Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm/Chapter 12

"We must run, Ruthie!" Helen declared, instantly. "Now, there's no use in our trying to face down that goat. Discretion is the better part of valor—— Oh!"

The goat just then shook his horns and charged. Ruth was not much behind her chum. She saw before Helen, however, that they were running right away from the Steele premises.

"We're getting deeper and deeper into trouble, Helen," she panted. "Don't you see?"

"I can't see much. Oh! there's a tree we can both climb, I am sure."

"But I don't want to climb a tree," objected Ruth.

"All right. You stay down and play tag with Mr. Billy Goat. Me for the high and lofty!" and she sprang up as she spoke and clutched the low limb of a widely branching cedar.

"I'll never leave my pal!" Ruth declared, giggling, and jumping for another limb.

Both girls had practiced on the ladders in the school gymnasium and they quickly swung them​selves up into the tree. The goat arrived almost on the instant, too. At once he leaped up with his fore-feet against the bole of the tree.

"My goodness me!" gasped Helen. "He's going to climb it, too."

"You know goats can climb. They're very sure-footed," said her chum.

"I know all that," admitted Helen. "But I didn't suppose they could climb trees."

The goat gave up that attempt, however, very soon. He had no idea, it seemed, of going away and leaving his treed victims in peace.

He paced around and around the cedar, casting wicked glances at the girls' dangling feet, and shaking his horns in a most threatening way. What he would do to them if he got a chance would "be a-plenty," Helen declared.

"Don't you suppose he'll get tired, bye and bye?" queried her chum, despondently.

"He doesn't look as though he ever got wearied," returned Helen. "What a savage looking beast he is! And such whiskers!"

"I wouldn't make fun of him," advised Ruth, timidly. "I believe he understands—and it makes him madder! Oh! see him!"

Mr. Goat, impatient of the delay, suddenly charged the tree and banged against it with his horns in a desperate attempt to jar down the girls perched above.

​"Oh, the foolish billy!" cooed Helen. "We're not ripe enough to drop off so easily. But he thinks we are."

"You can laugh," complained Ruth. "But I don't think this is much fun."

"Not for the goat, anyway. He is getting so angry that he may have apoplexy. Let's shout. Maybe the boys will hear us."

"Not 'way down here, I fear," returned Ruth. "We can't hear a sound from them. But let's try."

They raised their voices in unison, again and again. But there came no reply, save that a number of Mr. Billy Goat's lady friends came trooping through the brush and looked up at the girls perched so high above them.

"Bla-a-a-t! bla-a-a-at!" quoth the chorus of nannies.

"The same to you, and many of them!" replied Helen, bowing politely.

"Look out! you'll fall from the limb," advised Ruth, much worried.

"And what a fall would then be there, my countrymen!' sighed Helen. "Say, Ruth! did you ever notice before what an expressive countenance a goat has? Now, Mr. Billy, here, looks just like a selectman of a country school board—long whiskers and all."

"You stop making fun of him," declared ​Ruth, shaking her head. "I tell you it makes him mad."

sang Helen Cameron, with a most ridiculous expression.

"We'll never get down unless somebody comes to drive that beast away," cried Ruth, in disgust.

"And I bet nobody comes over to this end of the farm for days at a time."

"That's it! keep on! make it just as bad as you can," groaned Ruth. "Do you know it will soon be luncheon time, Helen?"

"But that won't bother Mr. Goat. He hopes to lunch off us, I guess."

"But we can't stay here, Helen!" cried Ruth, in despair.

"You have my permission to hop right down, my dear, and make the closer acquaintance of Sir Capricornus, and all the harem. Ex-cuse me! I think after due consideration I will retain my lofty perch——Ugh!"

"You came pretty near slipping off that time!" exclaimed Ruth. "I wouldn't be too funny, if I were you."

"Maybe you are right," agreed her friend, in ​a more subdued tone. "Dear me! let us call again, Ruth!"

So both girls again raised their voices. This time there was a response, but not from the direction of the stone wall they had crossed to reach the spring.

"Hello!" called a jovial sounding voice. "Hello up there!"

"Hello yourself!" shouted Helen. "Oh, do, do come and drive away these awful goats."

There was a hearty laugh at this reply, and then a man appeared. Ruth had guessed his identity before ever he came in view. It was the portly Mr. Caslon.

"Well, well, my dears! how long have you been roosting up there?" he demanded, laughing frankly at them. "Get out, you rascal!"

This he said to the big goat, who started for him with head lowered. Mr. Caslon leaped nimbly to one side and whacked the goat savagely across the back with his knobby stick. The goat kept right on down the hillside, evidently having had enough of that play, and the nannies followed, bleating.

"You can come down now, young ladies," said the farmer. "But I wouldn't come over into this pasture to play much. The goats don't like strangers."

"We had no business to come here at all, but ​we forgot," explained Ruth, when both she and her chum had descended from the tree. "We were warned not to come over on this side of the line."

"Oh, indeed? you're from up on the hill-top?" he asked.

"We are visiting Madge Steele—yes," said Helen, looking at him curiously.

"Ah! I saw all you young folk going by yesterday. You should have a fine time about here," said the farmer, smiling broadly. "And, aside from the temper of the goats, I don't mind you all coming over here on my land if you like."

The girls thanked him warmly for rescuing them from their predicament, and then ran up the hill to put the stone wall between them and the goats before there was more trouble.

"I like him," said Helen, referring to Mr. Caslon.

"So do I," agreed Ruth. "And it's too bad that Mr. Steele and he do not understand each other."

Although their escapade with the goats was a good joke—and a joke worth telling to the crowd—Ruth decided that it would be just as well to say nothing about it, and she told Helen so.

"I expect you are right," admitted her chum. "It will only cause comment because we went ​out of bounds, and became acquainted with Mr. Caslon. But I'm glad the old goat introduced us," and she laughed and tossed her head.

So they joined their friends, who had gotten tired by this time of tobogganing in June, and they all trooped up the hill again to the house. It was growing warm, and the hammocks and lounging chairs in the shade of the verandas attracted them until noon.

After luncheon there was tennis and croquet on the lawns, and toward evening everybody went driving, although not in the yellow coach this time.

The plans for the following day included a long drive by coach to a lake beyond Darrowtown, where they had a picnic lunch, and boated and fished and had a glorious time in general.

Bobbins drove as before, but there were two men with the party to do the work and look after the horses, and Mrs. Steele herself was present to have an oversight of the young folk.

Bob Steele was very proud of his ability to drive the four-in-hand, and when they swung through Darrowtown on the return trip, with the whip cracking and Tom tooting the horn, many people stopped to observe the passing of the turnout.

Every other team got out of their way—even the few automobiles they passed. But when they ​got over the first ridge beyond the town and the four horses broke into a canter, Mrs. Steele, who sat up behind her son on this journey, suddenly put a hand upon his shoulder and called his attention to something ahead in the road.

"Do have a care, my son," she said. "There has been an accident there—yes? Don't drive too fast——"

"By jiminy!' ejaculated Ralph Tingley. "That's a breakdown, sure enough."

"A farm wagon. There's a wheel off," cried Ann Hicks, leaning out from the other end of the seat the better to see.

"And who are all those children in blue?" demanded Mercy Curtis, looking out from below. "There's such a lot of them! One, two, three, four, five—— Goodness me! they jump about so like fleas that I can't count them!"

"Why, I bet I know what it is," drawled Bobbins, at last. "It's old Caslon and his load of fresh airs. He was going to town to meet them to-day, I believe. And he's broken down before he's half way home with them—and serves him good and right!"