“STUNG!”
“Here, hold on there! Stop that gasolene contraption! I’ll have th’ law
on ye fer runnin’ down my calf-critter! What right ye got t’ go racin’
around th’ land killin’ a poor man’s critters right an’ left? Hold on,
I’ll sue ye fer damages!”
A grizzled old man, wearing a pair of ragged overalls, with a ragged
blue jacket to match, and with a bunch of white whiskers on his chin
wiggling up and down as he shouted the above words, rushed down the
lane out of which the spotted calf had come, and shook his fist at the
lads in the auto.
“Hold on there!” he repeated.
“We are holding on,” remarked Jerry grimly, as he got out and looked
under the car at the calf.
The creature had not been touched by the wheels, but lay between them.
Unnaturally still it lay, nor did it bleat or give a sign of life.
Jerry took hold of the tail, and was about to pull it out, hoping it
was not much hurt, though his heart misgave him.
“Here, what ye goin’ t’ do?” demanded the angry farmer.
“I was going to pull the calf out from under our car,” replied Jerry.
“It--it fell there.”
“Humph! A likely story. I saw ye deliberately run down my calf-critter.
You let it alone until I git some witnesses, an’ prove a case agin ye!
Let it alone!”
“I guess it’s dead, anyhow,” said Ned in a low voice, as he stood
beside Jerry.
“Deader than a lobster,” added Bob. “You must have hit it an awful
poke, Jerry.”
“Keep quiet, can’t you?” urged Ned. “This skinflint of a farmer will
hear you,” for the man was gazing at the trio of lads with angry eyes.
Noddy Nixon, with a look of triumphant gloating on his face, came
forward, followed by Bill Berry. Professor Snodgrass, oblivious to
everything save his favorite pursuit, was some distance down the road,
using his net with energy.
“I didn’t hit it hard at all,” Jerry said. “The calf ran right across
the road. Why I hardly struck it at all. I had the brakes on ready to
stop, anyhow.”
“Don’t talk to me about brakes!” snapped the farmer. “Ye broke my
calf’s neck, an’ it was a valuable critter. Don’t ye dare touch it till
I git some witnesses, an’ prove a case on ye. I want damages, an’ heavy
damages, too! I want witnesses.”
“We’ll be witnesses for you!” broke in Noddy eagerly. “It was entirely
the fault of those fellows that your calf was killed, Mr.--er--Mr.--?”
he paused suggestively.
“Sackett is my name--Ebenezer Sackett, of Tewkesbury Township,”
supplied the farmer. “I live right over that way a short piece, jest
below th’ hill. I was drivin’ my calf down the lane, when all to onct
this rip-snortin’ ragin’ and tearin’ automobile comes along an’ kills
him. I want damages, an’ heavy damages, too!”
“We saw them kill the calf,” went on Noddy, seemingly eager to array
himself against the motor boys, and on the side of the farmer. “Didn’t
we, Bill?”
“Sure we did,” answered the bully’s crony.
“Then you must have very good eyesight,” remarked Jerry cuttingly, “for
you were in your car, and how you could observe the calf, when it is so
small that it doesn’t come to the top of our radiator, is more than I
can understand.”
“Well, we saw it just the same, Mr. Sackett,” went on the ugly bully.
“They killed your animal, and you ought to make them pay for it.”
“That’s what I intend,” asserted the farmer. “I’ll attach their
machine, that’s what I’ll do ef they don’t pay. Hi there, Abner!” he
called, as a man, evidently one of the hired help, came hurrying along
the lane. “Abner, you go notify Constable Higbie that I got a case fer
him. I want these fellers arrested fer killin’ my spotted calf!”
“Gosh all hemlock!” cried Abner, as he stared at the scene before him.
“You go git th’ constable,” repeated Mr. Sackett, “an’ I’ll hold these
fellers until you come back with him. I’ll show ’em that they can’t
monkey with Ebenezer Sackett of Tewkesbury Township.”
“Isn’t it against the law to let animals run at large on the highway?”
asked Ned of Mr. Sackett.
“He wasn’t runnin’ at large,” was the answer. “I was leading him, an’
he broke away from me. Ye can’t git out of it that way. I want damages
an’ I’m goin’ t’ have ’em! Th’ constable will be here soon, an’ ye kin
take yer choice of payin’ or goin’ t’ jail.”
How long this dispute might have been kept up it is difficult to say,
but Professor Snodgrass arrived just then, and, hearing the story,
endeavored to conciliate the angry farmer. But there was no subduing
Mr. Sackett.
“I want damages!” he declared firmly.
“Oh, say, there’s only one way to end this,” said Ned finally, putting
his hand in his pocket. “It wasn’t our fault, but I suppose we’ve got
to stand being gouged by this fellow. I’ll pay him, Jerry, as this trip
is on my father’s account, and then we can get along. How much was your
calf worth, Mr. Sackett?”
“Fifty dollars ef he was a cent!”
“Fifty dollars!” gasped Bob.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Professor Snodgrass, who could be very practical
on occasions. “I know something of farm animals. Pull that calf out,
Jerry, and let’s look at him.”
