FAIRVIEW BOYS ON A RANCH

OR

RIDING WITH THE COWBOYS

BY FREDERICK GORDON

AUTHOR OF "FAIRVIEW BOYS AFLOAT AND ASHORE,"
"FAIRVIEW BOYS AND THEIR RIVALS,"
"FAIRVIEW BOYS AT CAMP MYSTERY," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

CHARLES E. GRAHAM & CO.

NEWARK, N.J.
NEW YORK

Made in U. S. A.

CONTENTS

FAIRVIEW BOYS ON A RANCH

OR

RIDING WITH THE COWBOYS

CHAPTER I

GREAT NEWS

"Say, boys, this is the best ever! We've got a chance to go out on a ranch and play cowboys!"

It was Frank Haven who spoke, and if he had hoped that his words would make a sensation he was not disappointed.

Sammy Brown jumped as though he had been shot, and Bob Bouncer almost choked on a sandwich he was eating. Part of it went down the wrong way, and his chums had to give him a good thumping on the back before he was himself again.

Then he and Sammy backed Frank up into a corner.

"Now, say that again and say it slow," commanded Sammy.

"And no fooling, mind," added Bob. "Give it to us straight."

"Who's fooling?" asked Frank indignantly. "You're a nice one to say that, Bob Bouncer, when you're playing tricks on everybody around you all the time!"

"That's right," agreed Sammy. "Who was it that slipped that crab between the sheets the other night?"

Bob tried to look innocent but it was not a great success.

"He could have climbed there himself, couldn't he?" he ventured weakly. "But never mind about the crab," he went on hurriedly, as he saw the look on his companions' faces. "Go ahead, Frank, and tell us what you meant when you were talking about cowboys."

Frank shook before their eyes a letter that he held open in his hand.

"It's from my brother George," he explained. "It came in the first mail this morning."

Then he paused and pretended to read the letter over again, watching, out of the corner of his eye, his companions fairly dancing with impatience.

"What are you so slow about?" wailed Sammy.

"Get a move on!" Bob fairly shouted.

"What's your hurry?" drawled Frank, as he pretended to puzzle over the writing.

"I guess I can make it out," he said at last, hopefully.

"Of course you can make it out," fretted Sammy, wild with impatience.

"You didn't have any trouble reading it before," grumbled Bob, suspiciously.

"This light isn't any too good," remarked Frank, squinting up his eyes.

This was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Bob reached over and snatched the letter out of Frank's hands, and together with Sammy ran over to a large rock near the shore of the cove, with Frank in hot pursuit.

Bob and Sammy reached the goal first and dodged around, keeping the rock between themselves and Frank as the latter tried to recover his letter.

"Oh, come, fellows, that isn't fair," protested Frank. "It's my letter, you know. Hand it over."

"We'll read it for you first," chuckled Sammy.

"So you won't have to hurt your poor eyes," mocked Bob.

Frank saw that the odds were against him, so he tried to compromise.

"I won't tease you any more," he said. "Give it to me and I'll read you every word of it right off."

Frank was as good as his word, as the others knew he would be, and without any further nonsense read the letter aloud.

Bob and Sammy listened with the utmost eagerness, their hearts beating fast as they realized all the letter meant.

Frank finished reading and folded up the letter with a flourish. Then the three boys stared at each other.

"On a ranch!" gasped Bob.

"With the cowboys!" shouted Sammy.

"It sounds too good to be true," breathed Frank.

It was no wonder that the news should almost take their breath away. No group of jolly, happy-go-lucky small boys on earth could help being excited over it.

Frank's brother George, who was several years older than he, had written, saying that he and Frank had received an invitation to spend the rest of the Summer on a far Western ranch. The owner of the ranch, Mr. Claxton, was a distant connection of the Haven family; and a year before Mr. Haven had been able to do him a great service in connection with a business matter. Mr. Claxton was very grateful, and in a recent letter he had urged the Haven boys to come out and visit him on his ranch. In the breezy way of Westerners he had told them to bring along some of their friends if they wanted to, as there was plenty of room on the ranch and he liked to have lots of boys around him.

