The Boy Inventors Radio Telephone | Page 5

I'm glad my sister can't see me."
"Try throwing some of the rocks out of your satchel at him," suggested
Dick.
But the professor waxed indignant at this proposal.
"And cast my pearls before swine! or rather my specimens before a
bull!" exclaimed the professor, in helpless indignation. "No, young
gentlemen, not a pebble from this bag is wasted on that creature."
"I'd drop the whole bag on him," said Dick, "if I was in that position.
It's heavy enough to knock out an elephant, let alone a bull."
"Can't you suggest anything?" wailed the professor.
"I'm trying to think of something right now," declared Jack, racking his
brains for some way out of the predicament.
"I wish the farmer that owned him would come along and get his old

bull out of there," said Dick.
"Yes, and then there would be fresh complications," declared Jack.
"How do you make that out?" came from Dick.
"He'll probably know how to handle him," supplemented Tom.
"Yes, he would if he's a bull-fighter," scoffed Dick, "and I never heard
of there being any matadors in the vicinity of Nestorville."
"Lots of doormats, though," grinned Tom.
"Say, if you do that again I'll throw you out of the car," cried Jack at
this atrocious pun.
"Sorry, couldn't help it. Just slipped out," said Tom contritely.
"Well, you'll slip out if the offense is repeated," retorted Dick. "But,"
he went on, "seriously, fellows, we've got to do something."
"Try blowing the horn," suggested Tom. "It has scared everything else
we met. Horses shy at it, so do other autos. Maybe it will get the bull's
goat."
"I'll try it, at all events," said Jack.
He pressed the button and the unearthly screech of the electric auto's
siren split the air. But the bull merely cast an inquiring glance in their
direction and then resumed his vigil over the professor.
"Boys," wailed the unhappy geologist, "can't you do something,
anything? I can't roost in this tree all night, like a bird."
The boys couldn't help grinning at this. With his sharp nose, big
spectacles and flapping black garments, the professor did look like a
mammoth black crow.
"Reminds me of the fox and the crow," said Dick, in a low voice, to his

companions.
"Only, in this case, the fox is a bull, and the piece of cheese is the bag
of specimens," added Tom.
They looked about helplessly. There was no farmhouse in sight and the
road did not appear to be much traveled.
"We'll have to go for help," declared Jack.
"The only thing to do," agreed Tom.
The professor was hailed. He had climbed to another limb with infinite
difficulty, because of the encumbering bag of rocks on his back. He
declared that he could manage to get along till the boys came back.
"By a merciful provision of providence," he said whimsically, "bulls
can't climb trees. The situation might be worse if it was a bear."
"It would be unbearable," declared Dick to Tom.
"But just the same there's trouble a brewin'," retorted Tom. "I wish that
farmer would show up."
"As I said before--I don't," responded Jack, as he prepared to start off.
"Why?"
For answer Jack waved an eloquent hand toward the gap in the stone
fence.
"I guess he wouldn't be best pleased to find that his fence had been torn
down," explained Jack, as the car drove off, leaving the professor
marooned in his tree with the sentinel bull waiting patiently below.
Some distance down the road the boys came to a farmhouse. Several
men were working in the field under the direction of a stout, red-faced
man. Jack shouted to them, and when the red-faced man came up he
explained the situation to him. The man was good-natured, or perhaps

he rather liked the idea of a ride in such a novel-looking car. Anyhow,
he called three of his hands and told them to get pitchforks.
"Never see a bull I couldn't handle," he said as the men, having
returned, scrambled into the car.
"Do you know who it belongs to?" asked Jack, as he turned round and
headed back to where they left the luckless professor.
"I reckon it's that big Holstein of Josh Crabtree's. He's pretty near as
mean as his owner, and that's considerable."
Jack thought of the hole in the wall and hoped they would reach there
before farmer Crabtree, and so avoid serious complications.
He drove at top speed, while the friendly farmer and his workmen
clung to the sides of the car and looked rather scared at the rate they
were going.
"There's the tree," exclaimed Jack, as they came in sight of it, "and
there's the gap in the fence."
"And where's the bull?" asked Tom.
"And where's the professor?" added Dick.