead of them. But what made his heart bound with delight was
that it had stopped directly opposite the opening into an alley. With
a squeal of delight Billy and Nannie darted from under the machine and
ran down the alley, never stopping until they were many blocks away.

Now the question was, how was he to get the saddle from his back?
Should anyone see him with it they would know he had run away from the
circus. He would have to stay hid in the alley and not show himself
on the streets until after dark. Seeing a packing box leaning against
a fence, Billy nosed around until he found it was empty. Then they
squeezed themselves between the fence and the box and lay down to rest
and try to think out some way to free him from the saddle.

While turning his head to look at it he found that by stretching his
neck he could just get hold of the edge of the girth that strapped it
to his back. Consequently he began squirming and twisting until he got
a good hold with his teeth. Then with a mighty tug he pulled it toward
his head, and joy of joys! in three long strong pulls he had it up to
his neck. So all he had to do was to duck his head and the saddle fell
over his head and neck to the floor of the box.

[Illustration]

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Billy to himself. “I think I am pretty smart to rid
myself of that saddle. Now I can go wherever I wish and no one will
suspect that I am not just an ordinary goat out looking for something
to eat. Speaking of eats, I believe I’m hungry. Aren’t you, Nannie?
Now that we are rested, I think we had better go in search of food.”
So they squeezed themselves out of the box and went trotting down the
alley as independently as you please.

When they reached the corner where the alley crossed the street, they
found a grocery store with baskets of vegetables and fruit displayed
outside. Billy took a peek and no one being in sight, he reached for a
nice fresh cabbage and retired to the alley to eat it. Nannie did the
same. Having finished the cabbage, they ate a bunch of carrots and were
beginning on a head of lettuce when the grocery wagon drove into the
alley and the driver chased them away with his long whip and then threw
stones at them.

Billy was now feeling pretty fine, having had all he wanted to eat, so
he thought, “Now is the time for us to find the depot, so I can see if
we can’t steal a ride out of here back to Minneapolis. There we must
change cars and get on a train going west, or we will never catch up
with Stubby and Button.”

Had Billy only known it, he was at that minute within three blocks of
the very depot he was looking for. He did not know this, but hearing a
train whistle he thought he would follow the sound and see where it led
him, in town or out. By jumping a fence or two and crossing a vacant
lot, they soon came to a railroad track and looking down it what should
he see but the very circus train they had come on!

“Hurrah! This is surely good luck for us for now I know we shall get on
the right train to take us back. We’ll go over to the depot and watch
for a chance to sneak into a freight car going in the right direction
to carry us back to Minneapolis.”

Billy soon found a good place for them to hide from which they could
watch all the incoming and outgoing trains, but he saw no freight
cars with the doors open. What he _did_ see when it grew dark and the
lights were lighted was an express mail train all made up and ready to
start. He could see men throwing on mail bags and storing away express
packages while the engine blew off steam and waited for the signal. He
was watching this intently when the audacious thought struck him, “Why
not go on that train instead of waiting for some old slow freight? We
will try it. They can but throw us off and I’ll put up such a fight
they won’t dare do it after we have once started. But the hard part
will be to get aboard without one or the other of us being seen.
However, it is pretty dark, which will help some, and I am going to try
it.”

So they trotted across the intervening tracks and jumped up on the
platform. Now there were two platforms where this train stood and the
doors of the car were open on each side so a person could board the
train from either side. Billy noticed this, and while the man in charge
of the mail car was standing at one door talking to the driver of a
mail wagon that had just brought a big lot of mail bags, Billy and
Nannie stepped in the opposite door and tiptoed into a dimly-lighted
corner and hid behind a pile of mail bags. They had scarcely secreted
themselves when the train gave a jerk and they were off.

“Pretty slick work I call that!” said Billy. “This surely has been
our lucky day to run away from the circus and get started back to
Minneapolis.”

This train was the fast night express and made but one stop between
Duluth and Minneapolis, so when the train was out of the suburbs and
rolling along through the quiet country, the mailman turned the lights
down low and threw himself on a cot at the side of the car and was soon
fast asleep. He never awoke until the train whistled for St. Paul. Then
he was up and on his feet and ready to open the door the minute the
train stopped. As he was removing the inner bar that fastened the door,
he thought he heard a noise behind him, but he did not bother to look
around to see what it was. Imagine his surprise when the door slipped
open to see two big white goats leap past him and run down the platform
and disappear in the crowd!

