Victor laughed.
“Well, Brandon,” he said, “if it hadn’t been for your encouragement to the paper industry my ankle wouldn’t be aching like the dickens.”
“Or we shouldn’t have seen the circus, either,” returned Dave, “which shows that some good has come from my poems, after all.”
At the mess tent they found preparations for feeding the workers going on briskly. But their attention became speedily attracted toward several tents in which the horses were being stabled.
“Makes me think of Wyoming and old broncho days,” went on Dave, softly. “Guess I won’t do any more riding, though, for a mighty long time.”
“Oh, fade away with such boasting,” said Victor. “Nothing could make me believe that you ever rode a broncho.”
“Why, I——”
Dave didn’t get far with his protest.
“Fade!” roared Victor. And the stout boy concluded to abide by the command.
It was not until half an hour later that the two turned away from the noise and chaotic confusion in which Spudger’s Great Combined Peerless Circus and Menagerie was still involved.