“Oh, girls, we must do something to stop him!” cried Hinpoha, hopping up and down in distress.
“Here, you, stop that!” shouted Katherine, running forward and waving her muff at him threateningly. “I’ll have the law on you!” The man either did not understand, or did not care, for he paid not the slightest heed to her words. “Stop it, stop it, I say!” she commanded, stamping her foot angrily and wildly wishing she were a man, that she might beat this bully even as he was beating the poor little beast.
The man looked at her and grinned derisively. “Who says so?” he growled.
“I say so!” said a voice behind Katherine, and she turned to see the Captain standing beside her. “You stop beating that donkey or I’ll punch your head.” He put his fingers to his lips and uttered a long shrill whistle which the girls recognized as the call of the Sandwiches, and the next minute the other boys came running up the side street, Bottomless Pitt, Monkey, Dan, Peter and Harry, with Slim trailing along in the rear, puffing violently in his efforts to keep up with the rest. They surrounded the cart threateningly and the man sulkily left off beating the donkey.
Sahwah went forward and stroked the little animal’s head and then she uttered a triumphant cry.
“It _is_ Sandhelo!” she exclaimed. “Here’s part of his red, white and blue cockade still sticking in his hair.”
“That’s our donkey,” cried all the girls and boys, pressing close around. “Where did you get him?”
“He is not,” declared the man angrily. “I raise him myself since he was young.”
“That is not true,” said Sahwah shrewdly. “If you had had him very long you would know how to make him go. It seems to me that this is the first time you’ve ever tried to drive him.”
“He is mine, he is mine,” declared the man. “I know how to make him go. He always go for me.”
The man tried to urge the donkey forward, but in vain.
“Now, _we’ll_ show you how to make him go,” said Sahwah. “Where’s that boy with the horn?” She ran up the street a distance and found the boy seated on a doorstep and bribed him with a few pennies to let her take the horn. Then, walking along ahead of Sandhelo she played a half dozen lively notes, such as had sent him flying round the circus ring. No sooner had she started than he started at a great rate. When she stopped he stopped.