Ann advanced warily, with a disapproving eye on the dog.
"Little boy, can you tell me why Robert Sawyer did n't come?" she asked severely.
The result of her cautious question disconcerted her not a little. The boy dropped the dog and bundle to the platform, threw his hat in the air, and capered about in wild glee.
"Hi, there. Bones! We're all right! Golly—but I thought we was side-tracked, fur sure!"
Miss Wetherby sank in limp dismay to a box of freight near by—the bared head disclosed the clustering brown curls and broad forehead, and the eyes uplifted to the whirling hat completed the tell-tale picture.
The urchin caught the hat deftly on the back of his head, and pranced up to Ann with his hands in his pockets.
"Gee-whiz! marm—but I thought you'd flunked fur sure. I reckoned me an' Bones was barkin' up the wrong tree this time. It looked as if we'd come to a jumpin'-off place, an' you'd given us the slip. I'm Bob, myself, ye see, an' I've come all right!"
"Are you Robert Sawyer?" she gasped.
"Jest ye hear that, Bones!" laughed the boy shrilly, capering round and round the small dog again. "I's 'Robert' now—do ye hear?" Then he whirled back to his position in front of Miss Wetherby, and made a low bow. "Robert Sawyer, at yer service," he announced in mock pomposity. "Oh, I say," he added with a quick change of position, "yer 'd better call me 'Bob'; I ain't uster nothin' else. I'd fly off the handle quicker 'n no time, puttin' on airs like that."
Miss Wetherby's back straightened. She made a desperate attempt to regain her usual stern self-possession.