"Yo're well educated, Mr. Loudon," said Johnny Ramsay.
"Correct. Well, then, unless Blakely has hired a bunch o' new men, which ain't likely, then eighteen from twenty-five leaves seven."
"First class in 'rithmetic will take the front seats," remarked Chuck, solemnly. "The little boys mustn't sit with the little girls. Attention, children, an' I'll interduce our new teacher, Mr. Thomas Loudon, a well-known—— Hi! you leave my cayuse alone, Tom! I'm the only gent he allows to spur him. Damitall, he's goin' to buck, an' I'm all het up, anyhow. Oh, ——! I knowed it!"
"Chuck ought to ride pitchers for a livin'," commented Loudon. "Ain't he graceful? Go yuh ten, Telescope, he pulls leather."
Chuck returned to them ten minutes later. He sidled his now thoroughly chastened pony in between Ramsay and Laguerre.
"I'll have nothin' more to do with that long-legged feller on the left o' the line," Chuck announced to the world at large. "He'd just as soon break a friend's neck as not. He ain't got no feelin's whatever. 'Rithmetic's done locoed him."
"As I was sayin' before I was interrupted," said Loudon, grinning, "eighteen from twenty-five leaves seven. There oughtn't to be more'n seven men at the 88 ranch house an' they won't be expectin' callers. There's four of us. What's the answer?"
"Dat ees fine," Laguerre said. "We weel geet dere before Scotty un de odders come. I say we go."
"Me, too," said Johnny Ramsay.
"But no more 'rithmetic!" Chuck Morgan cried in mock alarm. "It shore makes my head ache, 'rithmetic does."