Freddy and the Dragon (4 page)

“Set a pig to catch a pig, eh?” said Freddy. “Well, be seeing you. Come on, Jinx.”

They rode up toward the woods, crossed the brook, and then swung off to the right into a hayfield that bordered the land belonging to Mr. Witherspoon. They saw at once that a section of the barbed-wire fence between the Witherspoon and the Bean farms had been ripped out. And an enormous black bull with a ring in his nose was calmly eating the uncut hay on the Bean side of the fence. He was trampling down a lot more grass than he was eating.

The two friends pulled up. “Golly,” said Jinx, “Mr. Bean'll pop his suspender buttons when he sees this. But we better go down and tell him.”

Freddy said: “No; I think we'd better handle it ourselves. You know Mr. Bean. He'll go right up to that bull and try to put a rope through the ring in his nose. And the bull will go for him.”

“But Mr. Bean has a shotgun.”

“I wouldn't want to try to stop that bull with a shotgun,” Freddy said. “Come on, let's talk to him. We can dodge if he rushes us.”

They rode up along the fence. The bull lifted his head. “Well, well,” he boomed, “ain't you cute little fellers! Part of old Bean's trained menagerie, I expect. Well, come along; plenty for all.”

“That's Mr. Bean's hay you're eating,” said Freddy.

“You wouldn't want to stop me, would you?” said the bull. Then he gave a great roaring laugh. “Come up closer. I won't hurt you. I want to see those duds you got on. Regular cowboy suits, ain't they? And I suppose you came out to round me up and drive me away, hey? I suppose I ought to go before I get hurt.” He pretended to shiver with fear, and then broke out into his roaring laugh again. He reminded Freddy a lot of Lieutenant Sparrow.

A robin flew down and perched on the pommel of Freddy's saddle. “Look out for this fellow, Freddy,” he said; “he can be mean. He drove Mr. Witherspoon's horse, Jerry, out of his stable this morning and ate up his measure of oats, and then he broke open the oat bin and ate a lot more, before coming out and tearing down the fence.”

“Hello, J. J.,” said Freddy. “Where was Mr. Witherspoon all this time?”

“The bull chased him into the house. He took a couple of shots at him with his deer rifle, but missed both times. Then I guess the bull thought he'd better beat it, so he came over here, out of range.”

“Maybe I could rope him,” said Freddy, touching the rope that was looped over his pommel.

“No, no, that's too dangerous,” said Mr. Pomeroy. He emphasized his remarks by taking off his spectacles with one claw and shaking them at Freddy. “You get a rope on him, and he'll drag Cy all over the meadow. Ruin a lot more good hay, too. You'd better go back and tell Mr. Bean.”

“If I got the noose around his foot and tripped him, it might work,” Freddy said.

“What would you do with him then?” Jinx asked; and Freddy said glumly: “I don't know.”

Mr. Pomeroy put his spectacles on. “I'll fly down with you,” he said, and sprang into the air, to light on a fencepost some distance off.

The bull had been edging closer, trying to overhear the conversation. Now he said: “What are you two little squirts up to, hey? You ain't goin' to sick that robin on to me, are you? My land, I'm all over gooseflesh!” And he laughed his big roaring laugh, so that he shook all over.

“‘Squirts,' eh?” said Freddy to himself. “That gives me an idea. Jinx,” he said aloud, “watch out.” He had a cap pistol in the holster on one side and a water pistol on the other. The latter held nearly a pint, and he kept it filled with strong perfume. He had found that most people—and animals too—would almost rather be shot than drenched with cheap perfume. He pulled it out, pointed it at the bull, and squeezed.

Three seconds later he and Jinx were riding for their lives, with the bull thundering a few yards behind them. They had entered the hayfield through a gap in the fence. The gap could be closed by a heavy bar which slid into slots on the fence posts. They had closed this when they came into the field, but as it was only about three feet from the ground, Cy and Bill, who had had some practice in jumping, sailed over it easily. But the bull, who was no jumper, checked; and before he could get his horns under it and work it out, they were over the brook and almost in the barnyard. So the bull went back to the hay.

Freddy didn't tell Mr. Bean right away about the bull. He was afraid that Mr. Bean would go up there, and he'd get awful mad when he saw the hay all trampled, and then maybe he'd do something foolish, like trying to drive the bull away, or putting a rope through the ring in his nose. That bull wasn't anybody to monkey with.

There was a lot of commotion in the barnyard. Hank, the old white horse, had been arrested—or at least he had been taken away by state troopers, who wanted him in Centerboro for questioning. The Beans and the farm animals were pretty upset, but Freddy wasn't specially worried. Hank's shoes were about the same size as the ones that had kicked in Mrs. Bingle's door, but even if they fitted, there would probably be plenty of proof that he hadn't left the stable that night. Hank didn't go in much for society and seldom went out in the evening.

As head of the A.B.I., Mr. Pomeroy employed a large number of operatives. They were mostly birds and smaller animals, and a good many were bumblebees. A bumblebee can blunder around close to people, and listen to conversations, without being specially noticed. Nobody thinks that bumblebees know anything. But that's where they're wrong. Bumblebees are smart; they make very good detectives.

