“Couldn’t they be sort of extra members? You know lots of clubs have women and girls as extra members.”

“Oh, yes! Could we be that?” begged Margie.

After further discussion the boys agreed to this. The five walked along together, out of the meadow, talking about the mystery deer when, just as they were about to go from a lane into the main road, a fat boy, whom none of them knew, came out on the run, very much excited.

“Hello! Hello!” he greeted Teddy and the57 others. He talked very fast, as if he were having a race with words. “Did you see him?” he asked. “The man—the man with a rope—a long rope like a lasso? He was running over to the woods—I thought he was a cowboy and he asked me if I had seen him and I said who and he said a steer and I thought he was trying to make fun of me so I said no I hadn’t and say—Oh, gosh! Did you see him? He came this way and—oh, but you don’t know who I am, do you? Well, I’m Charlie Nolan. Everybody calls me Fatty Nolan and you can if you like. Oh, say, there he is now! The man with the rope. Look! I’m going to run after him!”

57

58

CHAPTER VII MRS. TRADDLE’S GARDEN

MRS. TRADDLE’S GARDEN

Fatty Nolan, whose rapid-fire talk had taken Teddy and the others by surprise, raced toward a man who was crossing one end of the meadow into the woods. The man had a rope, as the boys and girls could notice. But he did not appear to be a cowboy.

Fatty Nolan

“I’m going to help him catch that steer!” cried Fatty.

A little later he and the man, whom Teddy and his friends did not know, disappeared in the woods where the deer had first been seen.

“Well, what do you make of this?” asked Teddy of his chums.

“You’ve got me,” replied Dick. “Fatty Nolan? Who is he, anyhow?”

“I never saw him before,” said Joe. “He must have just come to Oakdale.”

59 “He seems friendly enough,” said Lucy.

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