Jerry and Ned grasped the tail, and soon had the creature out in the
highway. The farmer offered no further objections to it being moved,
now that it seemed as if he was in a fair way to collect damages.
“Humph! A very young calf,” commented Mr. Snodgrass. “Hardly fit to
kill for veal. And it doesn’t seem to have been hit very hard.”
“No, it was a very gentle blow,” said Jerry. “The car was almost at a
standstill when he ran into it.”
“It must have died easily,” went on the scientist. “Now, Mr. Sackett,
you’ll have to lower your figure, for I know that calf was never worth
any fifty dollars.”
“Well, it’s wuth forty.”
“Forty? Nonsense. If you sold it for fifteen you’d be getting more than
it was worth. We’ll give you twenty dollars for the animal, and not
another cent.”
“I’ll not take it,” stormed the farmer.
“That’s right! Make ’em pay more, or sue ’em!” put in Noddy.
“You mind your own affairs, Nixon!” said the professor curtly, and
Noddy slunk back toward his machine.
“Will you take twenty dollars, or will you let the matter go to court?”
asked the scientist, taking some bills from his pocket, and motioning
to the boys that he would conduct the case for them.
“I want thirty dollars, anyhow,” said Mr. Sackett. “Ha! Here comes
Abner with the constable. Now we’ll see what happens.”
“Offer him twenty-five, and I think he’ll take it,” said Ned in a low
voice. “We can’t stay here any longer.”
“All right, if you say so,” agreed the professor, “but I think I could
get him down to twenty. Well, Mr. Sackett,” went on the scientist,
“we’ll pay you twenty-five dollars, and not another cent. If that’s not
satisfactory we’ll give the constable a bond, and we’ll fight the case
in the courts.”
This was said with such an air of decision that the farmer saw that it
was useless to stand out for more.
“I’ll take it,” said Mr. Sackett reluctantly, “but th’ calf was wuth
forty dollars ef it was a cent.”
“Nonsense!” declared the professor, as he paid over the money. “Haul
the carcass out of the way, and we’ll be getting on, boys.”
“It’s a regular case of hold-up,” muttered Ned, as he dragged the calf
farther out of the path of the auto.
The farmer pocketed the money with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.
Noddy Nixon, looking disappointed, perhaps because the motor boys had
not been arrested, started back to his machine, followed by his crony,
and soon they were chugging away down the road. Our friends and the
professor entered their car.
“Whew! That was a hot time while it lasted!” remarked Bob, when they
had gone on some distance.
“Yes, and all Noddy Nixon’s fault,” added Ned.
“Talk about highway robbers,” declared Jerry, “Mr. Sackett comes pretty
nearly being one.”
They were filled with righteous anger against Mr. Sackett, and this
was added to when they learned something about him when they stopped a
little later at a country hotel for dinner.
While they were waiting for the meal to be prepared they got talking to
the hotel clerk. They mentioned their experience with Mr. Sackett, and
told of paying for the calf.
“Excuse me, strangers,” broke in a farmer who was seated near a table
reading, “but was this calf you speak of a brown and white spotted one?”
“It was,” answered Jerry.
“With a very long tail?” the man wanted to know.
“Very long,” spoke Ned, who had particularly noted the appendage as he
dragged the creature out of the way.
“And was it a thin, poor-looking sort of a calf?” went on the man.
“It was,” said Mr. Snodgrass. “You seem to know this calf in question.”
“Know it? I guess I do!” was the answer. “And I know Eb Sackett, too.
Why that calf had been condemned by the county inspector of cattle, an’
Eb had been ordered to kill it. Th’ calf had some catchin’ disease, an’
Eb was under orders t’ git rid of it inside of twenty-four hours, or
pay a fine of fifty dollars. He was takin’ it off to shoot it, when you
must have bunked into it.”
“Are you sure of this?” asked Ned.
“Course I am, strangers. Why, I’m a deputy cattle inspector, an’ I’m on
my way now to see if Eb carried out the orders he got. But if you say
the calf is dead there ain’t no use in me goin’ on.”
“Oh, it’s dead all right,” replied Jerry with a queer look at his chums.
“And we paid twenty-five dollars for the privilege of killing a calf
that had been condemned, and would have been killed, anyhow,” murmured
Ned. “Well, if we weren’t----”
“Stung!” interrupted Bob. “Stung good and proper!”
“By Mr. Ebenezer Sackett,” added Jerry.
“I guess his name ought to be Mr. ‘Sock-it,’ instead of Sackett,”
commented the hotel clerk. “That certainly was a swindle he worked on
you, gentlemen, and he socked it to you!”
“And it ain’t the fust time Eb’s done a trick like that, nor it won’t
be the last,” spoke the deputy cattle inspector. “I’m sorry for you
boys, an’ if you want to go back, an’ make him give up your money, I’ll
do all I can for ye.”
“I’d like to, but we haven’t time now,” replied Ned, as he thought of
the necessity for hurrying on to see Mr. Jackson.