“No, I don’t cal’alate we’ll meet up with any bandits,” answered Mabel’s father with a smile. “If we do—well, Tanker Ike and I are pretty well heeled, I guess,” and he lifted from his side coat pocket, where he carried it as if it was a pound of sugar, a revolver of large size.
“Oh, daddy! Don’t bring out that horrid gun!” exclaimed Mabel.
“I thought Western girls were used to guns and such things,” remarked Jack.
“So she is,” said her father. “Mabel is as good a shot with the rifle as I am, but somehow she don’t exactly seem to cotton to these pocket pistols.”
“I think they’re dangerous,” explained the girl with a glance at Jack that set his heart to beating faster again. “I don’t mind a rifle, but for all daddy says so, I’m not as good a shot as he is.”
“I’d like to see you shoot,” said Jack.
“Maybe you will—if you come to see me—I mean us,” she corrected herself quickly, with a blush.
“I’ll come,” said Jack.
Meanwhile, Mr. Blender and some men from the railroad freight office were loading the other wagon. This was one with a canvas top, something like the prairie schooners of the early Western days, and was drawn by a team of four mules. The passenger vehicle was hauled by four horses.
“Well, I guess I’ve got everything in,” commented Tanker Ike. “Now it’s up to you boys to get the game. There’s plenty of it, and I expect when you come back here to take a train East you’ll have a great collection.”