Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/342

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
330
THE STEEL HORSE.

had had quite enough of this nonsense. He got upon his feet, brushed the leaves from his clothes, and remarked that it was high time he and his chums were moving.

"What's your hurry?" inquired Dave. "You can't find no better company than we be anywhere about the Falls. Where do you stop when you get there, seeing there ain't no hotel to put up at?"

"We're not going to put up at the Falls," replied Joe. "We shall stop there just long enough to buy a glass of milk or beg a drink of water of somebody, and then we shall take to the road for a ten-mile run before dark."

"Those dogs over there," said Roy, jerking his head toward the prostrate animals, "disputed the right of way with us, and when I tried to drive them out of the road they came at us with such fury that we had to shoot them in self-defense. I hope they don't belong to any of you?"

Roy said this, not because he cared a straw who owned the worthless curs, but for the reason that he felt some curiosity to know why