“That’s me,” asserted Jimmy, like a flash. “He’s a spotted little devil, too, and his name, sure it’s Satan, or if it ain’t it ought to be. He beat me out in the first clash and run me all the way home, like a blue streak; but there’s another day acomin’, don’t you forget it; and that score between Jimmy McGraw and Satan has got to be rubbed out. I’m on to his curves now and I’ll sting him, or it’s me chased to the tall timber. You hear me warble, boys!”
“Then we’ll expect to have lots of fun out of the circus, Jimmy,” said Harry, “because they’ve been telling me that calico pony has got the meanest name around here. Some of the boys heard you boasting about how you could manage any animal, and they just couldn’t help running that beast in on you. But if Uncle Job had been here I don’t think they’d have dared to take the risk. You might have been killed.”
“He didn’t get me off and that’s some comfort,” muttered Jimmy, grimly, “I’m a good sticker, you see.”
“Yes, I noticed that it was hard work to get you away from that table,” Jack remarked, with a chuckle.
They had been given comfortable quarters on the ground floor, for the ranch house really boasted of two stories in part. Cots took the place of beds, but they seemed to be all that might be desired; and, as Jack said, were a thousand per cent better than the hard ground, or the hot sand of the desert, which had been their resting place ever since they left Los Angeles, in that ramshackle automobile that had played them false on the journey and had to be abandoned.
It was expected that the two owners of the ranch would possibly return by the following afternoon, when the stirring news could be told. Until then Ned had considered that, perhaps, no action should be taken in connection with Ally Sloper, except that the suspect must be kept under surveillance, so that he might not damage the property in any way. The Colonel would know how to deal with him though in all probability a discharge would be the limit of his punishment.
The night passed without any alarm.
“Sure they had a lesson they won’t forget for some time,” Jimmy declared in the morning, as the four scouts were talking matters over.
They had had considerable trouble in coaxing the said Jimmy to get out of his comfortable bed. He declared in a sleepy voice that he had been cheated out of much repose lately, and needed rest the worst kind. Argument and pleading seeming to have no effect, Ned finally solemnly assured him that they would eat up every bit of breakfast, no matter how they suffered afterwards for it, unless he immediately started dressing. That did the business, for Jimmy believed Ned meant what he threatened, and that there would be a famine in the land.
It was a fine morning and they enjoyed looking out at the scene from the wide and long verandah. The many buildings, the stockade now filled with hundreds of the impounded stock, the horse corrals where the ponies roamed when not in use, or out grazing on the range—all these and more made up a pleasant picture that seemed to promise the boys a most enjoyable time while at Double Cross Ranch.