“Quit your kiddin’!” exclaimed the boy.
“Sure, I’ll give you a dollar,” promised Carl, “and I’ll give it to you in advance. Can they get up on this hog’s-back with a wagon?” he added.
“They sure can,” was the reply. “There’s a road that climbs the hill out of the valley, and I guess they can gee-haw their old delivery wagon along the ridge, all right.”
“Well, go on, now,” Carl exclaimed. “Go on and order the gasoline.”
“Where’s the dollar?” demanded the youngster.
Carl tossed him a silver dollar with a laugh, and saw the boy’s bare feet twinkle as he disappeared down the slope. As a matter of fact, he had little hope of ever seeing the boy again, or of having the message delivered. Still, the little fellow looked so ragged, and forlorn, and hungry, that he would have given him the dollar if he had known that the boy would neither deliver the message nor return.
In an hour or so, however, the boy poked his red head over the summit again and came bounding up to where Carl sat.
“It’s coming!” he cried. “The wagon left the store at the same time I did, and I beat ’em to it! Say,” he added with a chuckle, “the driver made an awful row about coming along this ridge, and I told him you’d be apt to give him a dollar extra. Goin’ to do it?”
“Of course!” laughed Carl. “Anything you say goes. For the time being, you are the purchasing agent for this outfit.”
When at last the delivery wagon with the barrel of gasoline came bumping along the surface of the hill, the driver leading the horse, the boy began a knowing inspection of the flying machines, as if determined to give the delivery boy the impression that he had already become a member in good standing of the party. This was very amusing to Carl.