“Well, I’ll be hanged! How in the world did those goats get in my car
and me not know it?”

As Billy and Nannie stood outside the station wondering what they would
do next, who should they see coming down the street but Stubby and
Button.

“Nannie, do my eyes deceive me, or is that really and truly Stubby and
Button I see coming toward us?”

“It really is!”

“Well, well, well! Of all that is wonderful, where in the world did
you come from? The last we saw of you, you were in the circus train
bound for Bismarck, North Dakota, and at this minute we were wondering
how we could get to you the quickest way.”

[Illustration]

“Yes,” spoke up Nannie, “we were debating which would be the safest and
easiest, to try stealing a ride on a train or foot it. But my, I am
glad you are here! Come here until we rub noses!”

“This beats any luck we have had for some time,” answered Stubby.

“I should say so,” agreed Button, “as we left the circus on purpose to
come back and look for you two! As you did not come on and we were to
be carried further West the next morning which would separate us more
and more every day they traveled, we determined to escape and come back
to St. Paul in the hope of meeting your circus when it broke camp and
came back here. But we expected to have the dickens’ own time to find
you. Now we are all together again, I say we take a look at this city
and try to get a little fun out of it, for so far our trip has had very
little pleasure in it. Then after we have had all the hilarious times
we care for, we can continue our journey west to the Pacific Coast.”


THE END




_The_ Billy Whiskers Series

[Illustration]

[Illustration: SAALFIELD]

_By Frances Trego Montgomery_

[Illustration]

The antics of frolicsome Billy Whiskers, that adventuresome goat Mrs.
Montgomery writes about in these stories make all the boys and girls
chuckle--and every story that is issued about him is pronounced by them
“better than the last.”


TITLES IN SERIES

   1. Billy Whiskers
   2. Billy Whiskers’ Kids
   3. Billy Whiskers, Junior
   4. Billy Whiskers’ Travels
   5. Billy Whiskers at the Circus
   6. Billy Whiskers at the Fair
   7. Billy Whiskers’ Friends
   8. Billy Whiskers, Jr., and His Chums
   9. Billy Whiskers’ Grandchildren
  10. Billy Whiskers’ Vacation
  11. Billy Whiskers Kidnaped
  12. Billy Whiskers’ Twins
  13. Billy Whiskers in an Aeroplane
  14. Billy Whiskers in Town
  15. Billy Whiskers in Panama
  16. Billy Whiskers on the Mississippi
  17. Billy Whiskers at the Exposition
  18. Billy Whiskers Out West
  19. Billy Whiskers in the South
  20. Billy Whiskers in Camp
  21. Billy Whiskers in France
  22. Billy Whiskers’ Adventures
  23. Billy Whiskers in the Movies
  24. Billy Whiskers Out for Fun

  BOUND IN BOARDS

      COVER IN COLORS

          PROFUSE TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS

              FULL-PAGE DRAWINGS IN COLORS

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY--AKRON, OHIO




BOOKS FOR BOYS

The Boy Scout Series

_By Major Robert Maitland and Colonel George Durston_

Where is there the boy not interested in adventure?

Where the boy not intensely interested in the Boy Scouts too?

Adventure plus Boy Scouts--there is nothing more to be desired, at
least that is the way the boys feel who have read these stirring tales.


TWELVE TITLES

   1. The Boy Scouts in Camp
   2. The Boy Scouts to the Rescue
   3. The Boy Scouts on the Trail
   4. The Boy Scout Firefighters
   5. The Boy Scouts Afloat
   6. The Boy Scout Pathfinders
   7. The Boy Scout Automobilists
   8. The Boy Scout Aviators
   9. The Boy Scouts’ Champion Recruit
  10. The Boy Scouts’ Defiance
  11. The Boy Scouts’ Challenge
  12. The Boy Scouts’ Victory

EACH VOLUME A 12MO, WITH AN ATTRACTIVE JACKET PRINTED IN COLORS


The Aeroplane Boys Series

_By Captain Frank Cobb_

Valorous deeds on land and sea are all very well--but now come tales
of the air to thrill the boy’s heart. And here are three than which
there are no better. High in the air the heroes fight out their own
salvation--their own and others too, who never would dare the heights.

  BATTLING THE CLOUDS
  AN AVIATOR’S LUCK
  DANGEROUS DEEDS

EACH VOLUME A 12MO, WITH FRONTISPIECE, AND JACKET IN COLORS


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY--AKRON, OHIO




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.