Dorothy Dales Camping Days | Page 4

vehicle.
"Dorothy!" gasped Rose-Mary. "Are you safe!"
"Yes, but you--Nita and Edna?" gasped Dorothy, pantingly.
"I think Nita has fainted," replied Rose-Mary. "But Edna is all right.
Where is Tavia?"
"Safe," answered Dorothy. "A strange man stopped the runaway. Tavia
is helping hold the horse. We must get the traces loose before we can
attend to Nita."
She made her way out of the overturned wagon. The traces were
unfastened and the horse was free, and the strange man was actually
astride the animal.
"Why," exclaimed Dorothy, "that horse will bolt again. You had best
make him fast somewhere!"

The stranger looked at her with the air of a Chesterfield.
"By kindness we alone subdue," he said.
Dorothy stared at him. What could he mean?
Tavia seemed to have forgotten the predicament of her
companions--she appeared charmed by the stranger--who really was
good looking.
"There comes the man who owns the horse," remarked Dorothy, as the
frenzied farmer, whip in hand, ran toward the stranger, yelling all sorts
of unintelligible things in the way of threats and predictions. He would
see to it personally, he declared, that these things would happen to the
man who dared ride his used-up horse.
"A fight to finish it off," exulted Tavia, and Dorothy, for the moment,
felt as if she could find it in her heart to despise so frivolous a girl. The
next second she remembered Nita, and turned back to the wrecked
hayrick.
"It's all well enough for you to laugh," complained the badly-frightened
Nita, "but I can't see where the joke comes in. Just look at me!"
"A perfect beauty!" declared Tavia. "The rips are all in one piece. That
rent near the hem is positively artistic--looks like the river Nile!"
It was some time later, but they were still in the roadway. The farmer
had patched up his damaged rig, but would not listen to the girls'
appeals to give them a lift toward town. He insisted it was all their fault
for laughing and scaring the horses, and he vowed vengeance on the
man who really had saved the team from positive destruction in the
river.
The strange young man, after considerable gusto, all of which was
wasted on the farmer, but hugely enjoyed by Tavia at least, had made
his way off, leaving the girls discreetly to their woes. No one was
actually injured, although, as Nita said, costumes had suffered severely.

"Wasn't he queer?" remarked Cologne, as she shook small bundles of
hay from her Glenwood cap and blouse. "I thought I would laugh
outright when he mounted the old horse a second time. He looked like
somebody on a variety stage."
"Yes," added Tavia, "and Dorothy had to spoil the show by inducing
him to give up the act. What if the farmer did ply the whip? That would
only heighten the effect."
"Since we have to walk," Nita reminded the others, "it might be
advisable to start."
"Great head," commented Tavia, "but do you realize that we shall be
locked out? That the ogresses of 'Glen' will be ready--axe in hand,
block in evidence, grin prominent----"
"Tavia!" exclaimed Dorothy, "do gather yourself up! That bundle of
hay seems enchanted. As Nita says, we must be going."
Tavia almost lolled over on the soft hay, then she gathered it up with
conspicuous tenderness, pressed it fondly to her heart, and agreed to
start on. Each of the other girls was taking with her, back to the school,
a similar souvenir; but Cologne and Dorothy threw theirs over their
shoulder, in true rustic fashion, while Nita complained that she was not
able to carry hers; though she did manage to bribe Tavia with a
promised return of the chocolates to tie hers in with the extra sized
bundle that Tavia was lugging along.
"Five miles of this will just about do me," declared Cologne. "I think it
would have been infinitely better for us to have hitched on to the hay
wagon, in spite of the old farmer."
"And to think that we paid him in advance! It's a wonder we have never
had a single lesson in financial economy at gloomy Glenwood. 'How to
cheat farmers; or, how to die game in a hayrick!' I must suggest the text
to Mrs. Pangborn, our honored principal," declared Edna, as she, too,
made her way along under the uncertain weight of a bundle of hay.

"But what are we dragging this stuff along for?" asked Dorothy. "Sure
as fate, we will have to drop them when we get within the city, and
why not anticipate? I vote for a drop right here!"
"Never!" declared Tavia. "These are to make up the sacrificial altar. If
old Pangborn growls--won't allow the doors open--we will do it with a
match!" and she signified