Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/139

Rh coming toward him. They had, apparently, seen him, also, for the man walked more quickly for a step or two, then stopped altogether, and finally turned sharply off the road and swung the child over a stone wall, with a quick remark which Ken did not hear.

He did hear, however, the child's reply, for it was in a clear and well-known voice. It said: "I don't think this can be the way. I didn't come over a wall."

The remainder of the cherry pie dropped to the dust of the Winterbottom Road. Not more than three gigantic leaps brought Ken to the spot; he vaulted the wall with a clean and magnificent spring that would have won him fame at school. The man was a stranger, as Ken had thought—an untidy and unshaven stranger. He was not quite so tall as Ken, who seized him by the arm.

"May I ask where you're going?" roared Ken, at which the small boy leaped rapturously, fastened himself to Ken's coat-tail, and cried:

"Oh, I'm so glad it's you! I started to come and meet you, and I walked farther than I meant, and I got lost, and I met this person, and he said he'd take me home, and—"