"Make a bucket brigade!" called one of the farmers who had run to the fire. "We must dip water from the brook, pa.s.s it along in pails, and throw it on the fire."
"Wait a minute!" cried Mr. Brown. "I have a better way than that, and surer, I think. First some of you rip out a side of the pen, so the pigs can get loose, and then we"ll put out the fire for you."
"That"s the idea! He"s got fire extinguishers!" cried the farmer whose pen was ablaze. "Rip off some of the boards and let those pigs out.
Otherwise they"ll be roasted before their time."
"Set to work!" yelled a neighbor.
With rakes, hoes and axes the men soon tore down a side of the pen farthest away from the fire. Out ran the pigs squealing as loudly as they could. Dix, Splash and some other dogs ran among them, thinking it was all a game, I suppose.
Mr. Brown, with one extinguisher, and Uncle Tad, with another, squirted on the blaze the white streams, made of something that puts fire out better even than water. Over the blaze Uncle Tad and Mr. Brown squirted the stuff until finally the fire was out.
"Well, I"m certainly obliged to you, neighbor," said the farmer who owned the pigs. "My name"s Blakeson. I don"t believe I know you, though.
Live around here?"
"No, we are making a tour in a big automobile," and Mr. Brown pointed to it. "We saw your blaze and came to it."
"Well, I"m certainly thankful to you, and for those contraptions there,"
and he pointed to the fire extinguishers. "That"s better than dipping water from the brook."
"Yes, I carry them in case the gasolene on my auto should get on fire,"
said Mr. Brown. "But they"ll put out any small blaze."
The pig-pen had only partly burned, and the barn, to the side of which it was built, was only scorched. Some one must have dropped a match in the straw of the pig-pen to start the blaze, it was said.
"Well, we"ll nail a few boards back on the pen, and it will do to keep the pigs in until morning," said Mr. Blakeson, the farmer. "That is if we can get "em collected again."
"My dogs will help," said Mr. Brown. "Here, Dix! Splash!" he called.
"Drive the pigs up here!"
The two dogs, both of which were used to driving cows, soon collected the pigs, even in the dark, and once more they were in their pen, sniffing about for something to eat, now that the fire was out.
The farmer whose barn had been saved by the children"s father was much interested in the big auto, and, a little later in the evening, went down to look at it, as did some of his neighbors.
"Well, that"s a fine way of traveling about," said Mr. Blakeson, and his friends agreed with him.
The next morning, while Bunny, Sue and the others were at breakfast, talking about the fire of the night before, a number of children came down the road to see the big machine. All the dirt from the flood had been washed off, and as it had been newly painted before this tour started, the "Ark," as the Browns sometimes called their big car, looked very nice indeed.
The country children had seldom, if ever, seen so big an automobile as this, nor one in which a family could live as they traveled. There were many "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" as they walked about it.
"Let"s ask "em in and show "em our bunks," proposed Bunny, and his mother said he might. The children were even more surprised at the inside of the "Ark" than at the outside.
"Oh, wouldn"t I love to live in this!" sighed a little girl with red hair. "It"s just like Mother Goose or a fairy story."
"I love fairy stories," said Sue.
Just before the Browns were ready to set off once more in their automobile, a hired hand from the Blakeson farm came down with a basket of fresh eggs, some apples and other fruit which the farmer gave Daddy Brown and Uncle Tad for helping to put out the fire.
"Oh, he needn"t have done that," said Mrs. Brown. "But I do love fresh eggs, so I"ll keep them. Please thank Mr. Blakeson for me."
The man said he would, and then, as he went back to the farm, the big auto started off on the tour again. There were yet many miles to go, and many more adventures were in store for Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.
"We"ve got to find that missing Fred Ward," said Bunny. "It"s funny where he went, isn"t it?"
"Well, this country is a big place, especially if a person wants to hide," said Mr. Brown. "Still we may find some trace of Fred in Portland when we get there. But that will not be for some weeks, as we are traveling slowly."
The Browns and Uncle Tad found the auto tour so pleasant that it was decided to make the trip even longer than at first planned, which would put off the time when they would reach Portland.
For two more days they traveled on, stopping each night near some village or small city. Nothing happened except that once they nearly ran into a hay wagon that did not get out of the way in time.
"But it wouldn"t hurt any more to hit a hay wagon than it would be to fall into a feather bed," said Bunny.
It was just about supper time. Bunny and Sue were playing out in front of the automobile, while Mrs. Brown was getting supper. Sue suddenly called:
"Oh, look at Dix! He"s chasing a cat!"
Something big and gray flashed over the ground. Dix ran for it, and his teeth seemed to close on one of the hind legs of the animal. Then the gray animal ran up a tree, and Dix raced about at the foot, barking and whining, while Splash left the place where he was rolling on the gra.s.s, to come to see what the matter was.
CHAPTER XIV
THE MEDICINE SHOW
Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue ran toward the tree up which Dix had chased the gray creature. The dog was greatly excited, and at once Splash joined in, too. Though it is very likely Splash did not in the least know what he was barking at.
Dogs are like that, you know. When one hears another bark it will join in, and then will come a third and maybe a fourth until every dog in the block is barking, and only the first one may know why, and perhaps even he does not.
"Oh, I hope he didn"t hurt that p.u.s.s.y," said Sue.
"Maybe it wasn"t a p.u.s.s.y," suggested Bunny.
"What makes you say that?" demanded Sue. "Didn"t you see something gray run across the gra.s.s, and didn"t Dix run after it?"
"Yes. And the gray thing ran up a tree. But maybe it wasn"t a kittie,"
said Bunny, shaking his head to show he did not agree with his sister.
"Let"s go and see what it is," said she, and together the two hurried faster than ever toward the tree at the bottom of which Dix and Splash were having a great barking time.
"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"Just over to this tree," answered Bunny, pointing to it.
"Well, don"t go any farther than that," warned his mother.
"No, we"re just going to see what it was Dix chased up into it," went on Sue. "I said it was a cat but Bunny says----"