“Well,” said Mifflin, after freeing the dog’s muzzle, and with difficulty restraining him from burying his teeth in the tramp’s shin, “what shall we do with this heroic specimen of manhood?  Shall we cart him over to the jail in Port Vigor, or shall we let him go?”

The tramp burst into a whining appeal that was almost funny, it was so abject.  The Professor cut it short.

“I ought to pack you into quod,” he said.  “Are you the Phoebus Apollo I scuffled with down the lane last night?  Was it you skulking around this wagon then?”

“No, boss, that was Splitlip Sam, honest to Gawd it was.  He come back, boss; said he’d been fightin’ with a cat-o’-mountain!  Say, boss, you sure hit him hard.  One of his lamps is a pudding!  Boss, I’ll swear I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it.”

“I don’t like your society,” said the Professor, “and I’m going to turn you loose.  I’m going to count ten, and if you’re not out of this quarry by then, I’ll shoot.  And if I see you again I’ll skin you alive.  Now get out!”

He cut the knotted handkerchief in two.  The hobo needed no urging.  He spun on his heel and fled like a rabbit.  The Professor watched him go, and as the fat, ungainly figure burst through a hedge and disappeared he fired the revolver into the air to frighten him still more.  Then he tossed the weapon into the pool near by.

“Well, Miss McGill,” he said with a chuckle, “if you like to undertake breakfast, I’ll fix up Peg.”  And he drew the horse-shoe from his pocket once more.

A brief inspection of Parnassus satisfied me that the thieves had not had time to do any real damage.  They had got out most of the eatables and spread them on a flat rock in preparation for a feast; and they had tracked a good deal of mud into the van; but otherwise I could see nothing amiss.  So while Mifflin busied himself with Peg’s foot it was easy for me to get a meal under way.  I found a gush of clean water trickling down the face of the rock.  There were still some eggs and bread and cheese in the little cupboard, and an unopened tin of condensed milk.  I gave Peg her nose bag of oats, and fed Bock, who was frisking about in high spirits.  By that time the shoeing was done, and the Professor and I sat down to an improvised meal.  I was beginning to feel as if this gipsy existence were the normal course of my life.

“Well, Professor,” I said, as I handed him a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and cheese, “for a man who slept in a wet haystack, you acquit yourself with excellent valour.”

“Old Parnassus is quite a stormy petrel,” he said.  “I used to think the chief difficulty in writing a book would be to invent things to happen, but if I were to sit down and write the adventures I’d had with her it would be a regular Odyssey.”

“How about Peg’s foot?” I asked.  “Can she travel on it?”

“It’ll be all right if you go easy.  I’ve scraped out the injured part and put the shoe back.  I keep a little kit of tools under the van for emergencies of all sorts.”