"Who are we? Who are we?" mocked the creatures. "O-ho, hear the human!

Doesn't know us--never got scolded on _our_ account, did he, did he?

_Oh_, no; _oh_, no! Bite him, s.n.a.t.c.h him, scratch him! _Catch_ him!"

Closer and closer the horrid little things pressed about the two children. "What do you mean, anyway?" cried Rudolf, keeping them back with his foot as best he could. "Who are you? You're squirrels--that's all you are!"

"Squirrels!" The leader of the little wretches seemed furious at the idea. "No, no," he screamed, making a dash at Rudolf's leg with his sharp teeth. "We're Fidgets, Fidgets, Fidgets! Don't you know the Fidgets when you see 'em, you great blundering human, you? An old, _old_ family, that's what we are. Guess Methuselah had the Fidgets sometimes, guess he did, did, did!" With every one of the last three words he made a s.n.a.t.c.h at Rudolf, trying his best to bite him, and at the same time dodging cleverly the blows Rudolf was now dealing on all sides with his sword.

Ann had picked up a little stick and was doing her best to help Rudolf in his battle. "I know you," she cried, turning angrily on the Fidgets, "you horrid little things! I've had you often, in school just before it's out, and in church, and when mother takes me out to make calls--you've disgraced her often--" Then she stopped, really afraid of saying too much. The Fidgets, with a wild squeal, now began a mad sort of dance round and round the two children, giving them now a nip, now a pinch, now a sharp pull till they were dizzy and frightened and weary of trying to defend themselves against such unequal numbers.

All at once, above the shrill cries of their enemies, the children heard a new sound, a crackling rustling noise in the bushes as if some large creature was making its way through the wood. The Fidgets heard it, too, and in a twinkling they had hushed their shrill voices, broken their circle, and completely hidden themselves from sight. It was all so sudden that Rudolf and Ann had no time to run, but stood perfectly still, gazing at the bushes just in front of them from which the noises came.

As they looked the bushes were parted, and a long lean head poked itself through, a large black head with a white streak down its nose, and two great mournful eyes that stared into theirs. Ann gave a little scream and shrank closer to Rudolf. The creature opened a wide mouth that showed enormous, ugly, yellow teeth, and said in a rough but not unfriendly voice: "Hullo! Oats-and-Broadswords--if it's not a couple of lost colts! Where'd you come from, youngsters?"

Without waiting for them to answer, it crashed through the bushes and stood before them, a curious sight, indeed the strangest they had yet seen in the course of their adventures. What they had thought was a horse from the sight of its head, was a horse no farther down than the shoulders, all the rest of him was a Knight, a splendid knight in full armor of shining steel. He was without weapon of any kind, and even while the children shrank from the sight of his big ugly head with its sad eyes and long yellow teeth, they saw that this was not a creature to be much afraid of.

"Well, I scared 'em away, didn't I?" he asked triumphantly, and then, hanging his head a little, he added in rather a humble tone, "It's pretty poor sport hunting Fidgets, I know, but it's about all I can get nowadays. Hope they didn't hurt you?" he added politely.

"Not a bit," said Rudolf, "but I'm sure I'm glad you came along when you did, for I don't know how we ever would have got rid of the beastly little things. Only when we first saw you, we thought--"

"Oh, I know," interrupted the stranger hastily--"you thought it was something worse. That's it, that's just my luck! I'm the gentlest creature in the world and everybody's afraid of me. My business," he explained, turning to Ann, "is to redress wrongs and to see after the ladies, but--bless you--they won't let me get near enough to do anything for 'em!" A great tear rolled down his long nose as he spoke, and he looked so silly that Ann and Rudolf could hardly help laughing at him, though they did not in the least want to be rude.

"And then," continued the creature, sobbing, "I'm so divided in my feelings. If I were only _all_ Knight, now, or even all Mare, I'd be thankful, but a Knight-mare is an unsatisfactory sort of thing to be."

"A Knight-mare--Oh, how dreadful!" cried Ann, drawing away from him.

"Is _that_ what you are?"

"There! You see how it is!" exclaimed the Knight-mare, tossing his long black mane. "n.o.body's got any sympathy for me. How would _you_ like it? Suppose you were a little girl only as far as your shoulders and all the rest of you hippopotamus, eh?"

"I wouldn't like it at all," said Ann, after thinking a moment.

"Then no more do I," said the Knight-mare, and sighed a long sad sigh.

"Would you mind telling us how it happened?" asked Rudolf politely.

"Not at all," said the Knight-mare. "You see I was a great boy for fighting in the old days--though you mightn't think it to see me now--and I used to ride forth to battle on my coal-black steed, this very mare whose head I'm wearing now. Well, of course I was a terror to my enemies, used to scare 'em into fits, and I suppose it was one of those very fellows that got me into this fix, dreamed me into it one night, you know, only he got me and my steed mixed. We've stayed mixed ever since, and the worst of it is I oughtn't to be a Bad Dream at all. I was the nicest kind of a Good Dream once--why I belonged to a lady who lived in a castle, and she thought a lot of me, she did!"

"It's too bad," said Rudolf sympathetically; "but isn't there anything you can do about it?"

"Nothing," groaned the Knight-mare, "nothing at all. At least not till I can find a way to get rid of this ugly head of mine. If there was anybody big enough and brave enough, now, to--" He interrupted his speech to stoop down and s.n.a.t.c.h up something from the gra.s.s. It was Rudolf's sword which he had dropped from his hand in his weariness after his battle with the Fidgets. "What's this?" the Knight-mare cried. "Hurrah, a sword!"

