"Oh, Bud, I'm so tired and hungry," said Dick, as Bud lifted him from the saddle.
"Here you, Bill, git busy in a hurry. This kid ain't hed nothin' ter eat in a week. He's 'most starved. Bile yer coffee double-quick, an' git up a mess o' bacon an' flapjacks pretty dern pronto, if yer don't want me ter git inter yer wool."
Bud was rubbing the cold and chafed wrists of the boy beside the fire, which one of the boys had replenished. The boys surrounded little Dick with many inquiries, but Bud shooed them away.
"Don't yer answer a bloomin' question until yer gits yer system packed with cooky's best grub. I reckon, now, yer could eat erbout eighteen o' them twelve-inch flapjacks what Bill makes, an' drink somethin' like a gallon o' ther fust coffee what comes out o' ther pot."
Little Dick smiled, as he watched with glistening eyes the rapid movements of Bill McCall as he hustled over his fire, the air redolent with the odors of coffee and bacon and griddle cakes, so that his mouth fairly watered.
When Bill shouted breakfast, Ted and Bud sat Dick down and loaded his plate with good things, which he caused to disappear in a hurry.
But after a while he was stuffed like a Christmas turkey, and put his tin plate away with a sigh, and absolutely cleaned.
"Now," said Ted, when he saw this good sign, "where have you been all day and all night? We've been scared about you. Thought we had lost you, too."
Dick went ahead with his story from the very beginning, and told of the downfall of Pokopokowo, and his escape, and of his all-night ride into the west, to accidentally stumble, at daylight, into camp.
The boys listened in amazement to this record of courage on the part of its youngest member, and some seemed to doubt the Indian part of it.