Freddy the Cowboy (15 page)

The man hesitated, but a little voice squeaked:

“Flint! Flint!

You're going to be skint!”

He gave a start, then went straight out and got into the saddle and rode off after Jasper.

“Don't think he'll try the bank tonight,” said Whibley. “But just in case he does, I'll take these guns and go down there. When Sidney reports, tell him I'm down there.”

With a gun in each strong claw, the owl, flapping hard with his wings—for they were a heavy weight for even so large a bird—flew off into the night.

“You know,” said Jinx, “Whibley's a wise old bird, but I think he missed a bet there. We all did.”

“I agree with you,” said Bannister, coming out from behind the barrel where he had been hiding. “I hope you will not think I am intruding if I suggest that the whereabouts of Mr. Frederick, whether punctured or unpunctured, is the important fact.”

“His whereabouts?” asked Mrs. Wogus. “You mean those leather pants he wears over his dungarees? I should think it was Freddy himself we'd want to know about.”

“You can't say ‘whereabouts
is
,” said Robert, the collie.

“By ‘whereabouts,' madam,” said Bannister, “I mean merely his present location. I think therefore, Mr. Robert, that ‘is' is the correct form of the verb.”

“Don't agree,” said Robert shortly. “‘Whereabouts' is plural.”

“Who ever heard of one whereabout!” said Bannister.

“Oh, quit wrangling!” said Jinx. “I don't care whether he wore whereabouts or pink suspenders. The point is: if Flint shot Freddy, why did he come here looking for him? We ought to have tied up Flint and questioned him. But maybe the best thing anyway is to go look for him. And for Cy. How come Cy disappeared, too?”

“I just thought,” said Howard—“Excuse me, but I just thought; you know Freddy could have stuck his hat up on a stick to draw Flint's fire. That would explain the holes. Maybe Freddy wasn't shot at all.”

“No,” said Bannister, “that won't work. Freddy was riding hard, and they were riding after him, shooting, when they disappeared up towards the woods. He didn't have time to get behind something and stick up his hat.”

“Well, there's something queer about all this,” said Mrs. Wiggins, and she backed out of her stall. “Jinx, you and the smaller animals better stay here and look after the house. You know we promised the Beans we'd take care of things, and tomorrow's the day to wind up the clocks. And the squirrels must dust in the parlor in the morning. Robert and Georgie better come with me; we'll see if we can pick up Freddy's trail. Perhaps Bannister would drive us up as far as the spot where Freddy was last seen.” Mrs. Wiggins was like most cows, rather quiet and retiring. She seldom put herself forward. But when she did take charge of things, nobody ever opposed her. Probably it was because she never acted until she was sure she was doing the right thing. As I have said before, she had common sense.

Fifteen minutes later Bannister's car, with the butler at the wheel, the dogs beside him, and Mrs. Wiggins in the back seat, was rolling out of the gate. And it would have been two minutes instead of fifteen, only it had taken thirteen minutes of shoving and pulling, of pausing for breath, and of going at it again, to get the cow through the car door.

Chapter 14

Bats are not very sociable animals. It is very difficult to get acquainted with them, but once you have succeeded in winning their friendship they will stick to you through thick and thin. Most animals of course won't take the trouble, since bats sleep all day, and if you want to talk to them you have to sit up half the night. But Hank didn't sleep very well, because his rheumatism bothered him, and so after Sidney had waked up and had his evening meal of mosquitoes and other small bugs, the two of them had had long discussions on all sorts of subjects. They got on well, because while Sidney had a very strong opinion on almost any subject you could mention, Hank was always undecided about everything, and although he never quite agreed with you, he never quite disagreed either. So their discussions never turned into fights.

Sidney knew that he was protecting Hank's property when he was guarding the bank, so he did the best job he knew how. Every fifteen minutes or so he would flit in his crazy zigzag flight up the road a quarter of a mile and then circle back around over the fields, and then after looking in the window to see that the squirrel guards weren't asleep, would hang up in the tree by the alarm bell and rest.

It was that same night, on one flight, that he saw Jasper gallop away from the farm. But once off the Bean property, the man turned in among some trees and waited, and pretty soon Mr. Flint came along and joined him. Sidney hooked onto a limb over their heads and listened.

Mr. Flint said angrily: “I don't know what I pay you for, Jasper. The minute those critters pitched into me you turned around and beat it.”

“I didn't beat it till that goat knocked the wind out of me,” said Jasper. “I ain't much good in a fight if I can't breathe. And I knew they wouldn't do anything to you much. That's why I waited. We can go down to the bank now. Could have gone there in the first place if you weren't so set on shootin' that pig. What do we care about the pig? What we want is the money.”

“I'll get that pig if it's the last thing I do!” said Mr. Flint vindictively. “Well, O.K.. We better walk down. Cut the bell rope and then climb down that hole and get the money. I been inquirin' around Centerboro—that pig's well off! They say he even owns some property—a couple of houses. Can you beat it? How'd you like a pig for a landlord?”

Sidney had heard enough. He dropped from the branch. But as he spread his wings to flutter away he had to pass between the two men. Jasper ducked, but Mr. Flint made a quick swipe at him with the quirt, which he had managed to snatch up when he left the barn. Just the tip of it clipped Sidney across the face. Even though he was partly stunned he managed to keep flying, for he knew that if he fell, Mr. Flint would probably hit him again.

