The boys all looked relieved, and each one thanked the colonel heartily.
“That’s all right,” said he. “You’re not the handsomest fellows I ever see, but you look honest.”
A slight shade of anxiety now returned to Phœnix’s face.
“How much will it cost, sir,” he said, “to go from here to Enterprise?”
“I charge you a dollar apiece,” said the colonel, “to carry you over to Salt Lake. That’s seven miles away, and it’s where you take the steamboat. Then the fare is six dollars apiece to Enterprise or Sanford.”
“Squelched again!” said Chap.
The colonel looked at him with a half smile.
“A fellow with legs like yours,” he said, “ought to be able to walk it. The soft spots you’d have to pass over ain’t more’n a yard deep.”
“Oh, I could walk it easy enough,” said Chap; “but I couldn’t carry three short-legged fellows. That’s where the trouble comes in.”
“Well, then, I guess I won’t make you do it,” said the colonel. “Let me see,” taking a pencil and a piece of paper; “four ones is four, and four sixes is twenty-four, and then four more sixes, from Sanford to Jacksonville, is twenty-four more, and then a couple of dollars for extras—none of you fellows drink, do you?”