Prescott anxiously.

The accident had disturbed her sadly. The only unperturbed one in the
party was Jake. He took things with philosophical calm.

"Knew more trouble was comin'," said he, and contented himself by
dismissing the situation with that.

"I've got good news for you," said Jimsy, coming up; "your car isn't
hurt a bit."

"Oh, good!" cried the girl, clasping her hands and flushing. Her veil
was raised now and they saw that she was very blonde, very pretty and
just now very pale.

"My, what a rambunctious ram!" punned Roy; "he ramified all over,
didn't he?"

"Gracious, for a time I thought I was seeing things!" gasped the girl,
who was seated on a tufted hummock of grass at the side of the road.

"And then you felt them," laughed Jimsy. "That's the way such things
run."

They all laughed. Soon after, Roy, Jimsy and Jake dragged the small
runabout out of the ditch. In the meantime Peggy had introduced herself
and Jess to the young girl. The latter's name was Lavinia Nesbitt.
She lived not far from the scene of the accident, and had been taking
a jaunt in her machine.

The runabout had been rescued, and the whole party introduced and
talking merrily when Jess set up a cry.

"Goodness! here comes that ram again!"

Down the road, with the two sheep drivers at its heels, the beast was
indeed coming. It advanced at a hard gallop, with head lowered and
formidable horns ready for a charge, into the midst of the group.

"Look out for him!" yelled the sheep herders.

They needed no second injunction. All skipped adroitly out of the path
of the oncoming beast, which was rushing on like a whirlwind. Jimsy
proved equal to the emergency. From his aeroplane he took the rope which
had already done good service in rescuing the _Golden Butterfly_ from
the pond. He formed it into a loop--the lariat of the Western plains.

"Now we've got him!" he exclaimed; "that is, if we are careful. But
watch out!"

"No danger of that," responded Peggy, from the vantage of the tonneau of
the car; "but how are you going to rope him?"

"Watch!"

Jimsy began swinging his loop in ever widening circles. The ram was now
within a few feet of him.

"Oh, the _Dart_!" shrieked Bess; "he'll go right through it!"

Indeed it did appear as if the maddened animal would. But just as there
are many slips between cup and lip so there are many slips between the
ram and the aeroplane.

Just as it appeared that he would plow his way right