“To look at those beasts,” Tavia said, ruefully, and some time after the event, “you wouldn’t think they could

run at all.”

Certainly a pair of steers tipping the scales at a ton and a half each did not look like racing machines. But they

proved to be that as they thundered down hill.

Had one of them fallen on the way we shrink from thinking of the result—to the two girls in the cart. The long,

lingering dog that had started the trouble was left far behind. The three collegians who had come over the hill to

surprise the girls, could not gain a yard in the race. As for “that redhead” who had governed the steers before

they ran, he just missed the rear of the cart and he followed it down the steep grade with an abandon that was

worthy of a better end.

For he couldn’t catch it; and had he been able to, what advantage would it have given him?

When a span of steers wish to run away, and decide upon running away, and really get into action,179 nothing but a

ten-foot stone wall will stop them. And there was no wall at hand.

The great wheels bounced and the cart threatened to turn over at every revolution of the wheels; Tavia screamed

intermittently; Dorothy held on grimly and hoped for the best.

The steers kept right on in a desperately grim way, their tails still stiffened. They reached the bottom of the hill

and were at the very verge of the sloping bank into the shallows of the river.

A suicidal mania seemed to have gained possession of their bovine minds. They cared nothing for themselves, for the

wagon, or for the passengers in that wagon. Into the river they plunged. The wabbling cart rolled after them until

the water rose more than hub high.

And then the oxen halted abruptly, both lowered their noses a little, and both began to drink!

“Such excitement over an old drink of water!” gasped Tavia, and then fell completely into the hay and could not

rise for laughing.

“Do—do you suppose they ran down here—like that—just to get a drink?” demanded Dorothy. “Why—why I was scared

almost to death!”

“Me, too; we could have been killed just as easy, whether the oxen were murderously inclined or as playful as

kittens. Ugh! that redhead!”

“It wasn’t his fault,” said Dorothy.

“He never should have left us alone with them.”

180 “It was that dog did it,” declared Dorothy.

“Don’t matter who did it. The dog was funny enough looking to scare ’em into fits,” giggled Tavia. “Here he

comes again. Oh, I hope the oxen don’t see him.”

“Yet you blame the young man with the—light hair,” hesitated Dorothy. “Here he comes now.”

The excited young man with the flame-colored tresses was ahead of the three collegians. He leaped right into the

water and called to the girls to come to the back of the cart.

“’Tis no knowing when them ugly bastes will take it inter their heads to start ag’in,” he declared, holding his

strong arms to Dorothy. “Lemme carry ye ashore out o’ harm’s way, Miss.”

Dorothy trusted herself to him at once. But the boys were not to be outdone in this act of gallantry—at least, one

of them was not. Bob Niles rushed right into the water and grabbed Tavia, whether she wanted to be “rescued” or

not.

“Bob, my dear boy,” said Tavia, in her most grown-up manner, “don’t stub your poor little piggy-wiggies and send

us both splash into the water. That would be too ridiculous.”

“I shall bear you safely ashore, Tavia—no fear,” he grunted. “Whew! You’ve been putting on flesh, I declare,

since New Year’s,” he added.

“Pounds and pounds,” she assured him. “Now, up the bank, little boy.”

181 Dorothy was already deposited in safety and her cousins were taking their turns in “saluting her on both

cheeks;” but when Bob tried to take toll from Tavia in that way she backed off, threatening him with an upraised

hand.

“You are no cousin—make no mistake on that point, sir,” she declared.

“Huh! I ought to have some reward for saving you from a watery grave,” said Bob, sheepishly.

“Charge it, please,” lisped Tavia. “There are some debts I never propose to pay till I get ready.”

But she, like Dorothy, was unfeignedly glad to see the three young men again. While they chattered with Ned, and

Nat, and Bob, the red-haired young man got his oxen and the cart out of the river and guided the animals back toward

the hill.

There came on a dog-trot from the scene of the excavating operations a fat, puffy man, who snatche............