But in spite of maintaining such a big staff, the A.B.I. hadn't found out much about the bull. Nobody could find out who he belonged to, or where he'd come from. He roamed around the countryside, breaking into barns and knocking down fences to get what he wanted to eat—mostly at night. If dogs chased him, he turned around and charged them, but he never did them any harm, even when he could have. He had cornered one of the Macys—farmers who lived across the shallow valley below the Bean farm—behind the barn. The man had nothing but a stick, and the bull could have tossed and trampled him if he'd wanted to, but he just gave a great bellowing laugh and turned around and trotted off.

“He thinks it's a joke to scare people,” Mr. Pomeroy said. “Mostly he's pretty good-natured. But he was mad today. Good thing he didn't catch you.”

“Are there any animals around that he's friendly with?” Freddy asked. “I just wonder if we can tie him in with all this trouble they're having in Centerboro.”

“I've heard something about that,” said the robin. “But the town's out of our territory. We're strictly a rural force; our job is to keep crime off the Bean farm.”

“Well, it's to protect the innocent on the Bean farm too, isn't it?” said Jinx. “And nearly everybody in Centerboro thinks we're the ones behind all those robberies. There's even been talk of lynching Freddy. And that's why they've taken Hank away.” And he told about what had happened in Centerboro.

“Dear me,” said Mr. Pomeroy, “I had no idea things were as bad as that. We'll get on to it right away. A horse and a pig, eh? Well, some of the boys have reported seeing this bull talking to a pig up on the back road. A couple of times in the early evening.”

“They didn't think it was me, did they—the pig?” Freddy asked.

“Oh, no,” said the robin. “The description was quite different. This pig wasn't nearly as—ha, h'm—well, I mean to say, he was—”

“You mean he wasn't as fat as Freddy, don't you?” Jinx asked.

“I wasn't putting it that way,” said Mr. Pomeroy with dignity. “I was about to say that he wasn't as well nourished. He was rangy, tough-looking. We figured he was just a tramp.”

“If they saw him more than once, he isn't likely to be a tramp, just passing through. Did they hear what was said?”

“Weren't close enough. But they heard the bull's name. The pig said: ‘Hi, Percy,' when they met.”

“Percy!” Freddy exclaimed delightedly. “Oh, boy!”

“Good, eh?” said Mr. Pomeroy. “He isn't what I'd call a sensitive type, but I bet he's sensitive about that. I thought Mrs. P. and I might go up and kid him a little—about that, and the perfumery. Maybe we could get him to leave.”

“It's worth trying,” Freddy said. “But don't forget the Centerboro business. I don't want to be lynched.”

“Cheer up, Freddy,” said the cat. “We'll all come, if you are. And the farm's going to seem kind of tame to us after all our adventures on the road. A good lynching might liven things up.”

Mr. Pomeroy looked a little shocked. “I think things will be lively enough without having your friends lynched, Jinx,” he said. And to Freddy: “I'll get on to it right away. And I'll warn everybody to watch for Mrs. Peppercorn's bicycle. A lady's bicycle, blue with a white stripe, right?”

“Right,” said Freddy. “Come along, Jinx; let's go talk to Uncle Ben.”

CHAPTER 4

They climbed the stairs to the loft over the stable where Uncle Ben was hard at work on the flying-saucer engine. He nodded and said: “Good trip?” and went on with his work.

Freddy said: “Yes, but that can wait. There are a couple of things I need advice about.” Uncle Ben nodded, and Freddy went on to tell him about the bull. “We've got to drive him away, somehow,” he said. “Do you think if we dug a pit and covered it with brush, the way we did that time for the wildcat—”

Uncle Ben chuckled. They had caught the wildcat all right, but they had also caught Mr. Bean in the trap. Fortunately, it had all turned out well.

But then Uncle Ben shook his head. “Better idea,” he said, and began figuring with a pencil on a bit of paper.

Freddy knew it was no use asking questions. Uncle Ben never said more than two words if he could help it. If he had an idea how to get rid of the bull, Freddy would learn about it in time.

Finally Uncle Ben folded up the paper and put it in his pocket. “Ride to Centerboro?” he asked, and Freddy said: “Sure.”

The three went down and got into Uncle Ben's station wagon. This vehicle didn't look like much, but Uncle Ben had put an atomic engine into it, and when he just pressed lightly on the accelerator it seemed to gather its wheels under it and bound off down the road like a rabbit. Half the time it was in the air. It wasn't very hard on tires.

The Centerboro road wasn't very wide; it was winding, and today there was quite a lot of traffic. They had to go slow, and pretty soon even slower, when they got behind a farm truck that was only doing twenty miles an hour. Uncle Ben turned to his passengers and pointed to a button on the dashboard.

“New,” he said. “For passing.”

He dropped a little way back of the truck, and then pressed the button. Two stubby wings, or rather fins, snapped out on the sides of the car. Then Uncle Ben stepped on the accelerator, and the car bounded forward and up. It soared right over the truck, landed on the road ahead of it, and then Uncle Ben pressed another button and the fins snapped back in, and they were rolling along the road again.

“Lot safer, eh?” said Uncle Ben.

Jinx was clinging to the seat with all four sets of claws. “That's what
you
think,” he said crossly. He never did enjoy riding with Uncle Ben.

“Why, sure it's safer,” said Freddy. “You try to pass on this narrow road, and you have to pull out into the other lane. And suppose some other car suddenly shows up ahead, coming toward you. Big smash.”

Jinx sniffed.

They overtook and passed a number of other cars in the same way before getting into town. They went to the hardware store, and Uncle Ben bought several coils of half-inch rope, which he put in the back of the station wagon. Then they drove to the state police headquarters, to see what had been done with Hank.