The Boy Inventors Radio Telephone | Page 4

gripped between his
knees, as if afraid someone would separate him from it.
The professor lived with a spinster sister to whom his specimens were
the bane of her life. As the car rolled swiftly along, he occupied his
time by peeping into the bag at frequent intervals to see that none of the
specimens, by some freak of nature, flew out.
All at once he reached forward and clutched Jack by the shoulder.
"Stop! My dear young friend, please stop at once!"
"What's the matter?" asked Jack, slowing down at the urgent summons.
"Look! Look there at that rock!"
To Jack the rock in question was just an ordinary bit of stone in a wall
fencing in a pasture in which some cattle were grazing. But evidently
the professor thought otherwise.

"It's a fine specimen of green granite," he exclaimed. "I must have it.
How did such a fine piece ever come to be placed in a common wall?"
The car having now been brought to a stop, he leaped nimbly out,
clutching his geological hammer in one hand and his precious sack of
specimens in the other. He rushed up to the wall and stood for a minute
with his head on one side, like an inquisitive bird.
"Too bad. That stone's a large flat one and goes right through the center
of the wall," he mused. "The wall must come down."
And then, to the boys' consternation, he began demolishing the wall,
pulling down the stones and throwing them right and left.
"Professor, you'll get in trouble," warned Dick in alarm. "Those cattle
will get out. The farmer will be after us."
But the professor paid not the slightest attention. Taking off his coat, he
resumed his operations with even greater vigor than before. The cattle
in the field eyed him curiously. Then they began to move toward him.
In front of the rest of the herd was a big black-and-white animal with
sharp horns and big, thick neck.
It gave a sudden bellow and then rushed straight at the considerable gap
the man of science had made in the stone fence.
"It's a bull!" yelled Dick suddenly. "Run, professor! Run or he'll toss
you!"
With lowered horns the bull rushed down upon the unconscious
scientist at locomotive speed. But the professor was oblivious to
everything else but uncovering the odd-looking green stone embedded
in the heart of the wall.
The boys shouted to him but he didn't hear them. On rushed the bull,
bellowing, charging, ready to annihilate the scientist.
"Run!" yelled the boys at the top of their lungs. "Run!"

But the professor, with his precious bag in one hand and his hammer in
the other, stood staring at the advancing bull through his thick glasses
as if the maddened creature had been some sort of new and interesting
specimen.
"Gracious! He's a goner!" groaned Dick.
CHAPTER III.
THE PROFESSOR'S DILEMMA.
But the professor was seen to suddenly dart, with an activity they
would hardly have expected in him, across the road. He was only in the
nick of time.
Almost opposite to the gap in the fence he had made was a tree with
low-hanging boughs. As the bull charged through the gap, right on his
heels, the professor, still with his bag, slung by its leather strap across
his shoulders, swung himself up into the lower limbs.
The boys set up a cheer.
"Good for you, professor!" cried Dick, as the bull, with lowered head
and horns, charged into the tree and made it shake as if a storm had
struck.
[Illustration: He was only in the nick of time.--_Page 22._]
"Wow! That's the time he got a headache!" cried Tom excitedly, as the
professor, clinging desperately to his refuge, was almost flung from it
by the shock.
"Gracious, boys, what shall I do?" he asked, looking about him from
his leafy perch with a glance of despair that would have been comical
had the situation not been serious, for the bull, instead of accepting his
defeat, stood under the tree pawing and ramping ferociously.
"Well, here's a fine kettle of fish!" exclaimed Jack. "What are we going

to do now?"
"Blessed if I know," said Dick helplessly. "By the bucking bulls of
Bedlam, this is a nice mess."
"Maybe we could throw rocks at him and chase him away," suggested
Tom.
"No chance; he's got his eye on the professor," returned Jack, "and if
we did get out he would chase us and that wouldn't do the professor any
good."
"Can't you help me, boys," inquired the professor in an agonized tone.
"This tree limb is not exactly--er--comfortable."
"You're in no danger of falling, are you?" called Jack, in an alarmed
voice.
"No--er--that is, I don't think so. But this is an extraordinary position.
Most--er--undignified.