CHAPTER X
THE GOATS BECOME A FIERY DRAGON
ot stopping on the lower deck, they went on up until they reached the main saloon deck. It was ever so much wider and nicer than the deck of the cattle ship, and just now it was crowded with passengers who had hastily dressed themselves and had come out on deck to see what was the matter with the ship and its queer actions.
"Oh, there's my goat!" said a boy who was standing at the rail just at the head of the stairway.
It was Frank Brown and, walking up to Billy, he patted him on the neck. A bright faced young man who was with Frank also stooped over and patted Billy.
"Whose goat is this other one?" he asked, turning to pat Billy's mother, who, being jealous like most animals, crowded up to get her share of the attention.
"I don't know," said Frank. "It was picked up from a wreck; but the two goats seem to be very chummy."
Frank was looking along the deck at the long row of excitable passengers, and suddenly he began to laugh.
"I wish we could play some sort of a trick on all these people," he said.
The young man's face lit up with a smile as he gazed at the nervous and worried looking passengers, then all at once he laughed aloud.
"I've got it!" he cried. "Bring your goats and come into my cabin quickly. It's just inside here."
So Billy, willingly enough, was led by the horns into the young man's cabin, and his mother followed after. As soon as they had reached the cabin the young man rang the bell, and when the waiter came to him the young man gave him a check and sent him after a trunk which was soon brought up. Opening it, the young man took out an enormous dragon's head made of papier maché and painted in bright colors. It was a fierce looking head and almost filled the trunk. It had a great, double row of gleaming white teeth, red lips, a red tongue that worked out and in, immense saucer-like eyes and winged ears, while a "scary" looking spine started from the top of its nose and arched high over its neck. The balance of the trunk was filled with a long, thin, sack-like arrangement which was painted green and red and yellow, and which was to represent the dragon's body.
"You know I told you," said the young man, "that I am the property man of a big spectacular show company, and this is a new dragon that I have just had made. It is intended for men to get inside of to walk it across the stage. We'll put the goats in it and start them along the deck, and then we'll see some fun."
Neither Billy nor his mother wanted to get inside that strange looking thing, but the two boys suddenly slipped the big head over Billy and there was no way for him to get out. Then, catching Billy's mother by the horns, they dragged her to the second slit and put her inside. The young man quickly straightened up the ridges and the long, scalloped, folding side fins of the body, while Frank held the head tightly and let the goats prance inside. The young man opened the door and looked out. The passageway was clear and they soon gained the deck. The young man lit a match and stooped down for a moment. Instantly the big eyes were lit up with red. Red flames came out of the tip of the tongue and smoke rolled out of the nostrils.
They headed the dragon up the deck before anybody noticed it, and as soon as the goats were let go they started to run in their efforts to get away from this heavy, dark thing that surrounded them. The young man put his hands to his mouth, and making a megaphone of them, gave a tremendous roar. Instantly everybody looked, and when they saw this great, red-eyed and fire-breathing monster coming toward them there was a grand scamper. A great many of the passengers thought that a sea serpent had got aboard and they did not care to see it any closer. Away they went, making as much noise as a Sunday school picnic, with the fiery dragon right after them. Around and around the deck they chased and the two poor goats were as scared as any of the women on board.
It had been twice around the deck when the red powder that the young man had lighted in its tongue began to die out, so the young man grabbed it just as it passed the place where they had started it off and, quickly turning it in toward his cabin, was struggling with the now thoroughly frightened goats. He got the dragon safely into his room, but, as soon as it was lifted off of Billy and his mother, those frightened goats made a dash for the door and out on deck. Their only idea was to run as fast as they could to get away from that dreadful thing, so when the passengers saw them coming, they thought that some other sort of a monster was loose and they began to run again. Some of the men stopped to see what it was, however, and more than one of them had his revolver in his hand ready to shoot. One of them, in fact, had his finger on the trigger and was going to pull it when another man suddenly called out:
"Wait a minute! They're only goats."
The men caught the goats as they were struggling to get through and the captain, who had been everywhere trying to stop the panic, now came up. The second mate came up also, and when he saw the two goats he was very angry and called one of his men.
