“Oh, thank you!” cried Dorothy.
“A thousand times,” added Tavia.
“Come on,” said Lance. “Goo’night, Bill!”
“Goo’night!” responded the operator, and slammed down the window.
They rattled over the crossing and then the ponies set into an easy trot, led by the cowboy’s Gaby.
Dorothy Dale and Tavia Travers had both learned to ride when they were much younger. Indeed, Tavia had learned to ride bareback upon the horses left out to pasture around Dalton, in the days when she was a regular tomboy.
The action of these cow ponies was easy, and the girls enjoyed the strange ride during the first few miles, at least. They had ridden with divided skirts at home; therefore their present position in the saddle was not as strange to them as it might have been.
But there were fifty miles to travel when they left Mrs. Little’s. “It looks like an awfully big contract,” admitted Tavia.
“Yuh ain’t got tuh look at it all tuh once, Miss,” said Lance, good-naturedly. “Yuh take it mile by mile, an’ it ain’t so far.”
“That’s so,” declared Tavia. “I never thought of that.” Then to Dorothy she whispered. “Isn’t he just splendid? And how sweetly he drawls his words?”