The door of the dwelling stood open and before man or sheepdog had time to turn him, the reeking bullock had rushed into the house. There was a crash within, the agonised yell of a child and the scream of a woman. Then rose terrified bellowings from the bullock, where it stood jammed in a passageway with two frantic dogs at its rear. A crowd collected, and Mr. Baskerville amazed himself by rushing forward and shouting a direction. "Get round, somebody, and ope the back door!" A woman appeared at the cottage window with a screaming and bloody child in her arms. "There's no way out; there's no way out," she cried. "There's no door to the garden!" "Get round; get round! Climb over the back wall," repeated Baskerville. Then he turned to the woman. "Ope the window and come here, you silly fool!" he said. She obeyed, and Humphrey found the injured child was not much hurt, save for a wound on its arm. Men soon opened the rear door of the cottage and drove the bullock out of the house; then they turned him round in the garden and drove him back again through the house into the street. The hysterical woman regarded Mr. Baskerville as her saviour and refused to leave his side. The first drover offered her a shilling for the damage and the second stopped to wrangle with Jack Head, who blamed him forcibly. "'Twas the dogs' fault--anybody could see that," he declared. "We're not to blame." "The dogs can't pay, you silly fool," answered Head. "If you let loose a dog that don't know his business, you've got to look out for the trouble he makes. 'Tis the devil's own luck for you as that yowling child wasn't killed. And now you want to get out of it for nought! There's a pound's worth of cloam smashed in there." The woman, who was alone, sent messengers for her husband, but they failed to find him; then she declared that Mr. Baskerville should assess the amount of her claim and the people upheld her. Thus most reluctantly he was thrust into a sort of prominence. "You was the only one with sense to tell 'em what to do; and so you'd better finish your good job and fix the price of the breakages," said Jack. The man with the bullocks, when satisfied that Humphrey would be impartial and indifferent to either party, agreed to this proposal, and Mr. Baskerville, quite bewildered by such a sudden notoriety, entered the cottage, calculated the damage done, and soon returned. "You've got to pay ten shillings," he said. "Your bullock upset a tray and smashed a terrible lot of glass and china. He also broke down four rails of the balusters and broke a lamp that hung over his head. The doctor will charge a shilling for seeing to the child's arm also. So that's the lowest figure in fairness. Less it can't be." The drover cursed and swore at this. He was a poor man and would be ruined. His master would not pay, and if the incident reached headquarters his work must certainly be taken from him. None offered to help and Humphrey was firm.