"And George hasn't waited a minute to let us know about it," said Frank. "He only got the invitation yesterday and he sat right down and wrote this letter."

"That's bully of him," remarked Bob.

"I wonder if he knew what a rumpus it would make when we got it," observed Sammy.

"I guess he knew pretty well," laughed Frank. "But say, fellows, isn't it the best thing that ever happened?"

"You bet it is!" agreed Bob, fervently.

"A real ranch!" exulted Sammy. "Up to now I've seen them only in moving pictures."

"I never thought I'd see the real thing in all my life!" said Bob, as he danced a jig.

"And cowboys!"

"And Indians, maybe!"

"And Mexicans!"

"And bucking bronchos!"

"And rattlesnakes!"

"And panthers!"

The exclamations tumbled over one another as they came from the lips of the delighted boys.

"Maybe we'll find some treasure out there," ventured Sammy, who was always looking for some mystery. "A deserted gold mine or something like that."

"Why should any one desert a gold mine?" asked Bob.

"That's a thing people usually stick to instead of running away from," added Frank.

"The man who owned it might die, mightn't he?" defended Sammy, stoutly. "Or Indians might have come upon him in the night and driven him away."

"Well, you may have my share of any gold we find," said Bob, skeptically.

"Mine, too," echoed Frank, who, like Bob, had not much faith in Sammy's dreams.

But Sammy, although most of his hopes so far had come to grief, was not a bit discouraged by the gibes of his chums.

"You fellows would be mighty sore if I took you up," he said stubbornly.

"I'm not worrying," said Bob, grandly.

"Don't hold your breath until you get hold of that gold mine, Sammy," advised Frank.

"But say!" exclaimed Sammy, changing the subject as a new thought occurred to him, "how do we know that our folks will let us go so far away?"

This was like a dash of cold water on the little group. Had they been taking too much for granted?

Frank was the first to rally.

"Of course they will!" he ejaculated. "I know that my father and mother will anyway, for George must have talked with them about it before he wrote this letter, and if they weren't willing he would have said so."

"That's all very well for you," said Sammy. "But how about Bob and me?"

"Well, you have tongues in your heads, haven't you?" said the practical Frank. "We can find out about Bob, anyway, by going in right now and asking his mother."

They trooped eagerly into the house where they found Mrs. Bouncer busily engaged in clearing up the breakfast dishes.

"Mercy me!" she exclaimed, with a smile, as they rushed in, "you boys come in like a herd of wild elephants. What's the matter now, I'd like to know?"

All began to talk at once, Frank waving his letter as though it were a flag.

Mrs. Bouncer made a comical gesture of despair and put her hands to her ears.

"One at a time," she begged. "Frank, you seem to be the most sensible of this noisy crew. Now the rest of you boys keep still and let Frank tell me what it's all about."

"We all want to go out West on a ranch," blurted out Frank.

"Out West? A ranch?" gasped Mrs. Bouncer. "What on earth do you mean?"

"This letter will tell all about it better than I can," replied Frank, handing over the important sheet of paper.

Mrs. Bouncer read with the utmost interest while the boys watched her face hopefully. After she had finished she turned back and read it all over again. Then she handed the letter back to Frank.

"How about it, Ma?" asked Bob, who was bursting with impatience. "You're going to let me go, aren't you?"

"Please say yes, Mrs. Bouncer," coaxed Frank.

"We'll all have such a splendid time," added Sammy.

Mrs. Bouncer looked around smilingly on the eager faces.

"The whole thing has taken me so by surprise," she said, "that I hardly know what to say yet. And, of course, I shall have to talk it over with Mr. Bouncer when he comes home to-night."

The boys' faces fell a little at the prospect of delay.