“Bats!” Mr. Flint exclaimed. “How I hate the nasty things!”

“You do, hey?” Sidney said to himself as he flew off. “All right, mister; I'll give you bats! But first I'll warn the farm.”

So he flew down to the barn, and when he had warned what animals were left there of the danger to the bank, he flew up to the Big Woods, to the old abandoned Grimby house, in the attic of which lived a large colony of bats, most of whom were related to him on his mother's side, his father having come from Connecticut.

In the meantime Mr. Flint and Jasper had crept down close to the bank. The three squirrels on guard inside heard nothing; they were playing dominoes on the trap door that gave entrance to the vaults. Mr. Flint climbed into the tree and cut the alarm bell cord with a small pair of blunt-nosed scissors—he did not, of course, carry a knife, and he wouldn't let Jasper use his, because the sight of it might make him faint. Then they started around to the front door.

Old Whibley had seen them. The owl was in a spot. He couldn't perch anywhere because he had a gun in each claw and consequently had nothing to perch with. He had been flying round and round above the bank, getting more and more tired—for the guns were heavy. As soon as they came out into the moonlight before the bank door, he aimed one gun and pulled the trigger.

The big Colt .45 went off with a boom that started a lot of things. It broke up the domino game, and the alarmed squirrels made a dash for the bell cord, with the result of course that the cut end came through the hole in the roof when they pulled, and they fell in a heap. Up by the farm the animals, just starting out, broke into a run. And Peter, the bear, who was asleep on the mossy bank by the pool in the woods where Freddy sometimes went to write his poetry, sat up and rubbed his eyes, and then started sleepily down towards the farm.

A .45 kicks hard when it is fired. When Whibley pulled the trigger, the recoil knocked him into a somersault in the air, and he dropped the second gun. When with a good deal of flapping he had recovered himself, he looked down. Mr. Flint was just getting up on one knee from where he had fallen to the ground, and Jasper was running for cover.

“Poor shot,” he said disgustedly. “Must have just nicked him.” So he fired again.

As a matter of fact he had not nicked Flint; the bullet had gone into the ground ten yards off. What had knocked Flint down was the gun that the owl had dropped.

Flint saw this gun, snatched it up, and he too ran for cover just as the second bullet sang off into the sky. It had been even a worse shot than the first one. Fortunately for Whibley, the gun that Flint had recovered had bounced off his shoulder and fallen so that the barrel was clogged with soft dirt. Flint was afraid that if he fired it before it was cleaned it might explode. Moreover, being fired at from the sky had scared him.

Whibley couldn't see either of the men now. As he circled above the trees he could hear them talking.

“Better make a break for the horses,” said Mr. Flint. “They maybe got a machine gun in that little airplane.”

“Airplane, your grandmother's wooden leg!” said Jasper disgustedly. “It's a bird of some kind.”

“Who ever heard of a bird shootin'?”

“Who ever heard of a pig ridin' horseback? Shut your eyes a minute, Cal, I see the critter.”

There was a pause, and then the owl saw something flying towards him that flashed in the moonlight.

Old Whibley wasn't much good at shooting on the wing, but he had a quick eye, and he made a grab with one claw and caught the knife. He banked, and with a twist of his strong leg, sent it flying back into the shadows where it had come from.

There was a squeal from Mr. Flint, and for a second time the owl thought: “I got him!” But it was the sight of the knife flashing past his nose that had terrified the rancher. He broke from cover and ran for his horse, and after a minute Jasper followed him.

Old Whibley waited a minute to exchange a word with Jinx, and Bill, Mrs. Wiggins' two sisters and several smaller animals who came pelting up the road from the barn. Then he flew after the men. He caught up with them at the edge of the Big Woods and threw a couple more shots after them, and then he stopped and swung up to a high limb and perched. For out of the woods came pouring a cloud of bats.

“Good gracious!” said Old Whibley. “Must be Sidney's mother's folks. Didn't know there were so many of 'em.”

As a matter of fact there weren't. But it happened that Sidney's call for help had come just on the night when they were having a family reunion, and aunts and uncles and cousins and children from all over the county had come on for the celebration. Even some bats who were no relation at all had heard about it and had come along, feeling sure that they would have a good time, and that they could claim to be a third cousin of Uncle Jeffrey's wife or something like that, and nobody would know the difference. Hardly anybody keeps track of all the relatives in a family that size.

So the bats had been delighted with the chance to have a little fun, and they came tossing and fluttering out from among the trees, turning and zigzagging and drifting like autumn leaves in a high wind, and chittering happily in their little high voices. When they got near the two horsemen they began flying in a circle around them, a wide one at first, then closer and closer; they dodged the men, who were swinging their hats to drive them off, but they flicked at the horses with their leathery wings, flew under them, grazed their legs and their noses. No horse can stand that sort of thing very long. They began to rear and kick; Mr. Flint's horse lay down and rolled and Mr. Flint had to jump clear; and Jasper got bucked off and fell sprawling. Then the horses ran away.

No horse can stand that sort of thing very long.

The two men beat the air with their hats, and the bats continued to circle just out of reach. The sky seemed full of bats, weaving in and out, flying in all directions, but always, as soon as the men dropped their arms to rest, coming in closer, to flick at the uncovered heads with their wings, which made a continuous rustling sound.