“But I was,” admitted Sue.  “And I think Splash was too, for he was sort of whining in his throat.”

“Well, we’re all right now,” said Bunny.  “But what are you going to do, Tom?  Are you going back to Mr. Bixby?”

“I certainly am not!  I’ve had enough pins and needles stuck in me, though you can’t see ’em now,” and he glanced down at his long, red hands.  “I’m going to run away—­that is, if I can find my way out of this cave.”

“Oh, we can show you the way out all right,” said Bunny.  “But where are you going to run to.”

“I don’t know,” said the boy slowly.

“You can run to our camp,” put in Sue, “and we’ll never tell Mr. Bixby you are there.”

“That’s right!” cried Bunny.  “And maybe you can show us how he stuck pins and needles into you, so we could do it to ourselves.”

“I don’t believe I could,” said Tom, with a shake of his tousled head.  “But I’ll be glad to run to your camp.  I never want to see Mr. Bixby again.”

“What made him stick pins and needles into you?”

“Maybe he didn’t exactly do that.  Maybe it only felt that way, for you couldn’t see anything.  He said he was doing it for an experiment.”

“That’s what the teacher does for the boys in the high school where we go, only we’re in the lower class,” said Bunny.  “Some of the experiments make a funny smell.”

“Well, there’s no smell to this,” said Tom.  “Now let’s get out of here.”

Led by Bunny and Sue, with Splash running on ahead, the ragged boy was soon out of the cave.

Bunny and Sue looked across the lake for a sight of their father in his boat coming back, but as they did not see him, Bunny said: 

“I know what we can do to have some fun.”

“What?” asked Sue, always ready for a good time.

“We can go in Mr. Bailey’s barn and slide down the hay.  He said we could do it any time without asking.”

“Oh, let’s do it then!” Sue cried.  “You’ll come, won’t you?” she asked the ragged boy.

“Course I will!  I like hay-sliding.  I don’t mind being stuck with prickers that way.”

The three were soon sliding down the hay in the mow, coming to an end with a bump in a pile of hay on the barn floor.

All at once Bunny gave a cry, as he was part way down the slide, and he dug his hands into the hay to stop himself from going further.

“What’s the matter?” asked Sue.  “Did you slide on a thistle?”

“No, not a thistle but I slid over something sharp.  I’m going to find out what it is.”

Bunny poked around in the hay, and uttered a cry of astonishment as he brought out one of his toy cars from his electric railroad that had been stolen.

CHAPTER XVI

THE ANGRY GOBBLER

“Oh, what is it?” asked Sue.

“Where’d you find it?” Tom questioned.