"But I don't mind saying," continued Mrs. Bouncer, "that as far as I'm concerned I'm willing that Bob shall go."

A jubilant shout rose from her small audience.

"That means I can go," cried Bob, cavorting around the room, "because dad always is willing to let ma do as she likes in things like this."

"Don't be too sure," warned Mrs. Bouncer with a laugh, but Bob felt that his cause was won.

"Now, I'm going to shoo you boys out," said Mrs. Bouncer, rising to resume her interrupted work, and the boys capered out into the sunshine of the late July morning.

"That settles it for two of us anyway," exulted Frank.

"It doesn't just exactly settle it, of course," remarked Bob. "But I'm 'most sure that dad will let me go. He hasn't forgotten that he was a boy once himself."

"Now all we have to do is to make sure that Sammy can go, too," said Frank.

"And find his gold mine," put in Bob, slyly.

"I'll write home right away and find out," declared Sammy.

"Do you think your folks will let you go?" asked Frank.

"Of course they will," put in Bob, confidently. "They let him come from Fairview to this place, didn't they? Why won't they be willing then to let him go out West?"

"That's quite another thing," said Sammy, doubtfully. "They know that if I got sick here or anything happened to me they could get to me in a few hours. Then, too, they know your mother and feel perfectly safe as long as I'm staying here with her. But out West, it's hundreds of miles away——"

"Hundreds!" exclaimed Bob, scornfully. "It's thousands of miles away, that's what it is!"

"How many thousands, smarty?" asked Sammy, a little roiled at the interruption.

"It must be ten thousand anyway," returned Bob positively.

"Ten thousand, your grandmother!" retorted Sammy. "It isn't half as far as that to the Pacific Ocean."

Bob would have liked to contradict him, but geography was not one of his strong points and he thought it might be a little better to stay silent.

"As I was saying," went on Sammy, throwing out his chest a little, "there isn't any telling what the folks may think about my going so far away. But I'll get some paper and a pen and write to them this very minute."

"Why not send a telegram?" suggested Frank. "It'll take a day for the letter to get there and another day to get an answer. But you might get an answer to a telegram in an hour or two."

Bob seconded this idea and Sammy himself at first was strongly inclined toward it. But after thinking it over, he shook his head reluctantly.

"No good," he decided. "I couldn't say enough in a telegram. They couldn't get the straight of it and they'd telegraph back telling me to write a letter and tell them all about it. So I might as well write it first as last."

Although to wait two days seemed like that many years to the impatient boys, they saw the sense in what Sammy said, and the latter, having obtained a pen and a sheet of paper, was about to begin his letter, when Bob was struck by a happy thought.

"I tell you what, Sammy," he suggested eagerly, "you've got to write to them, but there's no reason why they can't telegraph back to you as soon as they've written the letter and made up their minds. That'll save a whole day of waiting, anyway."

"That's bully!" put in Frank, delightedly.

"So it is," agreed Sammy. "That is, if the answer's what I want it to be. But if the telegram says 'No' I'll wish I'd waited for the letter. I'd have had another day of hoping, anyway."

"There isn't going to be any 'No,'" declared Bob. "It's going to be a great big 'Yes' and don't you forget it!"

"I hope so," said Sammy, fervently.

He grasped his pen firmly, thrust his tongue into his cheek, as was his habit when composing, and set to work with all the earnestness he could muster to persuade his parents to let him go westward with his chums. They sat by sympathetically, putting in a word or an idea here and there to make the case stronger, and as a final clincher, Frank gave Bobby the letter from George to be enclosed with his own.

When at last Sammy had finished, he read his letter over to his friends and they agreed that it was a masterpiece.

"That'll fetch 'em," declared Frank with decision.

"They can't say No to a letter like that," was Bob's verdict.

To make sure that it was all right, they submitted the letter to Mrs. Bouncer, and though she smiled at some of the grammar and spelling, they took the smiles to be approving ones, and their pride grew that they all had shared in such a work of art.

