“Gracious!  He’s a goner!” groaned Dick.

CHAPTER III.

The professor’s dilemma.

But the professor was seen to suddenly dart, with an activity they would hardly have expected in him, across the road.  He was only in the nick of time.

Almost opposite to the gap in the fence he had made was a tree with low-hanging boughs.  As the bull charged through the gap, right on his heels, the professor, still with his bag, slung by its leather strap across his shoulders, swung himself up into the lower limbs.

The boys set up a cheer.

“Good for you, professor!” cried Dick, as the bull, with lowered head and horns, charged into the tree and made it shake as if a storm had struck.

[Illustration:  He was only in the nick of time.—­Page 22.]

“Wow!  That’s the time he got a headache!” cried Tom excitedly, as the professor, clinging desperately to his refuge, was almost flung from it by the shock.

“Gracious, boys, what shall I do?” he asked, looking about him from his leafy perch with a glance of despair that would have been comical had the situation not been serious, for the bull, instead of accepting his defeat, stood under the tree pawing and ramping ferociously.

“Well, here’s a fine kettle of fish!” exclaimed Jack.  “What are we going to do now?”

“Blessed if I know,” said Dick helplessly.  “By the bucking bulls of Bedlam, this is a nice mess.”

“Maybe we could throw rocks at him and chase him away,” suggested Tom.

“No chance; he’s got his eye on the professor,” returned Jack, “and if we did get out he would chase us and that wouldn’t do the professor any good.”

“Can’t you help me, boys,” inquired the professor in an agonized tone.  “This tree limb is not exactly—­er—­comfortable.”

“You’re in no danger of falling, are you?” called Jack, in an alarmed voice.

“No—­er—­that is, I don’t think so.  But this is an extraordinary position.  Most—­er—­undignified.  I’m glad my sister can’t see me.”

“Try throwing some of the rocks out of your satchel at him,” suggested Dick.

But the professor waxed indignant at this proposal.

“And cast my pearls before swine! or rather my specimens before a bull!” exclaimed the professor, in helpless indignation.  “No, young gentlemen, not a pebble from this bag is wasted on that creature.”

“I’d drop the whole bag on him,” said Dick, “if I was in that position.  It’s heavy enough to knock out an elephant, let alone a bull.”

“Can’t you suggest anything?” wailed the professor.

“I’m trying to think of something right now,” declared Jack, racking his brains for some way out of the predicament.

“I wish the farmer that owned him would come along and get his old bull out of there,” said Dick.

“Yes, and then there would be fresh complications,” declared Jack.