Two Boys in Wyoming | Page 9

when you're ready I'll go with you, and promise that
you'll have something to talk about as long as you live."
The eyes of the boys sparkled as they looked across at each other, and
Jack said:
"Nothing could delight us more. We need a veteran like yourself, and
are happy to know you can serve us."
"How many months can you stay in Wyoming?"

"How many months?" laughed Jack. "We are under promise to be back
at school in New York on the first of November."
"Whew! I wish the time was longer."
"So do we; but we had a hard enough task to get the month, so we must
make the best use of it."
"Wal, we can crowd a good 'eal into two or three weeks, and I won't let
you go to sleep in the daytime--I'll promise you that."
Hazletine produced a brierwood pipe and pressed some tobacco in the
bowl. Although the motion of their ponies caused quite a brisk breeze,
he lighted a match and communicated the flame to the tobacco without
checking the speed of his animal. Then he glanced admiringly to the
right and left, at his companions.
"You're a couple of as fine-looking younkers as I've seed in a long time;
but you're almost as tall as me, and it seems to me you orter be through
with school."
"We expect to stay in school another year and then spend four in
college, after which several years will be needed to get ready for some
profession."
"Great Jiminy!" exclaimed the astonished ranchman; "you must be
powerful dumb, or else there's more to larn than I ever dreamed of."
"Well," said Jack, with a laugh at the simplicity of the fellow, "there are
plenty of boys a great deal smarter then we, but the smartest of them
can spend their whole lives in study and not learn a hundredth part of
what is to be learned."
Hank puffed his pipe slowly and looked seriously at the youth for a
minute without speaking. Then he said, as if partly speaking to himself:
"I s'pose that's so; a chap can go on larning forever, and then die
without knowing half of it. I never had much chance at eddycation, but

managed to pick up 'nough to read and write a letter and to do a little
figgering, but that's all."
"That is what you may call your book education; but how much more
you know of the rivers, the mountains, the climate, the soil, the game,
the Indians, and everything relating to the western half of our country!
In that respect we are but as babes compared with you."
"I s'pose that's so, too," replied the hunter, evidently impressed by the
fact that these youths were destined, if their lives were spared, to
become excellent scholars. He was so thoughtful that they did not
interrupt his meditations, and for a considerable while the three rode in
silence.
It need not be said that Jack and Fred kept their wits about them and
took note of everything in their field of vision. The season had been an
unusually favorable one for Wyoming, the rains having been all that
was required to make the grass succulent, nourishing and abundant.
They could have turned their ponies loose at any point, after leaving the
railway behind them, and the animals would have been able to crop
their fill. It was the same over hundreds of square miles, a fact which
readily explains why many portions of Wyoming rank as the best
grazing country in the world.
It was not yet noon when they rode down a slight declivity to a stream
several rods in width. The water was so clear that the bottom could be
plainly seen from their saddles, the depth being no more than two or
three feet. The ponies paused to drink, and, as they emerged on the
other side and started up the gentle slope, Hazletine suggested that for a
time at least they should be held down to a walk.
One anxiety began to impress itself upon the minds of Jack and Fred.
They were not only hungrier than they had been for months, but that
hunger was increasing at an alarming rate. Neither had brought any
lunch with them, and they wondered how food was to be obtained. Jack
almost fainted at the awful suspicion that perhaps their friend intended
to break them in by making the two or three days' journey to the ranch
without eating anything at all!

"I suppose it would be no trouble for him," was the lugubrious thought
of the youth, "but it will be the death of us!"
Happily this dread proved unfounded. The sun had hardly crossed the
meridian when both lads were thrilled by the declaration of