“Fellows,” he sang out, “Mr. Ogden wants us to run over to Lone Pine day after to-morrow; how about it? He says they are going to try out a new air-ship that day. Whoop!”
“Why, of course we will,” said Bob.
“Yes, Mr. Ogden; the bunch is comin’,” shouted Cranny, over the wire. “How long? A few weeks, perhaps. What—I? Oh, I’m out here on business.”
“Listen to that!” chirruped Willie. “On business! What an awful one. Much business he’ll attend to.”
“Here, Bob, Mr. Ogden wants to speak to you.”
Bob took Cranny’s place at the ’phone, and held quite an extended conversation with Mr. Benjamin Ogden, the inventor, father of Robert and Ferdinand. And the younger men, too, sent their voices over the slender wire which stretched across the great prairie.
“Wal, arter all, pards, ye’re a-goin’ ter do it, hey?” growled Pete Sanderson, shaking his head disapprovingly. “’Tain’t nateral ter fly: ’tweren’t intended nohow.”
Sam Skillet, whose huge frame blocked the doorway, agreed.
“No; I ’low as it ain’t,” he added. “But when them thar youngsters set their minds on doin’ anythin’, Pete, outlaw bronc’s couldn’t stop ’em.”
And Cranny, with a loud laugh, “opined” that he was right.