"Isn't it a dandy letter, Ma?" inquired Bob, proudly.

"They all helped me with it," said Sammy, generously.

"It sounds pretty good to me," added Frank.

"It's all right, boys," said Mrs. Bouncer, warmly. "And from what I know of your mother, Sammy, I feel pretty sure she will let you go. Here's a stamp for you to put on the letter; and you'd better take it right over to the post-office so that it will be sure to go out by the next mail."

The boys scurried away like so many young rabbits, and Mrs. Bouncer looked after them with a smile in her eyes.

The boys soon reached the village post-office, which was less than a five-minutes' walk from the Bouncer cottage, and deposited the letter in the box for the outgoing mail as carefully as though it were glass and they were afraid it might break.

Then, after leaving a little of their pocket money in the village candy store in return for some jujube paste and everlasting suckers, they made their way back to the cottage on the beach, chattering as well as they could with their mouths full of candy.

"It'll be dandy to go out on the ranch," mumbled Sammy; "but we surely will miss some of the fun we've had around here this Summer."

"That's so," replied Bob, a little regretfully. "I wonder if there'll be any place to swim out there."

"There must be plenty of water somewhere around," said Frank, thoughtfully. "I've read a lot about prairie schooners, and, of course, they can't sail without water."

"Listen to him!" shrieked Bob. "Why, you goose, don't you know that prairie schooners are only big wagons?"

"I don't believe it," said Frank, stoutly.

"Bob's right," declared Sammy. "I saw a picture of one a little while ago. It had four horses hitched to it and a man was driving."

"Maybe that was another kind of schooner," suggested Frank, though weakening somewhat before the positive statements of his chums. "Anyhow, there must be ponds or lakes or rivers of some kind. How could the cattle get water if there wasn't?"

"Maybe we'll run across some underground river that will lead to a robber's cave or something," broke in Sammy, eagerly. "You know, the kind that's running along all right and then suddenly sinks down in the ground and people think that's the end of it until they find it starting up again a good many miles away. But what's it been doing while it's been out of sight? Running through a cave of course. Robbers choose just that kind of place——"

"Oh, forget it, Sammy," broke in Bob with a tired expression. "You're thinking of nothing all the time but robbers and mysteries."

"And if he ever saw a robber," added Frank, "he'd run hard to get away from him."

"Of course I would," admitted Sammy. "And so would you, too. But they can't hang around their caves all the time, and we might keep watch and slide in when there was nobody there. There's no telling what we might find."

"Well, we won't count the money just yet anyway," said Bob with a grin. "But speaking of water has made me so hot that I'm going in for a swim. Come along, fellows, and see who'll get his bathing suit on first. Maybe we won't have many more chances and we'd better make the most of them."

They broke into a run, reached the cottage, and soon had slipped into their bathing shirts and trunks.

"The last one in is a Chinaman," sang out Bob, gaily, as the three made a dash for the beach.

They struck the water so nearly at the same time that each denied being a Chinaman and none of the others could prove it.

The water was delightfully cool and refreshing after their trip to the village in the hot sun, and they splashed around merrily.

"Say, fellows, let's swim over to the place where the pirate ship was wrecked," suggested Sammy, as he rose, puffing and blowing, from a longer dive than usual.

"Pirate ship nothing!" snorted Bob. "There you go again, Sammy."

"Well, you don't know that it wasn't," retorted Sammy. "There's part of a ship of some kind wrecked there, and it might just as well have been a pirate as any other kind."

"Cut out the scrapping, you fellows," advised Frank. "You waste more time talking about things you don't know anything about than any fellows I know."

"There are others," Bob came back at him. "Who was it that was talking a little while ago about prairie schooners?"

Sammy opened his mouth to laugh at this, but regretted it the next moment when Frank sent a dash of salt water full in his face. Sammy choked and spluttered and Frank laughed uproariously. But the laugh stopped suddenly, for Bob, who had dived behind him, had caught his legs, and the next instant Frank, too, was swallowing his fill.

