"What is all the row about?" he demanded, when Rockefeller, stopping short with disconcerting suddenness, pitched him off anyhow on to a pile of mattresses, tinware, and other miscellaneous properties.
"We are so delighted to see you back, for one thing, and for another we are rejoicing to have our house on wheels standing erect on all-fours," said Nealie, just stopping to give him a big hug, and then, running up to the horse, she dropped a resounding kiss on his nose, held a lump of sugar out for the wise animal to eat, and then, slipping the hobbles back on his legs, sent Rocky off to forage for himself.
"We must get these things put back before we have breakfast; for it is going to rain, and it will never do to let the bedding get wet," she said decidedly, and, hungry though they were, they came to the task without a murmur, only Ducky remained stationary at the fire, carefully stirring the mush, which was slowly cooking there.
But although everyone worked their hardest, the rain was coming down steadily before they had done, and they were all rather damp when they climbed into the wagon, carefully carrying the pot of mush, which was all that could be mustered for breakfast, owing to their stock of provisions having run out.
"Now, Rumple, let us hear your adventures?" said Nealie, who was reclining at ease on a rolled-up mattress at the back of the wagon, while Rupert acted as master of the ceremonies and served out the mush in such fragments of basins as were not too smashed up in the disaster of the night, and on tin plates, his own portion being eaten from the inverted lid of the one saucepan contained in the wagon outfit.
They all made a great deal of fun of that saucepan lid, and the favourite diversion of Sylvia and Rumple was continually to ask Rupert to pass them something, because it was so funny to see him have to balance his awkward plate carefully on the top of the saucepan before he could do what was required of him.
Then Nealie came to the rescue with her question about Rumple's adventures, and at once the hero rose to the occasion, puffing out his chest with such an air of unconscious importance that Sylvia at once called him a pouter pigeon, to his great disgust; for he said it always made him feel sick to look at those conceited birds.
"Never mind the pigeons, they will keep; tell us what you did while you were away," said Rupert, eating in a great hurry, so as to get done before anyone required anything more at his hands.
"I was precious careful when I rose the hill to lie along Rocky's neck, so that anyone who noticed us would only think that it was a horse out on the feed," said Rumple. "But I put the old horse along when we went down the next slope, only I kept on the grass, for I could hear the men ahead of me, and I did not want them to know that I was following. Then there came a long hill and I could see them ever so far ahead of me, as it was beginning to get light. Luckily they disappeared over the crest of the hill before it was full daylight, or I guess that they would have spotted me, though I was lying along the horse like a sack of meal. When I got to the top of that hill, and it is something like a hill too, the sort of thing that will work the starch out of poor old Rocky if we take the wagon that way, the men had disappeared and there was no one in sight for miles and miles. Presently I saw someone coming towards me mounted on a jolly fine horse, and I felt quaky from my hat right down to my boots. Then I caught a gleam of buttons, and I was sure that it was a mounted policeman; so I cooeyed for all I was worth and he rode up at a smart gallop to ask me if I had run away from home or what was the matter."
"What an impudent person!" cried Sylvia wrathfully.