"Here," said he, "take these animals down where they belong and tie them up with wires or chains so that they can't gnaw themselves loose. If I see them again before we get to New York there's going to be trouble for somebody."
So Billy and his mother, their fun all over, were taken back down in the hold and tied up tightly, and it was the last time they got loose until they landed in America.
"At any rate," said Billy's mother, "we are together."
"I don't know how we can stay together, though," said Billy, shaking his head. "I belong to Frank Brown and, so far as I can tell, you don't belong to anybody. If you only did, maybe Mr. Brown would buy you, although I don't believe he wants any more."
And Billy was right about Mr. Brown's not wanting any more goats.
The day they landed Frank Brown went to claim his goat. Billy and his mother were still together, but as Frank was about to take Billy away a woe-begone looking little fat man came rushing up.
"Those should been my goats yet!" he exclaimed.
"Your goats?" said Mr. Brown, rather angrily. "Why, man, that one with the singed spots on his back we have just brought over with us from France."
"It makes me nothing out!" exclaimed the man. "They should been my goats! I know them both like it was mine own brother and sister, yes! I know the biggest one by such a black spot on her forehead and the other one by such singed places like vat iss on his back. So! I should bring them both over from Havre, and our ship got such a wreckness in the big thunder weather, and Ach, I could cry mit weeping. My name is Hans Zug and I am a poor man. Yes! I had more as two hundred goats and these two is all what I got now, and if you take them away I don't got any. No!"
One of the sailors from the cattleship who had been taken on board with Billy's mother came up just then and said that Hans was telling the truth. Mr. Brown looked perplexed.
"It's true," he said, "that we got this goat out of the ocean. It is scarcely possible that two goats should be burned exactly alike and this one either slipped loose from our carriage in Havre or was taken away from us there by this man. I have already paid twice for it; once in Europe, once on the ocean, and now I am expected to pay for him a third time in America. Frank, get your goat and come on!"
Poor Hans did not know what to say or do. Mr. Brown was evidently rich and powerful and Hans was afraid he might get himself into trouble. He looked so miserable, however, that Mr. Brown relented, and taking out his pocket-book, handed Hans some money.
"Here," he said, "I'll buy this goat again and then I'll be tempted to hire somebody to hang it, only I'm afraid some butcher would sell it to me a fourth time for mutton."
Frank giggled at this and his father, too, cleared up his anger in a laugh. Then Billy, in spite of all his mother's bleatings, was led away from her. Within an hour he was put in a baggage car of a train for the West where the Browns lived. This time he was not crated, but was tied to a ring with a stout rope.
Up to the time that the train began to start he struggled and pulled, hoping to get away and run back to join his mother, but it was no use. The train pulled out, and every minute Billy was carried farther and farther away from the one goat in the world that was dear to him. He was a very sad goat and he would have been sadder still if he had known that his real misfortunes had only begun. All through that afternoon he chewed at the stout rope, trying to get it loose, and all that night whenever he woke up he began to gnaw at it, not knowing, of course, how far he was being carried away, nor how impossible it would be for him ever to get back to New York, over hundreds of miles of ground, across rivers, through tunnels and over ferries, or even find his mother if he ever did reach New York City.
By morning he had his rope nearly gnawed through. Not long after daylight the train stopped at a little station and the baggage doors on both sides of the car were standing open when the train pulled out. Billy gave a tug at his rope and then another one. It came loose, and, giving a short run, he jumped out of the door. The train by this time was going at a good speed, and Billy landed in the gravel of a steep embankment, rolling over and over. After the train went on he lay quite still, for he had fainted. Poor Billy had broken a leg.
After a long time he crawled painfully up to the country road that crossed the railroad track and led into the village they had just passed. He dragged himself along this road quite a way toward the village, but the pain was too great for him to continue very far, so presently he crawled to the side of the road and lay down in the cool grass. He tried to nibble a bit at this but he was too sick, and finally he stretched himself out and closed his eyes. More and more, now, he missed his mother, and felt that if she could only be there to lick his wounds his leg would get well again, but now he felt that there was no hope for him. All he could do was to close his eyes and die.
