"Oh, I guess we can make it," proposed Nat. "The _Fire Bird_ is not quite a locomotive."
"She goes like a bird, sure enough," affirmed Peter. "But that road is full of ditches."
"We will try them, at any rate," insisted Nat, as he turned from the main road to a narrow stretch of white track that cut through woods and farm lands.
"If we are fortunate enough not to meet anything," said Dorothy. "But I have always been afraid of a single road, bound with ditches."
"Of course," growled Nat, "there comes Terry with his confounded cows."
Plowing along, his head down and his whip in hand came Terry, the half-witted boy who, Winter and Summer, drove the cows from their field or barn to the slaughter house. He never raised his head as Nat tooted the horn, and by the time the machine was abreast of the drove of cattle, Nat was obliged to make a quick swerve to avoid striking the animals.
"Oh!" gasped both Dorothy and Mabel. The car lunged, then came to a sudden stop, while the engine still pounded to get ahead.
"Hang the luck!" groaned Nat, vainly trying to start the car, which was plainly stalled.
"I told you," commented Peter, inappropriately. "This here road--"
"Oh, hang the road!" interrupted Nat. "It was that loon-Terry."
As the young man spoke Terry pa.s.sed along as mutely as if nothing had happened.
"I"d like to try that whip on him, to see if I could wake him up," said Ted, as he leaped out after Nat to see what could be done to get the car back on the road.
But it was an impossible task. Pushing, pulling, prying with fence rails-all efforts left the big, red car stuck just where it had floundered.
"I know," spoke Peter, suddenly. "I"ll get Sanders"s horse."
"Sanders wouldn"t lend his horse to pull a man out of a ditch," said Nat.
"I"ve asked him before."
"That"s where you made a mistake," replied Peter. "I won"t ask him," and he awkwardly managed to get out of the car, and was soon out on the road and making his way across the snow-covered fields.
"We may be tried for horse-stealing next," remarked Ted, grimly. "Girls, are you perishing?"
"Not a bit of it," declared Dorothy. "This snow is warm rather than cold."
"My face is burning," insisted Mabel. "But I do hope old Sanders does not set his dogs on us."
"He"s as deaf as a post," Ted said. "That"s a blessing-this time, at least."
"There goes Peter in the barn," Dorothy remarked. "He has got that far safely, at any rate."
A strained silence followed this announcement. Yes, Peter had gone into the barn. It seemed night would come before he could possibly secure the old horse, and get to the roadway to give the necessary pull to the stalled _Fire Bird_. They waited, eagerly watching the barn door. Finally it opened. Yes, Peter was coming, leading the horse.
"Now!" said Peter, standing with an emergency rope ready, "if only he gets past the house--"
He stopped. The door of the snow-covered cottage opened, and there stood the unapproachable Sanders.
"Oh!" gasped Mabel. "Now we are in for it!"
"Then," said Dorothy, "let us be ready for it. I"ll prepare the defence,"
and before they realized what she was about to do she had selected one of the very choicest Christmas trees, and with it on her fur-covered shoulder, actually started up the box-wood lined walk to where the much-dreaded Sanders was standing, ready to mete out vengeance on the man who had dared to enter his barn, and take from it his horse.
"Oh Mr. Sanders!" called Dorothy. "Have you that dear little grand-daughter with you? The pretty one we had at the church affair last year?"
"You mean Emily?" he drawled. "Yep, she"s here, but--"
"Then, you wonder why we have taken your horse? And why we were stalled here?" The others could hear her from the roadway. They could see, also, that Sanders had stopped to listen. "Now we want Emily to have a Christmas tree, all her own," went on Dorothy, "and Peter is good enough to donate it. But our machine-those cars are not like horses," she almost shouted, as Sanders being deaf, and watching the inexorable Peter leading his horse away, had cause to be aroused from his natural surprise. "After all," persisted Dorothy, "a horse is the best."
By this time Peter was outside the big gate. Sanders made a move as if to follow, when Dorothy almost dropped the clumsy tree.
"Oh, please take it!" she begged. "I want to see Emily while they are towing the machine out. It"s a lucky thing it happened just here, and that you are kind enough to let us have your horse."
"Well what do you think of that!" exclaimed Ted, in a voice loud enough for those near him to hear. "Of all the clever tricks!"
"Oh, depend on Doro for cleverness," replied Nat, proudly. "You just do your part, Ted, and make this rope fast."
Mabel stood looking on in speechless surprise. She saw now that Dorothy and old Sanders were entering the cottage. Dorothy was first, and the man, with the Christmas tree, followed close behind her. The boys with Peter were busy with rope, horse and auto. Soon they had the necessary connection made, with Nat at the wheel, and all were tugging with might and main to get the _Fire Bird_ free from the ditch.
If there is anything more nerve-racking than such an attempt, it must be some other attempt at a balking auto. Would it move, or would it sink deeper into the mud that lay hidden beneath the newly-fallen snow?
Nat turned the wheel first this way and then that. Ted had his weight pressed against the rear wheel of the machine, while Peter coaxed and led the horse. Suddenly the old horse, as if desperate, gave a jerk and pulled the _Fire Bird_ clear out into the roadway!
"Hurrah!" yelled Ted, bounding through the snow.
"Great stunt!" corroborated Nat. "Peter, you are all right!"
"Peter did some," replied the old man, freeing the horse from the rope that held him to the machine; "but that young lady-if she hadn"t kept Sanders busy-we might all have been arrested for horse-stealing."
"She knew his weak spot," agreed Nat. "That little Emily seems to be the one weak and soft spot in old Sanders"s life."
"I had better go up and see what"s going on," suggested Mabel, as everything seemed about in readiness to start off again.
"Good idea," a.s.sented her brother, "he might be eating her up."
Mabel rather timidly found her way up to the cottage. It was already dusk, but the light of a dim lamp showed her the way, as it gleamed through a gloomy window, onto the glistening snow.
"Won"t it be perfectly lovely, Emily?" she heard Doro saying, as she saw her with her arms about a little red-haired girl, both sitting on a sofa, while Sanders attempted to prop the Christmas tree up in a corner, bracing it with a wooden chair. Mabel raised the latch without going through the formality of knocking. As she entered the room, all but Dorothy started in surprise.
"This is my friend," Dorothy hurried to explain, "it is she who is going to help me trim the tree up for Emily. We will come to-morrow," and she rose to leave. "Mabel will fetch the doll, Emily. That is, of course, if we can persuade Santa Claus to give us just the kind we want," she tried to correct.
"A baby dolly-with long hair and a white dress," Emily ordered. "And I want eyelashes."
"Perticular," said Sanders, with a proud look at the child, who, as the boys had said, made up the one tender spot in his life. "If her ma"s cold is better, she is coming up herself."
"Is she sick?" Emily ventured, glad to be able to say something intelligent.
"Yep," replied the old man, sadly. "She"s been sick a long time. I fetched Emily over this afternoon in the sleigh."