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. 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.
Not a trace of the man of science or of the ferocious animal was to be
seen.
"Are you sure you boys didn't dream all this?" asked the red-faced
farmer suspiciously.
"There ain't even a cow in sight in the pasture lot," said one of the
men.
"I reckon this is some sort of a fool joke," added another.
"It isn't. Indeed, it isn't," protested Jack.
"The professor is some place around," said Tom.
But a lengthy search of the vicinity failed to show anything except
that the professor had vanished as if the earth had swallowed him.