of satisfaction and encouragement vaulted into the saddle before the
stranger.




CHAPTER IV


The dash forward to the train, securely held in the saddle by the arms
of their deliverers, was a secret joy to the children that seemed only
too quickly over. The resistless gallop of the fiery mustangs, the rush
of the night wind, the gathering darkness in which the distant wagons,
now halted and facing them, looked like domed huts in the horizon--all
these seemed but a delightful and fitting climax to the events of the
day. In the sublime forgetfulness of youth, all they had gone through
had left no embarrassing record behind it; they were willing to repeat
their experiences on the morrow, confident of some equally happy end.
And when Clarence, timidly reaching his hand towards the horse-hair
reins lightly held by his companion, had them playfully yielded up to
him by that hold and confident rider, the boy felt himself indeed a man.

But a greater surprise was in store for them. As they neared the wagons,
now formed into a circle with a certain degree of military formality,
they could see that the appointments of the strange party were larger
and more liberal than their own, or indeed anything they had ever known
of the kind. Forty or fifty horses were tethered within the circle, and
the camp fires were already blazing. Before one of them a large tent
was erected, and through the parted flaps could be seen a table actually
spread with a white cloth. Was it a school feast, or was this their