HEBE POc.o.c.k

"Oh, Laura!" gasped Eve. "That boy will never give the colt up."

"Why not? See him?" exclaimed Mother Wit. "He knows he is riding a stolen horse. There! he's sliding out of the saddle."

The fact was, the colt--still but half broken under the saddle and with its eyes on its mother--would not move out of its tracks. The boy jumped off and tried to lead Jinks.

"Get away from that horse, boy!" commanded Laura, bringing the old mare down to a more moderate pace as they approached the stolen colt.

"I'll tell my brother!" yelled the youngster. "I'll set him on ye!

This critter is his'n."

"And he came by it just as dishonestly as you came by such grammar as you use," said Laura, laughing, while Eve hopped over the wheel on her side of the cart and grabbed the reins out of the boy's hands.

"Let that horse alone!" cried the youngster, kicking at Eve with his bare foot.

But Eve Sitz wasn't afraid of any boy--not even had he been of her own size and age. Her open palm smacked the youngster's head resoundingly and he staggered away, bawling:

"Lemme erlone! Hebe! Hebron Poc.o.c.k! I wantcher!"

Laura was already backing the mare, preparatory to turning about.

"Come on with the colt, Eve!" she cried.

The boy they had unhorsed continued to bawl at the top of his voice.

But for the moment n.o.body appeared. Eve lengthened the bridle rein for a leading strap and then essayed to climb into the cart again. The boy ceased crying and threw a stone. The colt jumped and tried to pull away, for the stone struck her.

"Whoa, Jinks!" cried Eve. "If I could catch that boy! I'd do more than box his ears--so I would!"

"Come on, Eve!" called Laura, looking over her shoulder. "Here come some women from the shanties. They will do something to us beside calling us names----or throwing stones," as she dodged one that the boy sent in her direction.

"Whoa, Jinksey!" commanded Eve, again, trying to lead the frightened colt toward the cart.

"Hebe Poc.o.c.k! Yi-yi! You're wanted!" yelled the small boy again, sending down a perfect shower of stones from the bank above them, but fortunately throwing them wild.

Eve managed to climb up into the cart, still holding the snorting, pawing colt by the strap.

"Drive on! drive on!" she gasped, looking back at the several ill-looking and worse dressed women who were running toward them.

"Go on!" urged Laura to the mare, and Old Peggy started back up the hill, while Eve towed Jinks behind. Suddenly, however, the bushes parted, and a roughly dressed fellow, with a red handkerchief tied around his head in lieu of a cap, stepped out into the road. He carried a gun in the hollow of his arm, the muzzle of which was turned threateningly toward the cart and the two girls in it. The two barrels looked as big around as cannon in the eyes of Laura and Evangeline Sitz!

"Hey, there!" advised the ugly looking fellow. "You ladies better stop a bit."

"It's Poc.o.c.k!" whispered Laura.

"I know it," returned Eve, in the same tone.

"That horse you're leadin' belongs to me," said Poc.o.c.k, with an ugly scowl.

"You know better, Hebron," exclaimed Eve, bravely. "It belongs to my father."

"It may look like your father's colt," said Poc.o.c.k. "But I bought her of a gypsy, and it ain't the same an--i--mile."

"The old mare knows her," said Laura, quickly, as the colt nuzzled up to Peggy and the gray mare turned around to look upon the colt with favorable eye.

"That don't prove nothing," growled Poc.o.c.k. "Drop that rein."

"No, I won't!" cried Eve. "Even the bridle is father's. I recognize it."

By this time the women from the shanties had arrived. They were dreadful looking creatures, and Laura was more afraid of them than she was of Poc.o.c.k's shot-gun.

"What's them gals doin' to your brother Mike, Hebe?" demanded one of the women. "They want slappin', don't they?"

"They want to l'arn to keep their han's off'n my property," growled Poc.o.c.k. "Come! let the little horse go."

"No!" cried Eve.

"Yes," cried Poc.o.c.k, shifting his gun threateningly.

"You bet she will!" cried the woman who had spoken before, and she started to climb up on Laura's side of the cart.

Laura seized the whip and the woman jumped back.

"Shoot her, Hebe!" she yelled. "She'd a struck me with that thing!"

But Laura had no such intention. She brought the lash of the whip down upon the mare's flank. With a snort of surprise and pain the old horse sprang forward and had not Hebe Poc.o.c.k leaped quickly aside he would have been run over.

But unfortunately neither Eve nor the colt were prepared for this sudden move on Laura's part. The colt stood stock-still and Eve lost her grip on the bridle rein.

"Go it!" yelled Poc.o.c.k, laughing with delight. "I got the colt!"

He sprang at the head of Jinks. The women were laughing and shrieking.

"That's the time I did it!" gasped Laura, in chagrin, pulling down the old mare.

And just then the purring of an automobile sounded in their ears and there rounded the nearest turn in the road a big touring car. It rolled down toward the cart and the group about the colt, with diminished speed.

"Oh! we mustn't lose that colt after coming so near getting it away,"

cried Laura.

"But father can go after it with a constable," declared Eve, doubtfully.

"But Poc.o.c.k will get it away from here----"

"Why, Laura Belding!" exclaimed a loud, good-natured voice. "What is the matter here?"

"Mrs. Grimes!" gasped Laura, as the auto stopped. The butcher's wife and daughter were sitting in the tonneau. Hester looked straight ahead and did not even glance at her two school-fellows.