“Bless you, yes,” said Nyoda, smiling reassuringly at this manly lad who was already her favorite, “there wasn’t a dissenting vote in the jury box. We——” but the remainder of her sentence was drowned in an ear-splitting cheer that was decidedly less musical than the Winnebago cheers, but none the less hearty.
“Pedigrees satisfactory, and all that?” inquired the Captain.
“Perfect,” answered Nyoda with twinkling eyes. “I’ve dug up more facts about you than you know yourselves. So,” she added demurely, “if you’re still minded to ‘know us better,’ as you flatteringly remarked on the occasion of our first meeting, why, we’re perfectly willing to be known.
“But you can’t take immediate possession of your club room because we’ve rented it temporarily to another don—another fellow,” she said mischievously, turning the light of the lantern away from the stall where the donkey was. The boys’ eager faces fell a trifle.
“Of course,” they answered politely, “that’s your privilege.”
“He’s a very nice chap,” pursued Nyoda, with a warning glance at the girls behind her, who were stuffing their handkerchiefs into their mouths in an effort not to laugh.
“Yes,” assented the boys without enthusiasm.
“Is it anyone we know?” asked the Captain politely, trying to make conversation after a moment of silence.
“Maybe you do know him,” answered Nyoda. “He’s here tonight. Would you like to meet him?”
She led the way to the stall and turned the light on the donkey. There was a moment of surprised silence, followed by a perfect explosion of laughter. “Where’d you get the donkey with the trousers on?” squeaked Slim in his high thin voice. In the dim light of the lantern the bandages on the donkey’s front legs looked like a pair of trousers. Then the girls, after their laugh was out, explained about the visitor who had come to them from out of the vast, and the Sandwiches declared that they did not in the least mind sharing their club room with a needy donkey, and offered to relieve the girls of the entire care of him, besides trying to find the owner.