“Stream? No. Not by a long shot. What you want a stream for?”
“Why, for my bath.”
“Are you so dirty? Anything the matter with you that you must wash yourself?”
His face dripping from its plunge in the small basin, the guest looked up, surprised.
“Nothing the matter, except that I haven’t dipped—all over—since I left home and I’ve ridden miles and miles. Of course, I’m dirty. How could I help being?”
Jack whistled.
“Whew! Is that the kind of a fellow you are? Well, then, the sooner you get over such namby-pamby notions the better. This isn’t any place for a ‘tenderfoot.’”
“I’m not a ‘tenderfoot’. I’m a born Westerner. But it’s neither decent nor healthy not to keep your body clean,” retorted Carlos.
“It’ll be healthy for you not to put on any ‘frills’ here, my Young-Fuss-and-Feathers! And there’s Ma calling us to breakfast. High time, too. I’m hungry enough to eat hay.”
Carlos, also, was hungry; and anxious about Carlota, who had been so tired on the previous night; so he hurried into the house. This had but three rooms. The larger was the living room of the family and the waiting place of what few passengers ever entered it. A small desk, where Mr. Burnham kept his accounts, was in one corner, and a table, covered by an oilcloth square, was in the middle.