lustily with a soup-ladle, and shouting:

"Breakfus' am served; fus' an' las' call fo' breakfus; all dem what am late
don't git no breakfus!"

"Breakfast!" exclaimed Monty Merriweather, who, with Roddy, Butch, and
Beef, remained on the rock, despite the summons of the Cookee. "Hurry up,
Hicks, I'm ravenous. Say, Butch, suppose all that Western regalia makes him
water-logged; he's a terribly long while down there! Didn't he look like
the hero in a moving-picture feature? We've given him the water-cure, but
he will do that same stunt over again. That sunny-souled Hicks is simply
Incorrigible!"

A second later, the grinning, cheery countenance of T. Haviland Hicks,
Jr., shot above the water, and simultaneously with his appearance, just as
though he had been chanting below the surface, for the entertainment of the
finny denizens of Lake Conowingo, the irrepressible youth roared:

"A hotter shootin' match Last Chance never saw--
But Sure-Shot Pete was some quicker on the draw!"






CHAPTER II

"LEAVE IT TO HICKS"