"All right, Dad, we'll do it. I like having an object for a ride."
"Same here," said Jim sleepily. "Picnics are asinine things!"
"I don't believe you know much about anything—you're three parts asleep!" said Wally, flinging a cushion at his chum, which Jim caught thankfully, and, remarking that Norah was uncommonly scraggy, adjusted under his head. The result was a vigorous upheaval by the indignant Norah, who declined to be a head-rest for such ingratitude any longer. At this point Mr. Linton discovered that it was time for supper; and the boys, tired after their long journey, were not long in saying goodnight.
Jim came up with Norah, and switched on her light. His eye travelled round the pretty room.
"I don't know what part of home's HOMIEST," he said—"but I always reckon your room runs pretty near it! Blest if I know what it will be like when you're not here, little chap."
Norah rubbed her face against his coat sleeve.
"We don't talk of it," she said. "If we did, I'd—I'd be a horrid coward, Jimmy—boy, and you wouldn't like me a bit!"
"Wouldn't I?" Jim said. "Well, I can't imagine you a coward, anyhow." He bent and kissed her. "Good-night, old kiddie."
They set out in good time next morning, for the sun gave promise of a scorching day.
Billy had the horses ready under the shade of a huge pepper-tree; even there the flies were bad enough to set Monarch and Bobs fretting with irritation, while the two stock horses lashed unceasingly with their tails and stamped in the dust. Nan was a long, handsome brown mare, with two white feet—an old friend of Wally's, who came and patted her and let her rub her worried head against his coat. Cecil mounted Betty and looked on sourly, while Jim walked round Monarch and admired the big black.