Billie liked riding, but being such a heavy fellow he longed for a change. To his mind a few days spent in lying around and taking things easy would be a delight. At times he joked, and told his chums that if they kept him on the jump much longer he would be able to get a job in some dime museum as
the Living Skeleton; but somehow this doleful information did not appear to cause either Adrian or Donald any alarm. They would look him over critically, and then grin, as they shook their heads in the negative, as though unable to detect any difference in his heft nowadays from what it used to be when they left Keystone Ranch.
In this way they rode in among the houses that formed a prairie village. Farms doubtless lay scattered around, with the owners preferring to live in a community, and ride out to their work every day, either in wagons, or the latest thing in automobiles, which were already becoming very common on the plains.
Seeing an awkward, half-grown boy, who looked as though he might be connected with the tavern in front of which they had halted, Adrian called out to him.
“We want to stop over and get some lunch; can you have our ponies fed, and then brought around to the hitching fence again, after being watered?”
“Reckon I kin, boss,” replied the boy, who was a rather silly looking fellow, Billie thought, and who kept staring at him so hard that he rather fancied he had never before set eyes on so stout a youth; he even grinned and chuckled while taking the bridle reins of the three ponies, and continued to stare at Billie until the three travelers had disappeared in the tap-room of the tavern.
“Seems like you made a hit with that fellow, Billie,” remarked Donald, chuckling.
“Well, I ain’t proud of my conquest,” muttered the fat boy, who had not felt easy under the bold stare of the hostler; “he hain’t got the sweetest face I ever set eyes on; and ’peared to me he might be close to a fool.”
“Here’s the landlord,” remarked Adrian, and turning to the tall man who came bustling forward, he continued: “We’d like to have something warm to eat, if you can give it to us in a short while; your stable boy has taken our ponies around to bait and water. Are we in time for dinner?”
“Be ready in ten minutes, and glad to hev you along with us,” replied the other.