“Is he crazy?” asked Dick.
“Not he!” exclaimed the clerk. “He’s a big liar, though, and a thief from way back, but he’s well educated and can talk almost as well as Doctor Dan.”
“What about Doctor Dan?” asked Charley. “Is he all right?”
“Yes, you can bank on him every time, even if he is an Indian. Queer feller, isn’t he? They say he’s got a lot of education, but an Injun’s an Injun wherever you strike him, that’s sure.”
Having delivered himself of this sentiment the clerk wrote the room number after the boys’ names and Dick and Charley went in to dinner, which was much better than they expected to find.
At one o’clock precisely the start was made, Doctor Dan appearing on the scene with the horses and mules.
All the rest of the afternoon the ride continued.
Their way led over a barren plain overgrown with sage brush and strewn with the white alkali of the country.
High mountains rose in the far distance. Doctor Dan informed the boys that they skirted the edge of the Bad Lands.
When night came on a halt was made and Doctor Dan put up the tents in the most expert manner, hobbling the horses and cooking a splendid supper of antelope steak and a sort of cornbread, which he rolled out on a flat stone and cooked in round balls among the hot ashes.