Jake went out of the door on the jump. He moved fast for Buck on occasion—rare, it is true—but there was a volcanic danger in Hopalong’s eye that put springs in Jake’s boot-heels.
"That’s th’ way to talk," sighed Pickles, happily. Hopalong went to the rack and took down his rifle. "Reckon yo ’re goin’ to want that?" asked Pickles.
"Reckon I might," admitted Hopalong, gravely. "You see, after I find Buck I ’m a-goin’ to look for Dave an’ th’ Dutchman."
"Jiggers! I shore hopes you find ’em. I ’d sooner you get Dave than any man I know, ’ceptin’ me."
"Well, I sorter count on gettin’ Dave. So long, Pickles."
Mary followed her husband outside. "Don’t get hurt, Billy-Red," she warned him.
"That sort o’ vermin never hurt me yet, Mary. When th’ boys get here send ’em after me to Wayback. Tell Ned, rifles. Let me have all th’ money you got; if I miss Buck I might want it."
Mary watched him until he rode by on Allday, waving to him from the corner of the house. Then she went indoors to Pickles.
"That’s a bully man, that Hopalong, ain’t he?" was his enthusiastic greeting.
"He shore is; an’ you ’re a bully boy, Pickles," replied Mary. She took up her sewing again. The boy watched her curiously and was about to ask a question, when Sleep floated past and Pickles forgot to ask it.
Mrs. Blake surveyed her surroundings with the surface calm which comes from seeing and disbelieving. These were depths to which she never had expected to descend. She allowed herself half a moment of speculation on the possibility of there existing, somewhere in the world, a real lack of accommodations as appalling as her imagination could now conceive. "I have often thought Mr. Blake somewhat careless in his choice of a hotel during our wanderings, but the worst of them never even suggested—Margie, did you ever in your life imagine such a room could exist?"
"It is only for an hour or so," returned Margaret, listlessly.
"Oh, I don’t complain, my dear. You are an equal sufferer. And I am distinctly relieved at the thought of removing some of this terrible dust before we—before—we—"
Her voice trailed off into silence as she caught sight of a motto over the door; it was one of those affairs worked in colored worsted over perforated cloth; the colors had been chosen with less regard to harmony than is usually exhibited by an artist; perhaps it was contrast that was sought; as a study in contrasts it was a blasting success. Mrs. Blake glared at it with the fascinated interest of a spectator within the danger zone of a bursting bomb. "’God bless our home,’" she read, in awed undertone. "Perhaps He will, but it is more than it deserves." She mounted laboriously onto a chair and turned the motto to the wall, hastily facing it about again with a suppressed scream: if the front were chaos the back was a cataclysm. In a spasm of indignation she jerked it loose from its fastening and dropped it out of sight behind the evil-looking washstand. In this position her glance fell on the crude specimen of basin provided. She picked it up doubtfully and struck it against the side of the washstand. "Tin!" she exclaimed. "A dishpan!" and went off into peals of laughter, banging the pan and calling "Dinner!" in an unnaturally deep voice, when she could speak from laughing.