illionaire. The women
screamed.

"He will be killed; he will be killed!" moaned Mrs. Harding. "Oh, do
something to save him, Mr. Smith; please do something!"

I am rather proud of my generalship at that critical moment. I have a
certain amount of wit in an emergency, and luckily it did not fail me.
It is not an easy matter to head off an enraged bull in an open field,
but I saw a chance and took it.

[Illustration: "Run! Run, boys!"]

I grasped Miss Harding and fairly threw her to the ground.

"Jump! Jump!" I yelled to the others.

Mrs. Chilvers and Miss Dangerfield instantly obeyed, but Mrs. Harding
was too terrified to comprehend my orders. Her eyes were fixed on her
husband, and she neither saw nor heard me. There was not a second to
lose.

I swung that heavy touring-car in a backward curve, so as to face the
fence over which Mr. Harding had climbed. Turning on full speed I headed
for it.

The powerful machine quivered for the fraction of a second and then
leaped from the roadway. There was a crash of splintered fence posts and
boards, a glimpse of flying lumber, and we were in the meadow.

It takes some time to tell this, but it was not long in happening. When
we went through that fence Harding was probably seventy yards away and
to our left. The bull was not twenty feet back of him and gaining
rapidly at every jump. I saw nothing of Carter or Chilvers.

Harding had dropped his club and was running desperately. I feared every
moment that he would fall. He was headed for the pond, but never would
have reached it.

"Drop down! Drop down!" I shouted to Mrs. Harding.

We went over a hummock where a drain-pipe had been laid and I thought we
were done for. The shock hurled Mrs. Harding to the floor. Beyond that
point the ground was hard and fairly smooth and our speed became
terrific.

[Illustration: "Then I struck the bull"]

The distance between the bull and his intended victim had decreased to
so small a space that I despaired of cutting him off. I cannot tell
exactly what happened. I only know that I kept my eye on that bull as
religiously as one attempts to obey the golf mandate, "keep your eye on
the ball."

Then I struck the bull.

I caught him with the left of the front of the car. The collision was
at an angle of about thirty degrees, I should say. I missed Harding by
not more than six feet. I presume we were travelling at a rate of a mile
a minute, and that bull certainly was going one-thir