"To ride to the canyon on!" bellowed the two as with one voice.
"Really?" gasped Tabitha.
"How perfectly scrumptious!" squealed the tribe of McKittrick.
"But Janie and Rosslyn," faltered Gloriana faintly. "Aren't they too small——"
"Oh, he's got a buckboard, too," grinned Billiard, who had recently discovered the red-haired maid's poor little secret; but forbore to make unkind remarks about it because he himself stood somewhat in awe of the sleepy-eyed demons of the desert, since one had unexpectedly kicked him when he was trying to mount. "He drove in for some provisions, and your father told him to bring us all back with him, and we're to camp at the mines until Monday. Won't that be great? Whoop-ee!" He leaped into the air, cracked his heels together and came down with a resounding thump which shook the whole house and made the dishes in the pantry rattle.
But no word of reproof was uttered, for Tabitha had seized the half-dressed, half-combed Janie in her arms, and rushed from the room. It seemed impossible that anyone could have come up that narrow, rocky trail to the Eagles' Nest with a half dozen or more burros and a buckboard without her having heard them, but there they were lined up by the kitchen steps,—seven sleepy-eyed, wicked little burros, saddled and bridled, and a pair of small, wiry mustangs hitched to a light wagon, and driven by Decker Simmons, Mr. Catt's partner.
"Why, Uncle Decker!" Tabitha began.
"Didn't we tell you he was here?" exulted the two boys who had followed her.
"But—but—" she stammered.
"But she didn't b'lieve us," crowed Toady.