There was a good-natured scuffling when he got back again to the surface, and then they came back to Sammy's suggestion to swim out to where the framework of a ship's hull showed above the rocks in which it had been wedged many years before.

"Isn't it a pretty long swim?" asked Frank a little doubtfully.

"It would be if we had to swim all the way," agreed Bob. "But we can wade out a good piece before it gets so deep we'll have to swim."

"I'd like to take a look at the old ship," said Sammy. "Who knows what we might find? I'd made up my mind, anyway, to go out there before the Summer was over. But if we're going away so soon, this may be our last chance. The water may be too rough for us to come in again to-morrow."

It seemed an easy enough swim, and as they had never been expressly forbidden to visit the old wreck they decided to do as Sammy wanted.

They found they could wade for fully a third of the way. Then the water got so deep that they had to swim.

Sammy and Frank were a little in advance when suddenly they heard a frightened shout from Bob.

They turned just in time to see him wave his hands desperately and then sink from sight!

CHAPTER II

IN A BAD FIX

For a moment Frank and Sammy were in a panic. Their hearts seemed to stop beating and they looked at each other in dismay.

"What's the matter with Bob?" shouted Sammy, wildly.

"Perhaps he's only fooling us," yelled back Frank, clutching at a shred of hope.

"No, he isn't!" cried Sammy. "Oh, Frank, let's hurry."

They turned and swam with all their might to the place where their comrade had disappeared.

And while they are trying desperately to rescue Bob, I am going to tell those readers who have not read the earlier books in this series just who the boys were and what fun and adventures they had had together up to the present time.

The boys had all been born and brought up in the town of Fairview, a pleasant little place situated on the edge of a large body of water called Rainbow Lake. There were a number of islands in the lake, the largest being called Pine Island. With such a fine body of water close at hand, the boys had great sport both in Summer and in Winter.

All three boys were between ten and eleven years of age. They were good friends with most of the boys in town, but were especially fond of each other. They attended the same school and were in the same class, and whether in school or out were almost always together.

Frank was a bright boy with plenty of push and go, and was perhaps the leader among the three, if they could be said to have a leader.

Bob Bouncer was full of fun and mischief and always playing pranks. But with all his joking, there was nothing mean or small about him and he was a general favorite.

Sammy Brown was the dreamer of the three. Give Sammy the least idea of a mystery, and he was on it like a cat on a mouse. The fact that most of his so-called mysteries did not amount to anything in the long run did not discourage Sammy a bit. He was always sure he would hit the mark the next time. Then, too, while Sammy did not, as a rule, find what he set out to look for, he had once or twice made some other interesting discovery, so that he did not feel altogether cheated.

One time the boys were sailing on Rainbow Lake in a small craft called the Puff that belonged to George Haven, Frank's brother. The boat was wrecked and the three boys had to live for several days on Pine Island until help came. How they made the best of it and the adventures they had you will find set down in the first volume of the series, named: "Fairview Boys Afloat and Ashore; Or, The Young Crusoes of Pine Island."

Sammy had his chance to show what a lucky or unlucky detective he was in the second book of the series called: "Fairview Boys on Eagle Mountain; Or, Sammy Brown's Treasure Hunt." Sammy found a curious old document in a trunk in the attic that he was sure would lead him to a treasure, and the three chums set off in a great hurry to Eagle Mountain to try and find it.

There is plenty of excitement, though of a different kind, in the third book of the series named: "Fairview Boys and Their Rivals; Or, Bob Bouncer's Schooldays." The jewelry store was robbed and there was a fire in the school. It looked for a time as if the robbery would never be cleared up, but Bob played a clever part in getting back the stolen things and solving the mystery.

