Part 7 (1/2)

But when he tries to snub Bruce--gee, that gets me!”

”Aren't you tw.a.n.ging the G string rather often lately, Hal?--Stannard can't snub Bruce. Bruce isn't the kind of fellow to be snubbed.”

”Just the same, it makes me sick to think anybody's a cousin to me that would try it.”

Laura switched back to the main subject. ”We didn't ask them up here as extra farm hands, you know.”

”Bull's-eye,” said Henry, and grinned.

What she did not know failed to trouble Elliott. She read on in lonely peace through the afternoon. At a most exciting point the telephone rang. Four, that was the Cameron call. Elliott went into the house and took down the receiver.

”Mr. Robert Cameron's,” she said pleasantly.

”S-say!” stuttered a high, sharp voice, ”my little b-b-boys have let your c-c-cows out o' the p-p-pasture. I'll g-give 'em a t-t-trouncin', but 't won't git your c-c-cows back. They let 'em out the G-G-Garrett Road, and your medder gate's open. Jim B-B-Blake saw it this mornin'!

Why the man didn't shut it, I d-d-dunno. You'll have to hurry to save your medder.”

”But,” gasped Elliott, ”I don't understand! You say the cows--”

”Are comin' down G-Garrett Road,” snapped the stuttering voice, ”the whole kit an' b-b-bilin' of 'em. They'll be inter your upper m-medder in five m-m-minutes.”

Over the wire came the click of a receiver snapping back on its hook.

Elliott hung up and started toward the door. The cows had been let out. Just why this incident was so disastrous she did not quite comprehend, but she must go and tell her uncle. Before her feet touched the veranda, however, she stopped. Five minutes? Why, there wouldn't be time to go to the lower meadow, to say nothing of any one's doing anything about the situation.

And then, with breath-taking suddenness, the thing burst on her. She was alone in the house; even Aunt Jessica and Priscilla had gone to the hay-field. The situation, whatever it was, was up to her.

For a minute the girl leaned weakly against the wall. Cows--there were thirty in the herd--and she loathed cows! She was afraid of cows. She knew nothing about cows. She was never in the slightest degree sure of what the creatures might take it into their heads to do. For a minute she stood irresolute. Then something stirred in the girl, something self-reliant and strong. Never in her life had Elliott Cameron had to do alone anything that she didn't already know how to do. Now for the first time she faced an emergency on none but her own resources, an emergency that was quite out of her line.

Her brain worked swiftly as her feet moved to the door. In reality, she had wavered only a second. When Tom went for the cows, didn't he take old Prince? There was just a chance that Prince wasn't in the hay-field. She ran down the steps calling, ”Prince! Prince!” The old dog rose deliberately from his place on the shady side of the barn and trotted toward her, wagging his tail. ”Come, Prince!” cried Elliott, and ran out of the yard.

Luckily, berrying had that very morning taken her by a short cut to the vicinity of the upper meadow. She knew the way. But what was likely to happen? Town-bred girl that she was, she had no idea. A recollection of the smooth, upstanding expanse of the upper meadow gave her a clue. If the cows got into that even erectness-- She began to run, Prince bounding beside her, his brown tail a waving plume.

She could see the meadow now, a smooth green sea ruffled by nothing heavier than the light feet of the summer breeze. She could see the great gate invitingly open to the road and oh!--her heart stopped beating, then pounded on at a suffocating pace--she could see the cows! There they came, down the hill, quite filling the narrow roadway with their horrid bulk, making it look like a moving river of broad backs and tossing heads. What could she do, the girl wondered; what could she do against so many? She tried to run faster. Somehow she must reach the gate first. There was nothing even then, so far as she knew, to prevent their trampling her down and rus.h.i.+ng over her into the waving greenness, unless she could slam the gate in their faces.

You can see that she really did not know much about cows.

But Prince knew them. Prince understood now why his master's guest had summoned him to this hot run in the suns.h.i.+ne. The prospect did not daunt Prince. He ran barking to the meadow side of the road. The foremost cow which, grazing the dusty gra.s.s, had strayed toward the gate, turned back into the ruts again. Elliott pulled the gate shut, in her haste leaving herself outside. There, too spent to climb over, she flattened her slender form against the gray boards, while, driven by Prince, the whole herd, horns tossing, tails switching, flanks heaving, thudded its way past.

And there, three minutes later, Bruce, das.h.i.+ng over the hill in response to a message relayed by telephone and boy to the lower meadow, found her.

”The cows have gone down,” Elliott told him. ”Prince has them. He will take them home, won't he?”

”Prince? Good enough! He'll get the cows home all right. But what are you doing in this mix-up?”

”A woman telephoned the house,” said Elliott. ”I was afraid I couldn't reach any of you in time, so I came over myself.”

”You like cows?” The question shot at her like a bullet.

The piquant nose wrinkled entrancingly. ”Scared to death of 'em.”