"You're already elected!" shouted Bob Worther.
Around at the other side of the station Jack found Firio waiting his turn in patient isolation, with P.D., Wrath of God, and Jag Ear.
"Sí! sí!" called Firio triumphantly to all the sceptics who had told him that Jack would not return.
Jack took the little Indian by the shoulders and rocked him back and forth in delight, while Firio's eyes were burning coals of jubilation.
"You knew!" Jack exclaimed. "You were right! I have come back!"
"Sí, sí! I know!" repeated Firio.
"No stopping him from bringing the whole cavalcade to the station, either," said Jim Galway. "And he wouldn't join the rest of us out in front of the station. He was going to be his own reception committee and hold an overflow meeting all by himself!"
There was no disguising the fact that the equine trio of veterans remembered Jack. With P.D. and Jag Ear the demonstration was unrestrained; but however exultant Wrath of God might be in secret, he was of no mind to compromise his reputation for lugubriousness by any public display of emotional weakness.
"Wrath of God, I believe you were a cross-eyed Cromwellian soldier in your previous incarnation!" said Jack; "and as it is hard for a horse to be crosseyed, you could not retain the characteristic. Think of that! Wouldn't a cross-eyed Cromwellian soldier strike fear to the heart of any loyalist? And Jag Ear, you're getting fat!"
"I keep his hoofs hard. When he fat he eat less on trail!" explained
Firio, becoming almost voluble. "All ready for trail!" he hinted.