The Meadow Brook Girls Across Country Part 21

"Climb! Miss Elting, climb!" begged Harriet.

Margery and Tommy uttered shrill cries of terror.

The guardian reached for the crotch of the tree, just above her head, and drew herself up. Harriet leaped into the air, catching hold of an overhanging limb. She intended to pull herself free from the ground and out of the reach of the angry bulls.

The limb snapped. Apple tree boughs always are treacherous. Harriet landed on the ground in a heap. A gasp of horror escaped from the lips of the girls in the trees near at hand.

There followed a bellow and a rush from the third bull, which was some few yards distant from its fellows. The girls closed their eyes as the lowered head and wicked-looking horns seemed to come into contact with Harriet Burrell's body. Miss Elting, strong-nerved as she was, could not repress a scream. Margery, utterly terror-stricken, lost her balance, and had it not been for Hazel, who threw an arm about her, Margery would have fallen from the tree and been at the mercy of the savage bulls.

In the meantime, having heard no scream from Harriet, the girls opened their eyes fearfully. They saw Harriet leaping for a higher limb of the tree. The head of the bull had crashed against the base of the tree where Harriet had been but a second before.

With remarkable presence of mind the girl, when she struck the ground, had rolled herself to one side, thus placing the tree between herself and her a.s.sailant. This gave her a few seconds respite. But in these few seconds Harriet gathered her faculties together. Springing to her feet she had flung herself straight up into the air, with arms thrown above her head to grasp the limb that her quick eyes had noted.

Most girls would have fainted, but Harriet Burrell did not. She was not of the fainting kind, as Captain Baker had so truly said a few hours before. A few awful seconds of suspense followed.

With feet curled under her, the girl's hands reached and clasped the limb. Then she drew herself up to it; a feat requiring both muscle and practice. Once there she lay along the creaking limb of the apple tree just out of reach of the tossing horns, gazing down into the bloodshot eyes of the ferocious beast. The limb bent perilously. It threatened, at any second, to give way beneath her weight.

"Climb higher!" cried Miss Elting, "oh, climb higher!"

"I don't dare move. The limb may break if I do," answered Harriet in a wholly calm voice.

"Thave me, thave me!" wailed Tommy Thompson weakly.

"What shall we do? Please be careful, Harriet," begged the guardian in an agonized voice.

"I intend to be careful. I haven't any burning desire to fall on those sharp horns. I never saw such a fiendish expression in the eyes of an animal."

The limb creaked warningly. Harriet instantly ceased speaking. Somehow, she thought, the muscular effort of speaking must be putting a little added weight on the limb.

The bull walked away a few paces. He stopped and began bellowing and pawing.

"See if you can't call him away. I simply don't dare to move as long as he is so near," said Harriet.

"How shall I call him?" questioned the guardian.

"Flaunt something at him."

"I haven't anything to flaunt."

"Wait till I take off my thkirt," piped the little lisping girl.

"Be careful that you don't fall," warned Harriet.

Tommy quickly stripped off her skirt, then leaning over, swung it back and forth. Instantly there was a bellow and a charge from the enraged bull. The skirt was whisked from her hands on the sharp horns of the furious animal that had charged it.

"Thave me!" cried Tommy. "Oh, thave my thkirt!"

There was reason for alarm in Tommy's case at that moment. The bull was tossing its head to release the skirt that had become impaled upon the sharp horns. Presently the skirt fell to the ground. The animal began stamping upon and prodding it. Tommy got into action at about the same time. Shrieking and protesting, she began pelting the animal with apples that she picked from the tree for the purpose. Some of the missiles reached their mark. Most of them did not.

"Oh, my thkirt, my thkirt!" wailed the little girl.

"Never mind, you have saved Harriet," comforted Miss Elting.

Harriet, the instant the bull left her, started to wriggle backwards.

The limb gave way with a crash, and Harriet plunged to the ground, but by skilfully twisting her body she avoided striking on her head. She was up like a flash and once more sprang for the tree. This time she did not trust to a treacherous limb, but scrambled hastily up the trunk and perched herself high and safe in the crotch of the tree a few seconds later.

"Gracious! That was a narrow escape," gasped the guardian. "How do you feel?"

"I am all right." Harriet smiled faintly. Her cheeks were pale and her eyes large and bright. There were no other indications that she was disturbed at her succession of narrow escapes from the bull. "Poor Tommy, you lost your skirt, didn't you?"

"Ye-eth. Oh, what thhall I do?"

"I guess you will have to finish the day's hike in your petticoat,"

answered Miss Elting. "However, from present indications it will be dark by the time we get away from here. Besides your petticoat is black and will easily pa.s.s for an outside skirt."

"I can't, I can't," wailed the girl. "I won't go on thith way."

"Don't worry, Tommy. You may have my skirt. I don't mind going without it at all. I have a black underskirt, so the absence of my outside skirt will hardly be noticed," answered Harriet.

"I won't. The naughty old bull. I want my own thkirt."

"You won't need it," said Margery, speaking for the first time since she had been overcome with terror.

"Don't you think they will go away?" questioned Hazel anxiously.

"Not so long as we are up here," replied Harriet. "I know their kind pretty well. I was chased by one at grandfather's farm two years ago.

There is only one way to save yourself from them when they are angry-that is to keep out of their way. I think--"

"Oh, look! Look, girls!" cried Hazel in a tone of suppressed eagerness.

"Oh, thave me! There they come," moaned Tommy.

"It's the Tramp Club as I live," exclaimed Miss Elting. "Girls, we must call to them. It is a humiliating position for us, but we must get out of here. They can at least go for the farmer and ask him to drive the animals off."

"Oh, Miss Elting, please don't call to them," begged Harriet.

The boys were swinging down the road at a rapid but steady pace. They were walking in step, each with a heavy pack on his back, hat brims tilted back, a manly looking lot of young men. As they reached a point opposite to the lower end of the orchard they began to sing, their voices raised in chorus:

"Forty-nine blue bottles are hanging on the wall, Forty-nine blue bottles are hanging on the wall.

Take one of the bottles down and there'll be forty-eight blue bottles a hanging on the wall, a hanging on the wall.

Take one of the bottles down and there'll be forty-eight blue bottles a hanging on the wall, a hanging on the wall."

"Oh, help!" moaned Margery Brown.

"Thave me!" wailed Tommy.

Harriet and Miss Elting burst out laughing, but not loudly enough for their laughter to reach the Tramp Club, the members of which organization were trudging along past the orchard, wholly unconscious of the nearness of their friends.