And that set Ruth Fielding to thinking a bit. Perhaps she _had_ expected payment--of a kind--for her action in helping Uncle Jabez in the river.

She had hoped he would more freely respond to her affection than he did.

Ah! it is hard to do a good act and not secretly hope for some small return. "Virtue is its own reward" is a moral hard to understand!

After Roberto had left them, the trio of friends were occupied in exchanging views regarding the Gypsy boy, and in discussing their several opinions as to what kind of people his folk really were.

"It must be loads of fun to jog along the roads in those caravans, and camp where you please, and all that," said Helen, reflectively. "I believe I'd like it."

"About twenty miles on a fast day, eh?" chuckled Tom, with scorn. "Not for me! When Gypsies get to riding in autos--and six-cylinder, up-to-date ones, too--I'll join the first tribe that comes along."

"I declare, Tommy!" laughed his sister, "you are getting to be a 'speed fiend.' Ruth and I will be scared to drive with you."

"It's great to go fast," exclaimed Master Tom. "Here's a straight piece of road ahead, girls. Hold on!"

As he spoke, he manipulated the levers and the car leaped ahead. Ruth's startled "Oh!" was left a quarter of a mile behind. The girls clung to the hand-holds, and Tom crouched behind the windshield and "let her out."

It was a straight piece of road, as he had said. But before they reached the first turn there was another house beside the road--a small farmhouse. Beyond it was a field, with a stone wall, and it chanced that just as the Camerons' car roared down the road, clearing at least thirty miles an hour, the leader of a flock of sheep in that pasture, b.u.t.ted through a place in the stone-fence and started to cross the highway.

One sheep would not have made much trouble; it would have been easy to dodge just one object. But here came a string of the woolly creatures--and greater fools than sheep have not been discovered in the animal world!

The old black-faced ram trotted across the road and through a gap in a fence on the river side. After him crowded the ewes and youngsters.

The roaring auto frightened the creatures, but they would not give way before it. They knew no better than to follow that old ram through the gap, one after the other.

Tom had shut off the engine and applied the brakes, as the girls shrieked. But he had been going too fast to stop short of the place where the sheep were pa.s.sing. At the end of the flock came a lamb, bleating and trying to keep up with its mother.

"Oh, the lamb!" shrieked Helen.

"Look out, Tom!" added Ruth.

The lamb did not get across the road. The car struck it, and with a pitiful "baa-a-a!" it was knocked a dozen feet.

In a moment the car stopped. It had scarcely run its entire length past the spot where the lamb was struck. The poor creature lay panting, "baa-aing" feebly, beside the road.

Ruth was out of the tonneau and kneeling beside the creature almost before the wheels ceased to roll. The mother ewe had crowded through the fence. Now she put her foolish face out, and called to the lamb to follow.

"He can't!" almost sobbed Ruth. "He has a broken leg. Oh! what a foolish mother you were to lead him right into danger."

Tom was silent and looked pretty solemn, while Helen was scolding him nervously--although she knew that he was not really at fault.

"If you hadn't been speeding, this wouldn't have happened, Tom Cameron!"

she said. "I told you so."

"Oh, all right. You're a fine prophetess," grunted her brother. "Keep on rubbing it in."

The lamb had tried to scramble up, but one of its forelegs certainly was broken. It tumbled over on its side again, and Ruth held it down tenderly and tried to soothe its fear.

"Oh, dear! whatever shall we do?" she murmured. "The poor, poor little thing."

"Guess we'll know pretty soon what we'll do," quoth Master Tom, standing beside the machine and looking back along the road. "Here comes the man that owns him."

"Oh, dear me!" whispered Helen. "Doesn't he look savage?"

"Worse than the old ram there," agreed her brother, for the black-faced leader of the flock was eyeing them through the fence.

CHAPTER VI

A TRANSACTION IN MUTTON

The man who approached was a fierce, red-faced individual, with long legs encased to the knees in cowhide boots, overalls, a checked shirt, and a whisp of yellow whisker under his chin that parted and waved, as he strode toward the auto party.

His pale blue eyes were ablaze, and he had worked himself up into a towering rage. Like many farmers (and sometimes for cause), he had evidently sworn eternal feud against all automobilists!

"What d'ye mean, runnin' inter my sheep?" he bawled. "I'll have the law on ye! I'll make ye pay for ev'ry sheep ye killed! I'll attach yer machine, by glory! I'll put ye all in jail! I'll----"

"You're going to have your hands full with all _that_, Mister,"

interrupted Tom Cameron. "And you're excited more than is necessary.

I'll pay for all the damage I've done--although there would have been none at all, had your sheep remained in their pasture. This is a county road, I take it."

"By glory!" exclaimed the farmer, arriving at the spot at last. "This road was built for folks ter drive over decent. n.o.body reckoned on locomotives, an' sich comin' this way, when 'twas built--no, sir-ree!"

"I'm sorry," began Tom, but the man broke in:

"Thet don't pay me none for havin' all my sheep made into mutton b'fore their time. By glory! I got an attic home full o' 'sorries.' Ye can't git out o' it thet way."

"I am not trying to. I'll pay for any sheep I have hurt or killed," Tom said, unable to keep from grinning at the excited farmer.

"And don't ye git sa.s.sy none, neither!" commanded the man. "I'm one o'

the school trustees in this deestrict, an' the church clerk. I got some influence. I guess if I arrested ye right naow--an' these gals, too--the jestice of the peace would consider I done jest right."

"Oh!" murmured Helen, clinging to Ruth's hand.

"He can't do it," whispered the latter.

"I feel sure, sir," said Tom, politely, "that it will be unnecessary for you to go to such lengths. I will pay satisfactory damages. There is the lamb we struck--and the only beast that is hurt."

The man had given but one glance to the lamb that lay on the gra.s.s beside the girls. He did not look to be any too tender-hearted, and the little creature's accident did not touch him at all--save in the region of his pocketbook.

He stepped to the gap in the fence, kicked the bleating ewe out of the way in a most brutal manner, and proceeded to count his flock. He had to do this twice before he was a.s.sured that none but the lamb was missing.

"You see," Tom said, quietly, "I have turned only one of your sheep into mutton--for I suppose this lamb must be killed."

"Oh, no, Tom!" cried Ruth, who was bending over the little creature again. "I am sure its leg will mend."

The farmer snorted. "Don't want no crippled critters erbout. Ye'll hafter pay me full price for that lamb, boy--then I'll give it to the dogs. 'Tain't no good the way it is."