ken or not!" Jim retorted grimly.
"Go after your own horses. I engaged to unload eggs, and it looks as if
the job was finished. Lou, are you sure you're all right?"

The old man danced up and down in the road, spattering flecks of egg
about him.

"We'll see about that," he shrilled. "You come along with me! You're my
witnesses----"

"We'll be your witnesses that you were on the wrong side of the road,
and knew it," Jim helped Lou to her feet. "They warned you, and you
wouldn't turn out."

With an outburst of inarticulate rage the old man dashed off down the
road, and Lou, helpless with laughter, clung to Jim's slippery sleeve.

"Don't mind him," she gasped. "Old skinflint! Oh, Jim, you l-look like
an omelet."

CHAPTER VI

The Red Note-Book

For a moment Jim laughed with her; then the seriousness of their
situation was borne in upon him, and his face sobered.

"It's the kind of an omelet that won't come off in a hurry, I'm afraid,"
he said. "How on earth are we going to walk into Riverburgh like this?"

It was the first time that he had appealed to her, and Lou's laughter
ceased also, but her cheerful confidence did not fail her.

"We gotter find some place where we can git cleaned up, that's all," she
replied practically. "Most anybody would let you do that, I guess, if
you told them what happened, an' if you can't ask--why, I kin. Anybody
'cept a mean old thing like that! I s'pose I ought to be sorry that his
wagon's broke an' his eggs are all over us instead of where they was
goin', but I'm not a mite. Long's he wasn't hurt, I'm kinder glad."

"Still, those people in the car ought to have stopped to see the extent
of the damage they had done, even if they did have the right-of-way,"
Jim observed. "The old fellow had his grievance, but he got my goat when
he said he didn't care if your neck was broken or not, and I wouldn't
have helped him if I could."

"'Goat'?" Lou repeated.

Jim had no opportunity to explain, for at that moment a woman in a faded
gingham gown toiled hurriedly over the brow of the hill, and, on seeing
them, stopped, with one hand at her breast.

"Oh!" she gasped. "There's wasn't anyone hurt, was there? I saw the
accident from my porch, and I came just as quick as I could."

Jim explained, and the woman listened, wide-eyed.

"You both come straight along with me," she invited when he had
finished. "I'll lend you some overalls, and you and the little girl can
just sit arou