Somewhere among the piles of lumber Sube shook off his pursuer. Then he crossed the railroad tracks by crawling under a slowly moving freight train and finally reached a place of safety in a clump of willows behind the sauerkraut factory, but not until he had left a fair impression of his body in a puddle of slippery brine that had been drawn from a vat of ancient kraut. As he entered the refugee camp a moment later he was hailed with delight. But his popularity was short-lived. The boys were sorry about his accident, but had a peculiar way of showing it. They stopped bemoaning the fact that they had not been able to view the remains, and began to comfort Sube with bits of pithy humor, meanwhile keeping him at a distance. Sube took this in good part until Dick Bissell suggested that it might be interesting if Sube should go to the church in his present state and ask to see Nancy home. Sube scowled; he blushed; he bit his lips, and clenched his fists; but once more Dick Bissell's size and reputation won a psychological victory, and Sube managed to produce the sheepish grin--and the crisis was over. Excited hoofbeats on the floor of the nearby livery barn now attracted the boys' attention. These were followed by such sounds as men utter when they wish to calm the ruffled spirits of a restive horse. Dick leaped to his feet. "Hey!" he cried. "There's some'pm doin' in the liv'ry barn! I'm goin' up and see the fun!" He started forthwith, the others trailing after him. Far in the rear came Sube, humiliated and indignant at what had happened, and apprehensive about what would happen when he reached home. The liniment episode was still strong in his memory; and to become involved in another affair of bad odor so soon afterwards seemed to him like trifling with Providence. Sube clambered slowly up the bank and walked into the livery barn. It was as Dick Bissell had suspected. Something was doing. An undersized bay mare was receiving her spring haircut. Sube's brother Sim would have recognized at a glance that it was Fretful Mollie; for he knew every horse in town by its first name, and most of the horses knew Sim. But Sube was no horseman. He could tell the difference between a horse and an automobile; he could probably have picked a horse from a herd of cows ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But he was no lover of horseflesh. As he stood watching Mollie tremble and plunge whenever the clippers touched a ticklish spot, he became conscious of a movement at the door of the barn, and glancing around he beheld Sport. Sube was astonished, for he had supposed that the dog was safe at home. But Sport had been following him all the afternoon; never very far behind, and for obvious reasons never very conspicuous.