the company of
Mis' Sproul."

Without a word the Cap'n picked up Louada Murilla and placed her
beside the half-fainting Mrs. Look. Hiram closed the doors of the
van.

"Drive out about two miles," he ordered the man on the box, "and then
let the ladies git out and pick bokays and enjoy nature for the rest
of the afternoon. It's--it's--apt to be kind of stuffy here in the
village."

And the van rumbled away down the street toward the vista framed in
the drooping elms.

"Now, gents," said Hiram to his men, "if this is a
spittin'-at-a-crack contest instead of a tub-squirt, I reckon we'd
better go to headquarters and find out about it."

But at Smyrna's announced determination to raid the referee, Vienna
massed itself in the way. It began to look like the good old times,
and the spectators started a hasty rush to withdraw from the scene.

But Vienna was too openly eager for pitched battle.

To stop then and give them what they had been soliciting all day
seemed too much like gracious accommodation in the view of Foreman
Look. His business just at that moment was with Colonel Gideon Ward,
and he promptly thought of a way to get to him.

At a signal the intelligent Imogene hooped her trunk about him and
hoisted him to her neck. Then she started up the street, brandishing
the trunk before her like a policeman's billy and "roomping" in
hoarse warning to those who encumbered her path.

A charge led by an elephant was not in the martial calculations of
the Viennese. They broke and fled incontinently.

Perhaps Colonel Gideon Ward would have fled also, but the crowd that
had gathered to watch the results of the hose-play was banked closely
in the street.

"Make way!" bellowed Foreman Look. "There's only one man I want, and
I'm goin' to have him. Keep out of my road and you won't get hurt.
Now, Colonel Gideon Ward," he shouted, from his grotesque mount, as
that gentleman, held at bay partly by his pride and partly by the
populace, came face to face with him, "I've been in the circus
business long enough to know a fake when I see one. You've been caught
at it. Own up!"

The Colonel snorted indignantly and scornfully.

"You don't own up, then?" queried Hiram.

"I'll give you five minutes to stop circusin' and get your tub
astraddle that reservoir," snapped the referee.

"It occurs to me," went on Hiram, "that you can spit farther if you're
up a tree. We want you to do your best when you spit for us."

Colonel Wa