“You’d better buy a good pair of far-sighted specs from the next peddler that comes along this way, marm,” he suggested with some insolence. “You’ll be able to tell the diff’rence, then, between a tin rag peddler or a rag tin peddler, or whatever you call ’em, and two gentlemen ridin’ out for pleasure to take the air. Now, to come to bus’ness--will you sell me a baitin’ for my horses, and three lunches--two to be et on the spot and one to be took away?” Her first impulse, evidently, was to refuse this blunt request. But Hiram waved a bill at her. She called a freckled youth from the barn and continued to stare at the vehicle and the two strangers. When the boy led away the horses, after Hiram and Peak had unhooked them from the cart, the woman broke her silence and there was suppressed excitement in her tones. “I’ve got you placed. You’re the circus man that’s come back to live down to P’lermo, and this is one of your carts, and you’ve come up here to help catch that dratted el’phunt that’s been rampagin’ ’round here since noon. You ain’t come none too soon, Mr. Circuser. You’ll have a nice bill to pay in this neighbourhood--and you can start right in by settlin’ with us first of all. You come here, the two of ye.” In silent amazement the men followed her around the ell. “There’s where he come through,” she rasped, pointing to two lengths of a picket fence laid flat; “there’s where he went out.” On the opposite side of the garden more lengths of fence were cast down. “Half the pickets busted where he stepped on ’em! Three of our little Sopsyvine trees knocked down, and there--look there!” She had evidently reserved this climax. She pointed to the slope of a little hillock. “Two webs of ‘Fruit of the Loom’ that was bleach-in’, all trampled and torn and gurried up! A ding-blamed el’phunt and a dozen men skyhootin’ acrost herer without aye, yes or no and not payin’ the least attention to anything underfoot! I say if you’re the circus man from P’lermo you’ve got a good nice bill to settle in these parts.” “_My_ elephant!” demanded Hiram, amazedly, tapping himself with his knuckles on his breast and staring from Peak to the woman. “I don’t know of any other fool that’s keepin’ el’phunts for pets or raisin’ ’em for market,” she retorted. “If an old gray gob o’ meat with ragged ears and dirty feet as big as saucepans--as you can see by the smooches on my unbleached cotton--is your el’phunt, then it _is_ your el’phunt with a passul of howlin’ men after him, and my husband chasin’ off along with the rest instead of stayin’ here and protectin’ his home and his wife.” “Do you suppose it’s Imogene got away?” gasped Hiram, staring at Peak. “Well, for a guess I should say it was,” replied that friend, unconsolingly. “Elephants are not as common as woodchucks around here.”