"My sword," said Rudolf, stretching out his hand for it.

"Just the thing for cutting heads off!" cried the Knight. "Will you lend it to me, like a good fellow? Mine is lost."

"What for?" asked Rudolf suspiciously.

"Why, to cut my head off with, of course, or better yet, perhaps you'll do it for me. Come, now! Just to oblige me?"

Rudolf took back his sword, while Ann gave a little scream and seized both the Knight's mailed hands in hers. "I'm sorry not to oblige you,"

said Rudolf firmly, "but I can't do anything of the sort. I never cut anybody's head off in my life, and the sword's not so awful sharp, you know, and then how can you tell a new head will grow at your time of life?"

"Oh, I'd risk that," said the Knight-mare lightly. "I do wish you'd think it over. If you knew what a life mine is! All my days spent browsing round on shoots here in the wood, without a single adventure because n.o.body's willing to be rescued by the likes of me! And then the nights! Oh"--groaned the poor fellow--"the nights are the worst of all!"

"What do you do then?" asked Rudolf and Ann.

"Oh, I'm ridden to death," sighed the Knight-mare. "As if it wasn't bad enough to scare folks all day _not_ meaning to, without being sent out nights to do it on purpose!" He looked over his shoulder as if he was afraid some one might be listening, and then added in a low voice, "And it's not my fault, either, I swear it's not. _They_ actually make me do it!"

The children shivered, for they guessed at once that "they" meant the Bad Dreams. Then they suddenly recollected poor little Peter, whom their last adventure and the Knight-mare's talk had quite put out of their minds.

"I tell you what," said Rudolf suddenly, "I'll make a bargain with you. My little brother has run away to find the Bad Dreams, and we have got to find him and bring him back. If you'll lead us to him and help us all you can, why--why--I won't promise--but I'll see what I can do for you."

The Knight-mare gave a loud triumphant neigh. "Ods-bodikins and bran mash!" he cried. "You're worth rescuing for nothing, the whole lot of you! But"--he added mournfully--"I ought to warn you to keep away from that crowd--they're a bad lot. You'd do better to cut along home."

"We can't do that," cried Rudolf and Ann together.

"Then come with me," said the Knight-mare. "It's only a short way to--"

He was suddenly interrupted by a fresh commotion in the wood. Heavy bodies were parting the undergrowth back of where they stood. Before the children could think of escape, four strange figures sprang on them from behind, their arms were seized, they were tripped up, and they landed very hard upon the ground. Both knew in a moment what had happened. The Bad Dreams had caught them!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIII

THE BAD DREAMS

At first the children's view was entirely shut off by the size and heaviness of the things that were sitting on their chests. They had been completely taken by surprise and they had not even breath enough left to cry out, but lay still and listened to what was going on about them. This is what they heard:

"Ye arre arristid in the name of the Law!" a gruff voice was saying.

"Move on, move on, move on."

"One moment, Officer," a second voice interrupted. "Imprison these young persons, if you are so disposed, but pray allow me first my little opportunity to practise on them. This young lady--ahem! We will begin by extracting that large molar on the upper left-hand side, we will then have out two or three--"

"Ugh--ugh!" A series of hoa.r.s.e grunts, and what had been sitting on Rudolf rose up and rushed at the last speaker. "No, no! Big Chief first! Big Chief Thunder-snorer take two fine scalp--ha! ha!"

There was a confused sound of struggling and voices arguing, and in another moment Ann was relieved of her burden which, with a mighty moo, got up and joined the others. Ann sat up and clung to Rudolf, while the Knight-mare who was standing close beside her, laid a protecting hand upon her shoulder. When she saw what had been holding her down, she gave a little shriek. It was a small spotted cow in a red flannel petticoat. She wore stout b.u.t.ton boots on her hind feet, and she now reared herself upon these to flourish two angry hoofs over the sleek head of a little man in a white linen coat who held a tiny mirror in one hand and a pair of pincers in the other. Ann took a great dislike to this little man at once, and felt more afraid of him than of the Cow or of the handsome Indian Chief in full war-paint--feather head-dress and all--who was brandishing his tomahawk, sometimes in the face of the Little Dentist, again under the turned-up nose of a large fat Policeman who stood with folded arms, the only calm member of that much-excited group.

The Knight-mare stepped forward and put himself between the children and the Bad Dreams. "Look here, you fellows," he said quietly, "you may as well stop this nonsense first as last. You haven't got any business here, and well you know it. If the Boss finds you've been disposing of any prisoners without his permission--well--_you_ know what'll happen!"

That the Bad Dreams did know was to be seen by their foolish scared expressions. The Indian Chief, with a disappointed grunt, replaced his tomahawk in his belt, and seated himself cross-legged on the gra.s.s, drawing his blanket closely about him. The Policeman stopped murmuring "Move on!" The Cow dropped clumsily on all fours and began to crop the bushes. Even the Little Dentist put his pincers back into his pocket, though he still looked wistfully at Ann, who avoided his eye as much as she could. This was a very terrifying company in which the children found themselves, and in spite of the comforting presence of the friendly Knight-mare, they felt very doubtful of their present safety, not to speak of what might be done to them when once they were in the clutches of that dreadful "Boss", whom even the Bad Dreams seemed to be afraid of.

"He has all the fun, anyway," snorted the Cow, switching her tail.