"
"Yes, I guess maybe he will be a bit startled," agreed
Tom. "But I haven't seen him around lately, and maybe he has
given up."
"Don't trust to that!" warned Ned.
The tank was now progressing easily along over fields,
hesitating not at small or big ditches, flow going uphill
and now down, across a stretch of country thinly settled,
where even fences were a rarity. When they came to wooden
ones Tom had the workmen get out and take down the bars. Of
course the tank could have crushed them like toothpicks, but
Tom was mindful of the rights of farmers, and a broken fence
might mean strayed cows, or the letting of cattle into a
field of grain or corn, to the damage of both cattle and
fodder.
"There's a barbed-wire fence," observed Ned,
as he pointed to one off some distance across the
field. "Why don't you try demolishing that?"
"Oh, it would be too easy! Besides, I don't want the
bother of putting it up again. When I make the barbed-wire
test I want some set up on heavy posts, and with many
strands, as it is in Flanders. Even that won't stop the
tank, but I'm anxious to see how she breaks up the wire and
supports--just what sort of a breach she makes.
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