They charged three abreast, yelling like Comanche Indians, charged blindly, heroically. For one instant the result trembled in the balance. Then the bull gave a short, terrorized bellow and vanished into the mist. And at the same moment there was a thud and a crash and Jelly descended into a litter of tin plates and cups. CHAPTER XII IN THE FOG “Are you hurt?” asked Malcolm anxiously as he helped Jelly to his feet. “I guess not,” was the aggrieved reply. “You fellows might have hurried a bit, though, it seems to me.” Jelly disencumbered one shoe of the coffee-pot and felt of himself gingerly. Around the foot of the gnarled apple-tree lay the contents of the bundle, trampled and battered. The piece of sacking decorated a lower branch like a flag of distress. “You silly chump,” exclaimed Rob irritably, “what did you think we were going to do? Seize the bull by the horns and hold him while you came down and walked home? We don’t like bulls any better than you do.” “Maybe we’d better get out of here,” suggested Evan, casting nervous glances into the encircling fog. “He might come back to finish the job, you know.” “That’s so. Maybe he’s gone off to get his friends,” said Rob. “Here, let’s pick this stuff up. Did you throw the bundle at him, Jelly?” “Throw it at him! There wasn’t time to do any throwing,” answered Jelly crossly. “He nearly got me. I dropped the things and made a flying leap at that branch. The next thing I knew he was digging his horns into the bundle. He got one horn through the sacking and couldn’t get it off at first. And that made him mad. So he gave a bellow and tossed it into the tree and it just rained tin plates and frying-pans and forks and things for a minute. Then he danced around on them and butted the tree as though he was trying to jar me out. I’ll bet you he’s got an awful headache! I――I’d like to shoot him!” “I can’t find the string,” said Malcolm. “We’ll just have to hold the sack by the corners. Come on and let’s get away from here.” “All right, but which way shall we go?” asked Rob. “Oh, it doesn’t matter; any old way. What’s that?” It was the shriek of a distant locomotive. They turned toward the sound. “Well, that proves that the railroad is in that direction,” said Malcolm. “Let’s head that way.” “All right,” Rob answered, “but that train may be at Engle or it may be ten miles north. Still, one way’s as good as another. Come along. If we meet that bull, though, I tell you right now that I shall drop this tin shop and run like thunder!” They went on across the meadow through the fog which, instead of decreasing, seemed to thicken as evening drew near. They may have traversed a quarter of a mile of meadow or it may have been twice that distance, but at last a row of trees loomed out of the grayness ahead. The trees proved to be growing along a fence and on the other side of the fence was a country road. Rob seated himself on a rock and wiped his face with a damp handkerchief.