“How much do you want?” asked Roy, more as a joke than anything else.

“Three dollars,” said the man.

“There you are, girls!  Who’ll bid?  Who’ll bid?  This fine young ram going at a sacrifice.”

Jimsy imitated an auctioneer, raising his voice to a sharp pitch.

CHAPTER XVI.

AN INVITATION TO RACE.

It is almost needless to say that the purchase was not consummated.  The girls raised a chorus of protest.  The “nasty thing” was the mildest of the epithets they applied to the beast.

“Well, I don’t know.  I thought we might have his skin done into a robe.  We could give it as a prize to the girl that makes the best record on this motor flight,” suggested Jimsy.

“I wish you’d take him up a thousand feet and drop him,” declared the unfortunate ram’s owner.

“Poor thing! he only acted according to his nature,” defended Peggy; “let him loose and he’ll go back to the flock.”

“Not him,” declared his owner; “he’d only raise more Cain.  Better let him be.”

But the girls raised a chorus of protest.  It was a shame to leave the poor thing tied up, and they insisted that he be let loose.

“All right, if you kin stand it I kin,” grinned the man.

He and the boy bent over the captive ram and cast him loose.  The beast struggled to his feet, and for an instant stood glaring about him out of his yellowish eyes that gleamed like agates.  But it was only for an instant that he remained thus.

Suddenly he lowered his head and without more preliminaries dashed right at the Golden Butterfly.

“Gracious, he’s a game old sport!” yelled Jimsy; “Hasn’t had enough of it yet, eh?”

Right at the Butterfly the ram rushed.  Reaching it, with one bound he was in the chassis.

“Now we’ll get him,” whispered the owner of the ram.  “I told you if he was let go he’d start cutting up rough.”

“Well, you surely proved a good prophet,” laughed Jimsy.

“Now we’ve got to catch him,” said the man.

“How?” whispered Jimsy.

“Someone must lasso him as you did before.  Easy now.  Don’t scare him or he might do damage.”

The ram was seated in the aeroplane for all the world as if he was a scientific investigator of some sort.  He paid no attention whatever to those who were creeping up on him, Jimsy with his rope in his hand, the loop trailing behind him all ready for action.

“This is more fun than a deer hunt!” declared Roy.

“Than a bull fight, you mean,” retorted Jimsy; “this creature gives the best imitation of a wild bull I ever saw.”

They all laughed.  The ram certainly had given a realistic interpretation of a savage Andalusian fighter.

“Now then,” whispered the sheep driver as they drew near.  Jimsy’s rope swirled and settled about the ram’s horns.  But the startled beast was due to give them another surprise.  Hardly had Jimsy’s rope fallen about it when with a snort it leaped clean in the air and out of the aeroplane.  It tore like an express train straight at Jimsy.