Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/119

Rh them, I notice, go armed," she continued, significantly.

"Huh!" sniffed Bob. "I guess I don't play as bad as all that. Busy Izzy could dance a jig to my playing."

"That's what I thought," responded Madge. "You're just about up to playing jig-tunes on that old mouth-organ."

Just the same, Bob slipped the harmonica into his pocket. "You never can tell what may happen," he grunted.

"It'll be something mighty serious, then, Bobbie, if it necessitates the bringing forth of that instrument of torture," said his sister, bound to have the last word.

At dusk the big automobile got away from Silver Ranch, surrounded by a gang of wall-eyed ponies that looked on the rattling machine about as kindly as they would have viewed a Kansas grain thrasher. The visitors and Jane Ann all rode in the machine, for even Ruth's Freckles would have turned unmanageable within sight and sound of that touring car.

"That choo-choo cart," complained Bud, the cowboy, "would stampede a battalion of hoptoads. Whoa, you Sonny! it ain't goin' tuh bite yuh." This to his own half-crazy mount. "Look out for your Rat-tail, Jimsey, or that yere purple necktie will bite the dust, as they say in the storybooks."