"No. The store said the buckboard would be right over, almost as soon as I got here. Is the kitchen all cleaned out?"
"Pretty near, I guess. That's what the Mex meant when I caught him at the door. Gee, I wish——"
He was interrupted by a rattling and creaking, and the sound of horses beating a fast tattoo on the hard earth. Above this bedlam arose the sound of a voice in loud and vigorous denunciation.
"Here she comes!" Nort cried. "The food! Say, that team must have been stepping right along. Got here almost as soon as you did, Dick."
With a final roar and crash of wooden timbers, and a last invocation to: "Hold up there, you two wildcats, or I'll bust you wide open," the cart drew up to the ranch house door.
From its swaying side the driver, a grinning youth in a blue shirt and red bandanna 'kerchief about his neck, climbed down.
"Get here in time?" he called. "Sure had these here babies rollin' right along." Then without even a halt for breath he went on: "What do you think of this here team? Best pair of ponies in the state! Lean down, baby, 'til I smooth those ears of yours. Down, I say! Why, you spavin-boned piece of horse meat! Come down here or I'll chew you up! Throw your head back at me, will you? Of all the knock-kneed, wall-eyed chunks of locoed craziness, you're the worst. Pete, you pink-headed, glandered cayuse, drop that neck or I'll skin you alive. That's the stuff! Best little pair of broncoes in the state, boys!"
"You sure got some vocabulary!" laughed Dick. "Think a lot of your team, don't you—sometimes! Yes, you got here in plenty of time."
"Bring them yellow clings?" the Kid asked, anxiously.
"Yep! Two dozen cans of the best yellow cling peaches. An' flour, bacon, an' all the rest. Help me unload, boys."