Soon after this the boys were invited to visit a hunter who lived on a part of Pine Island that they had never been over. While they were there, for of course they accepted the invitation, they ran across a crabbed old hermit who did his best to drive them from the island. Why he did this and what part was played in the story by an unexpected explosion is told in the fourth book of the series, which is called: "Fairview Boys at Camp Mystery; Or, The Old Hermit and His Secret."

All this had occurred in Winter. But when the Winter had gone and had been followed by Spring, the boys naturally began to plan for the Summer vacation. Mr. Bouncer had taken a cottage at a seaside resort called Lighthouse Cove, and Sammy and Frank had been cordially invited to go with Bob. They had had a splendid time, and Sammy had been greatly stirred up by the strange actions of a man who in Sammy's opinion was certainly digging for pirate gold. The boys, too, had a very dangerous adventure when a motor launch on which they were broke from its moorings in a storm and drifted out to sea. The exciting story of their rescue can be read in the fifth volume of the series, named: "Fairview Boys at Lighthouse Cove; Or, Carried Out to Sea."

As Frank and Sammy reached the point where they had last seen their chum, Bob's head appeared above the surface, his face a kind of grayish green and his eyes filled with terror.

His arms slapped the water aimlessly and he was going down again when Sammy grabbed him by the shoulder, while at the same time Frank got a grip on the other arm.

SAMMY GRABBED HIM BY THE SHOULDER.

"What's the matter, Bob?" panted Sammy.

"C-cramps, I guess," responded Bob, weakly.

"I'll tell you what to do," said Frank. "Turn over on your back, Bob, and try to float. Then Sammy and I will take turns in towing you to shallow water."

Luckily, Bob had sense and self-control enough to do this, though for a moment he felt a wild temptation to grasp his comrades frantically. But he knew that this might make all three of them drown, and he did as Frank had directed. They were soon back in the shallower water, and then the tired and frightened boys found a foothold and all dragged themselves up on the sand where they fell in a heap.

Sammy was the first to speak.

"Lucky thing we heard you yell before you went under, Bob," he remarked.

"How did it all happen?" asked Frank. "I never knew you to have cramps before. And the water wasn't cold this morning."

"I can't understand it myself," said Bob. "One minute I was swimming along all right, and the next I was as weak as a rag. I couldn't straighten out my legs to kick and the first thing I knew I went under. I guess you boys got to me just in time."

"It must have been something you'd eaten," suggested Frank.

"You've just been cramming yourself with those everlasting suckers," said Sammy, severely.

"Huh," snorted Bob, "you're a pretty one to talk! I bet I didn't eat any more candy this morning than you did."

"Never mind what the reason was," broke in Frank. "The only thing we care for now is that Bob is safe and that we're all on solid ground."

"Are you going to tell your mother about it?" asked Sammy.

"What's the use?" answered Bob. "It would only scare her half to death and perhaps she wouldn't let me go in swimming again."

"Still I think you ought to tell her," advised Frank.

But, as it turned out, it did not make the least difference whether he had decided to tell or not, for as soon as Mrs. Bouncer's eye rested upon him and his colorless face, she gave a little shriek and pounced upon him, gathering him up in her arms and making him tell the whole story. Then Bob, much to his disgust, was packed off between blankets and dosed with hot lemonade, although he protested that it was all nonsense and he did not need a thing.

"There's one good thing about it all, anyway," said Sammy later on, as he and Frank sprawled out on the hot sand. "Mr. Bouncer will be so scared over Bob's accident that he'll be only too glad to get him away from the water by letting him go to the ranch."

"That's so," agreed Frank. "I wish this had happened before you sent your letter, Sammy. You could have told your folks about it and that would have been a clincher."

"It sure would," admitted Sammy. "But I guess maybe they'll let me go without that. I'll be mighty glad when I get that telegram. It doesn't seem as if I could wait till to-morrow."

"Well, half of this day is nearly gone anyway," observed Frank. "There's that much to the good. I think—ouch! What was that?"

He had suddenly felt a sharp, stinging pain in the back of his neck.

