"Same here, only for thirty years," replied Jim hastily. "I just couldn't sleep last night for thinking about the glorious surprise my abused stomach was due to have to-day. I'll bet my gun on my performance if the track is heavy, all right. I'm not poor on speed, and I'm a stayer from Stayersville." "Well, I won't be among the also rans, you can bet on that," laughed Silent. "I don't weigh very much, but I'm geared high." "I'll bet it's good!" cried Humble, "I'll bet it's real good!" "D----n good, you mean!" corrected Jack. "Hey, fellows!" he cried, "did you hear what Humble said? He said that he'd bet it was _real_ good!" "Horray for Humble, the wit of the Star C," laughed Docile. "Me for the apricot pie!" exulted Charley. "Here's where I get square on Blake for rubbing it in all these months about the fine pie he gets over here." "There ain't no apricot pie," gravely lied the sheriff in surprise. "What!" cried Charley in alarm. "There ain't none for me! Oh, well, you can't lose me in daylight, for I'll double up on everything else. I ain't going to get left, all right!" "Don't wake me up," begged Joe Haines. "Let me dream on in peace and plenty. Grub, real, genuine grub, grub what is grub! Oh, joy!" Mrs. Shields hurried into the room and then paused in surprise when she saw that the outfit had not moved toward the feast. "Land sakes!" she cried. "Aren't you boys hungry, or is James up to some of his everlasting teasing again!" "You talk to her, Bud," whispered Jim eagerly. "I'm so scary I shore can't." "Yes, go ahead, Bud!" came instant and unanimous endorsement in whispers. "Well, ma'am," began Bud, clearing his throat, glancing around uneasily to be sure that the crowd was giving him moral backing, and feeling uncomfortable, "we was just getting up a--a----" "B, C, D," prompted Jim in a whisper. "We was just getting up a resolution of thanks, Mrs. Shields," he continued, stabbing his elbow into the stomach of the offending Jim. "You shut up!" he fiercely whispered. "I'm carrying one hundred and forty pounds now without the saddle!" Then he continued: "We all of us are plumb tickled about this, so plumb tickled we don't hardly know what to say----" "That's right," whispered Jim, folding his arms across his stomach. "You're proving it, all right." Silent and Jack hauled Jim to the rear and Bud continued unruffled: "But we want to thank you, ma'am, from the bottoms, the very lowest bottoms of our hearts for your kindness to a orphant outfit what ain't had anything to eat since the war, and very little during it. Joe Haines, here, ma'am, was just saying as how he was a-scared that it is all a dream----" "I didn't neither!" fiercely contradicted Joe in a whisper, looking very self-conscious. He was whisked to the rear to join Jim and the speech went on.