pure exuberance of spirits. Their
troubles at Meadville forgotten, they flew their machines like sportive
birds; never had any of them experienced more fully the joy of flight,
the sense of freedom that comes from traveling untrammeled into the
ether.

They had passed above a small village and were flying low, those in
the auto waving to them, when Peggy, in the _Golden Butterfly_, gave
a sudden exclamation.

"Oh, look," she shouted, "a flock of sheep, and right in the path of
the auto."

At that moment all of them saw the sheep, a large flock, headed by a
belligerent looking ram with immense horns. Jake, who was driving the
car, slowed up as he approached the flock. The woolly herd, huddled
together helplessly, made no effort to get out of the road. Behind them
a man and a boy shouted and yelled vigorously, but with no more effect
than to bunch the animals more squarely in the path of the advancing
car.

All at once, just as the car was slowed down to almost a walking pace,
a big ram separated himself from the flock and actually rushed for the
front seat of the car.

Jake uttered a yell as the woolly creature gave him a hard butt,
knocking him out of his seat. But this wasn't all.

By some strange freak the animal had landed in the car in a sitting
posture. Now the young aviators roared with laughter to behold the
creature seated in Jake's forcibly vacated place. Its hoofs rested on
the driving wheel.

Forward plunged the car, its queer driver with his feet wedged in the
spokes of the steering wheel. Aloft the flock of young aviators roared
with laughter at the sight. It was the oddest experience they had yet
had--this spectacle of a grave-looking, long-horned ram driving an auto,
while Jake prudently kept out of reach of those horns. As for Miss
Prescott and The Wren, they cowered back in the tonneau in keen alarm.

"Oh!" cried Peggy suddenly, "there comes a runabout; that ram will
surely collide with it!"

A runabout coming in the opposite direction dashed round a corner of the
country road at this juncture. The driver was a young girl, but she was
veiled and her features could not be seen under the thick face covering.

Apparently the ram saw the other car coming, for the animal actually
appeared to make a halfway intelligent effort to steer the car out of
the road.

For her part the girl in the runabout swerved her car from side to side
in a struggle to avoid a collision, which appeared inevitable.