"We'll take it as a sign that the Fates have decreed that we're not to
go on to the city by the Golden Gate, but tarry here! Both Jimmie and
Bart are provided with saddle-horses, with chaps--chaps, my dear
Roger, are wide, baggy, shaggy, ill-fitting riding-breeches, made, I
believe, out of goat's hide with the hairy side out!--spurs and
quirts--in short, all the necessary paraphernalia and accoutrements of
a couple of knights of the cattle country. If they lose the two
hundred dollars we win the two outfits! And to-morrow, instead of
riding in a Pullman toward San Francisco, we straddle what they call
a hay-burner for the blue rim of mountains in the south!"

Hapgood stared incredulously, a sort of horror dawning in his pale
little eyes.

"I suppose this is another of your purposeless jokes," he said,
stiffly, after a moment.

"Nothing of the kind! Don't you see we win either way? Frankly, I am
persuaded that the two hundred dollars are now winging their way into
the pockets of an apparently awkward dealer with slow fingers, and
into the pockets of our friend the hotel man. But we will get the
horses, and think of the lark--"

"Lark!" shrilled Hapgood. "A lark--to go wandering off into the
desert--"

"Not wandering! _Pirutin'_ is the word you want, the real vernacular
of the West. Or _skallyhutin'_! I'm strong for the sound of the latter
myself--"