"It"s just great! My Sallie Malinda Teddy bear likes it, too," put in Sue, who was also on the front seat. Both of them together took up no more room than one grown person, and the front seat was built large enough for two.
Dix and Splash raced on together, sometimes playing a game like wrestling, trying to see which could throw the other, and again rushing along as fast as they could go, sometimes behind, and sometimes in front of the automobile.
At the foot of the hill, down which the automobile had gone rather fast, a man stepped out from a fence beside the road and held up his hand.
"What does that mean?" asked Sue.
"It means to stop," said her father, as he slowed up the machine.
"What for?" Bunny inquired.
"Well, he may be a constable--that is a kind of a policeman," said Mr.
Brown. "He wants us to stop, thinking, maybe, that we were running too fast. But I know we weren"t."
"Will he "rest us?" asked Sue. "If he does I"m going to hide Sallie Malinda. I"m not going to have her locked up!"
"Nothing will happen," said Mr. Brown with a laugh. "I have run an automobile long enough to know what to do."
Mr. Brown brought the big machine to a stop near the spot where the man was standing with upraised hand.
"What"s the matter?" asked Mr. Brown good-naturedly. "Were we going too fast?"
"Oh, nopey!" exclaimed the man with a laugh. "I jest stopped you to see what kind of a show you was givin"."
"What kind of show we are giving?" repeated Mr. Brown in surprise.
"Yep! I thought maybe you was one o" them patent medicine shows that goes "round in big wagons and stops here and there, and a feller sings, or plays, or somethin", then the head man or woman sells medicine what"ll cure everything you ever had in the way of pain or ever expect to have. I thought I"d see what kind of a show you"ve got."
"We haven"t any," laughed Mr. Brown. "You may look in the auto if you like, and see how we live in it. We are traveling for pleasure."
"I see you be, now," said the man after a look. "Wa"al, I"m right sorry I stopped you."
"That"s all right," said Mr. Brown pleasantly. "This is a heavy machine, and I don"t like to get it to going too fast downhill. It"s too hard to stop. So it"s just as well we slowed up."
"You see I"m the inspector of all them travelin" shows," went on the man. "Ribbans is my name, Hank Ribbans. Every medicine show or other show that comes to town has to git a permit from me, else they can"t show. But you"re all right, pa.s.s on."
An idea came into Mrs. Brown"s head.
"Do you have many shows pa.s.sing through here, with musicians who play to draw a crowd?" she asked.
"Oh, sartin, surely. "Bout one once a week as a rule. There was one that showed here two or three nights ago--no, come to think of it now, it was last night. There was a young feller--nothin" but a boy--dressed up in the reddest and bluest suit you ever see. And say, how he could play that old banjo!"
"Oh, a banjo! Maybe it was Fred!" cried Bunny.
The same thought came to his father and mother.
"Tell us about this boy," requested Mr. Brown. "We are looking for one who plays the banjo," and he described Fred Ward.
"Well, this can"t be the one you"re lookin" for," said Mr. Ribbans.
""Cause this feller was a negro."
"Maybe he was blacked up like a minstrel," said Bunny.
"I couldn"t say as to that," returned the inspector. "Anyhow they paid for their license all right, and they sold a powerful lot o" Dr. Slack"s Pain Killer. Then they went on out of town. That"s all I know. Well, you don"t need a license from me; so go ahead, folks!"
He waved good-bye to them as they went off again.
Bunny and Sue were eager to ask questions about the colored boy who played the banjo for the medical show.
"Do you think he could have been Fred?" asked Bunny.
"It is possible," answered his father.
"Maybe we can find him," added Sue.
"We"ll make inquiries about this show in the next town we come to," said Mr. Brown.
But as the next town was the one outside of which they were to spend the night, they decided to put off until the next day asking questions about the colored banjo player.
Uncle Tad and Mr. Brown helped Mrs. Brown get the supper. When it was over there was a large platter full of good things left for the two dogs. They were hungry, for they had run far that day, and they ate up every sc.r.a.p.
Then they stretched out for a while near a campfire Mr. Brown made under some trees, for it was a little cool in the evenings. As the children had been up early that morning, Mrs. Brown told them they must be early in bed, and after watching the fire until their eyes began to shut of themselves, Bunny and Sue started for their little bunks.
Just as they were getting undressed, though it was scarcely dark, the barking of dogs was heard down the road.
"That"s Dix and Splash!" exclaimed Bunny. "And something must have happened. Splash wouldn"t bark that way if there was nothing the matter."
"Here comes Dix now," said Sue, looking out of the automobile window.
"And oh, Bunny! Look what he"s brought home with him!"
"What is it?" asked Bunny, whose bunk was on the other side of the big car.
"It"s a cow. Dix is leading home a cow on the end of a rope!" exclaimed Sue.
CHAPTER IX
TWO DISAPPEARANCES
For a moment the two children looked out of the automobile windows at the strange sight. Then, unable longer to think of going to bed when there was likely to be some excitement, they both came out from behind the curtains that screened off their cots, and cried together:
"Dix has got a cow!"
"Dix has got a _what_?" asked Mrs. Brown, thinking she had not understood.