"How would you like to ride a real hoss, once?"
"You mean your hoss?"
"I'll trade you, even."
"No, you won't, son. But you can ride him down to the ranch, if you like."
Little Jim almost tumbled from his pony in his eagerness to ride Joshua, his father's horse, with the big saddle and rope and the carbine under the stirrup leather.
"You musta made a long ride," declared Jimmy, as he scrambled up on Joshua. "Josh's shoes is worn thin. He'll be throwin' one, next."
Jimmy called attention to the horse's shoes, that his father and Bartley might not see how really pleased he was to ride a "real horse."
"Yes, a long ride. How is Aunt Jane and Dorry?"
"Oh, they're all right. Uncle Frank he cut twenty-two tons of alfalfa off the lower field last week."