He put his hand to the spot and rubbed it vigorously.

"It must have been a sand fly," said Sammy. "Those little green ones bite like the mischief sometimes. Just rub the spot a minute and the smart will go away."

The next minute, he, too, sat up with a convulsive jerk.

"Jiminy!" he cried. "I got it myself that time. But it felt more like a bee than a sand fly."

"I don't believe it was a bee," said Frank, "or we'd have heard the buzzing. Ouch——"

This time he sprang to his feet and fairly danced about as the same sharp, stinging sensation caught him in the forehead.

Sammy laughed at the figure Frank was cutting.

"I never knew you were such a good dancer, Frank," he mocked. "Give us a Highland——"

But at this instant something struck him on the tip of the nose and he, too, jumped up and down while he grasped his nose with his hand.

"Who's dancing now?" asked Frank gleefully.

But Sammy's eyes were fixed on a little pellet that lay on the sand at his feet. Stooping down, he picked it up and looked at it solemnly. He pinched it and handed it over to Frank who regarded it curiously.

"There's the sand fly that stung us," said Sammy.

"A putty ball," declared Frank. "Somebody's been shooting at us with a putty blower."

They looked at each other for an instant and then by common consent they looked toward the window of the room where Bob had been put to bed.

"Don't you think you saw that curtain move?" asked Sammy.

"It looked like that," agreed Frank. "But, of course, it might have been the wind."

"Wind nothing!" retorted Sammy, scornfully. "The wind that moved that curtain is named Bob Bouncer."

"Let's go in and rough house him," suggested Frank.

"We surely will," replied Sammy. "A fellow that isn't too sick to shoot a putty blower isn't too sick to have a pillow bounced on his head. Come along."

The two boys marched up to the cottage where Mrs. Bouncer was sitting on the porch shelling peas for dinner.

She smiled at them.

"Where are you going, boys?" she asked.

"Just going in for a minute to see how Bob is getting along," replied Sammy.

"Perhaps he's a little lonesome in there all by himself," added Frank.

"It's very nice of you boys to want to cheer him up," said Mrs. Bouncer. "But if he's asleep, I think perhaps that will do the poor boy more good than company. Wait a minute and I'll see if he's awake."

She went in and Sammy nudged Frank.

"The poor boy!" said Frank, gritting his teeth.

"He needs his sleep!" remarked Sammy. "He'll be tired enough to need it when we get through with him."

They heard Mrs. Bouncer knock on Bob's door.

There was a moment's silence and then a voice piped up:

"Is that you, Ma?"

"Yes, Bobby, dear," was the response. "Frank and Sammy want to come in to cheer you up."

The boys listened breathlessly for the answer. When it came, the voice was very weak and tired.

"I think I'd better try to get to sleep, Ma," Bob said. "But thank Frank and Sammy just the same."

Mrs. Bouncer came back with a genial smile.

"The dear boy isn't feeling quite himself yet," she remarked. "I think perhaps we had better leave him to himself for a time. You can see him later."

"Yes ma'am," replied Sammy. "We'll see him later."

"We'll see him later," repeated Frank, mechanically.

They forced their faces into a smile and went out. And it was not till they were well out of range of Mrs. Bouncer's sight that the frozen smile thawed out.

"Stung!" exclaimed Sammy, dropping heavily on the sand.

"Good and plenty," agreed Frank.

"Bob put one over on us that time all right," continued Sammy.

"He surely did," rejoined Frank. "But our time will come. We'll get him yet."

"You bet we will!" declared Sammy with emphasis. "But there he is now," he went on, looking up at Bob's window.

Frank followed the direction of Sammy's finger and saw the invalid with a broad grin on his face standing at the open window.

Both boys shook their fists at him, at which Bob's smile broadened. Then he yawned, closed his eyes and with long breaths made his chest rise and fall as though in peaceful slumber.

