“I really and truly believe that’s it, coming along at last; and say, I give you my solemn affidavy right now, that I never saw daybreak as thankfully as this same morning!”
That was what Billie was telling himself, as he strained his eyes, and perhaps his imagination at the same time, in staring into the magic east, where all his hopes lay. As the reader has found out before now, this same Billie was something of a talker, and could ask more questions in ten minutes than most fellows would think up in an hour. And when he had no one else to impose on as an audience, he did not hesitate to talk to himself, yes, and often carry on a regular conversation in that way.
But at least his hopes with regard to the breaking of day were not doomed to be disappointed this time; for that was really the first faint streak beginning to light up the horizon, where it lay low and flat against the east.
He watched it slowly broaden, and kept telling himself that he was a mighty fortunate boy to be able to see the morning, after all his troubles.
At the same time Billie felt a dash of real pride, to think that he had managed to hold his own, even when pitted against the perils of the desert.
“Oh! yes, I’m getting to be a veteran, that’s what,” he remarked, complacently, when he found that he could begin to see a little over the sandy range, where the small dunes showed the fury of the previous day’s dry storm; “and mebbe I won’t have a stunning story to spin for the benefit of my two chums, when we get together again. Say, by the way, I wonder where they are right now; and if Broncho Billie after all will have to do the rescue act for the rest of the bunch?”
That was certainly putting on airs for you; it would be the climax of all his experiences if some time or other he, the late greenhorn, could run across an opportunity to stretch out his hand and render assistance to those seasoned prairie range boys.
All at once Billie remembered something.
“Wow! I have got a fine lookout before me, now, haven’t I; without a broncho to help me along my weary way? Hang that measly Jupiter, why couldn’t he have stuck by me? He ought to have known Little Billie better than that. I was able to keep them fierce wolves from devouring him, sure I was; didn’t I prove it by knocking over a whole lot of the critters. And that reminds me I ought to step out to see what became of my game.”
This he at once started to do; and it gave him a