"Like me!" Blue Bonnet nodded.
"They club in on expenses, share the work, and, incidentally, have more fun than some of them ever had before," he continued. "Uncle isn't at all strong—that's why he came back from his mission—but he works hard all the time, always doing good—" he stopped abruptly. "I didn't mean to brag, but when I get started on Uncle Bayard, I never know when to stop."
"And Carita—does she go camping, too?" asked Blue Bonnet.
"Aunt Cynthy often brings the whole family for over Sunday," he replied. Then a thought seemed to strike him. "Why don't you all come up and camp—it isn't a hard trip?"
Blue Bonnet clapped her hands. "Oh, I think it would be perfectly lovely. Grandmother, may we?" she asked.
Mrs. Clyde looked up with her sympathetic smile. "It sounds attractive. Perhaps we can arrange it."
Without seeming to do so Grandmother had heard every word of the conversation, and her heart had warmed to the boy who spoke so glowingly of his uncle's work. Knight Judson was a manly young fellow, she concluded, the right sort to be among girls; the best of companions for the frail, bookish Eastern lad.
Alec himself was charmed with Knight. There was something fascinating about a boy who had spent most of his life in the open, and without much aid from books had yet thought more deeply than most youths of his age. He was tall and strong, all bone and muscle, with something about him that was suggestive of a restless colt; but a thoroughbred, every inch of him.
After breakfast the two boys set out to hunt for Knight's horse, as nothing had been seen or heard of that frisky pony since he had vanished so unceremoniously the evening before. Alec carried a lariat, for learning to lasso had become the absorbing passion of his life, and young Judson, in spite of the hampering folds of the sling about his left arm, could give lessons in that art to any boy of his age in Texas.
Blue Bonnet and Mrs. Clyde looked after the youthful pair with interested eyes. It was plain that Knight had brought a new element into Alec's life, and these two good friends rejoiced, though they said nothing and only smiled with new understanding.