"Oh, if I only had that putty blower with me now," muttered Sammy, "I'd take that peaceful look off his face in a hurry."

"Wouldn't we just!" snapped Frank.

They started to find something to throw at the tantalizing figure at the window. But Bob, though shamming sleep, was keeping a sharp lookout beneath his lowered lids, and before the boys could find anything to throw the window came down, and with a last grin and a mocking flourish, Bob disappeared.

CHAPTER III

GETTING READY

Bob thought it best to stick close to his room for the rest of the day. Part of this decision was due to his mother's advice and to the fact that he really did feel tired after the fright and excitement of the morning. But part was due to the feeling that he had better let the boys cool down from the putty blower incident.

As a result of his long rest, he appeared at the supper table that evening as bright and gay as a lark.

"Bob seems to be quite like himself again to-night," remarked Mrs. Bouncer. "You see, boys, there was no real reason for you to be so anxious and worried about him as you were this morning."

Bob grinned all over his face.

"It was mighty good of them just the same," he said. "I suppose they wanted to read to me or talk to me or something."

"'Or something' is right," murmured Frank to Sammy as he nudged his knee under the table.

"You're right there!" responded Sammy in the same low tone.

Of course there was much to tell Mr. Bouncer about the events of the day. He was greatly startled when he learned of Bob's narrow escape from drowning, and very hearty in his gratitude to the boys for the way they had kept their heads and saved their chum.

"Many boys much older than you would have been completely rattled," he said warmly. "I can't thank you boys enough for what you have done and I'll never forget it. I'm sure that Bobby, too, will remember it as long as he lives."

"Sure I will," replied Bob.

"Oh, Bob has already thanked us," responded Sammy.

"Over and over again," added Frank.

"That's right," said the unsuspecting Mr. Bouncer. "And now what is all this I hear about your going out on a ranch?"

All three talked at once in explaining the proposed trip, but Mr. Bouncer finally got a clear understanding about it.

He was not quite so quick as his wife had been in agreeing to the idea. He saw a good many difficulties in the way.

But one obstacle after another yielded before the begging of the boys and the arguments of his wife. As the boys had foreseen, the accident of the morning was as strong an argument as any.

"I don't think they'll be in any more danger there than they are here," Mrs. Bouncer said. "I'm getting almost afraid of living so near the sea. I'd feel after this as though I ought to watch the boys all day long."

"The young rascals will bear a lot of watching," grinned Mr. Bouncer. "But I believe you're right about the trip, my dear, and I'm willing to let Bob go if you are."

"Hurray!" yelled Bob. "I knew you'd do it, Dad!"

"That's bully!" cried Sammy, warmly.

"It's dandy," agreed Frank.

"Now that fixes it up for two of us, but I'm left out in the cold," said Sammy a little forlornly. "I don't know yet whether I can go or not."

"Don't worry about that, Sammy," said Mr. Bouncer, cheerily. "I'm pretty sure your folks will let you go."

"I hope so," said Sammy. "I'd feel like a cat in a strange garret if I had to hang around these parts while the rest of the boys were away."

"Well, we'll know all about it in the morning anyway," remarked Frank.

"I wish that letter could have got to them to-day," observed Bob. "Then we might have got a telegram before we went to bed."

"What time was it posted this morning?" asked Mr. Bouncer.

"Just a little before ten o'clock," answered his wife.

Mr. Bouncer consulted a time table that he took from his pocket.

"In that case," he said after a pause, "it might possibly have reached your folks this afternoon. They are back in Fairview now, as well as Frank's people, I believe. It all depends on whether this local train made connection at the Junction. Half the time it doesn't, but once in a while it does; and to-day may have been one of those times."

"Good!" cried Sammy, clapping his hands. "We've got a chance then."

He had scarcely finished speaking when there came a knock at the door and Bob sprang up to answer it. A shock-headed boy who did odd jobs about the village was standing there with a blue and white envelope in his hand.

"Come in," cried Bob.