"I'll see what the outlook is to-morrow morning," said Daddy Bunker quite soberly. "Anyway, I shall not start for the Southwest until day after to-morrow. Will that give you time, if——?"
"Oh, yes," said Mother Bunker, who had become by this time an expert in making quick preparations for leaving home. "Norah and Jerry will get on quite well here."
This was enough to set the six little Bunkers in a ferment. At least, to put their minds in a ferment. They were so excited and so much interested in the possibility of going away again that they could not "settle," as Norah said, to their ordinary pursuits.
Even Rose had by this time decided that she would be able perhaps to pronounce the name of the man Daddy Bunker was going to see—Mr. John Scarbontiskil.
"And, anyway," she told Russ, "maybe I won't have to talk to him much."
"You needn't mind that," said Russ kindly. "Daddy says everybody calls him Cowboy Jack. Daddy has met him and likes him, and he told me that Cowboy Jack likes children, although he has none of his own."
"Why hasn't he?" demanded Vi. "Don't they have little boys and girls down there on the ranch where he lives?"
"He hasn't got any," said Russ. "So he likes other people's children."
RUSS AND LADDIE GOT OUT THEIR COWBOY AND INDIAN SUITS.