Jenny smiled. She did not regard herself as a mean person, but she thought maybe she could be mean for just a short time if she tried.

She gathered a number of cherries and put them carefully—very carefully!—in her pockets. She carried two in her hands, too. Then she walked quietly back to where she had seen the mean men. She hoped they hadn't heard the two explosions. The cherry tree was some distance away, so maybe they hadn't.

She was in luck: the party remained exactly as it had been before. The mean men seemed to be waiting for something, and of course the foal couldn't do anything.

Now she had to plan this carefully. She had to drive off the men, then run down and untie the foal so he could run away. His mother had talked to her, so probably he could too. She would tell him what she was doing. With luck, he would get away before the mean men knew what happened.

Jenny was scared, but that didn't stop her. She just had to rescue that foal!

She nerved herself, clenched her teeth, and hurled a cherry bomb down toward the party. She had a pretty good arm, and now she could really see where she was throwing. She aimed it so that the cherry wouldn't actually hit anyone, just land nearby.

It worked perfectly. The bomb exploded right behind one of the mean men. He jumped right off the ground, his stubby legs running while he was still in the air. He thought somebody was attacking him—which was the general idea.

Jenny threw another bomb. This one detonated behind one of the other men, and he ran off too. It was such a joy to see what she was doing! The foal was also alarmed, but he couldn't run, because of the hobble, so he just stood there looking scared.

Jenny dug a bomb out of her pocket and threw it behind the third mean man. He was already running away, and this made him run faster. In a moment all three were gone.

Jenny ran down to the foal. "Don't be frightened, Chay!" she called. "I'm here to help you!" Of course he was frightened, but maybe this made him less so.

She reached him, panting. "Let me untie your hands!" she gasped. "I don't know how much time we have!"

She worked on the knot, but it was very tight. She was good with knots, but knots were ornery things, and it just wasn't possible to rush it. Slowly it came undone.

But that was only the hands. She still needed to do the hobbles on his legs. "Oh, I wish I had a knife to cut these!" she exclaimed as she wrestled with the second ornery knot.

Sammy took off. But he stopped in a moment, by something on the ground. Jenny looked. It was a knife, dropped by one of the fleeing men! She hurried over to get it, and used it to saw through first one hobble rope, and then the other.