nman! Make another guess."

That appeared too momentous and entrancing for the other two
youngsters, and, adding their shrill and joyous voices to Lee's, they
besieged Jean.

"Dad, where's my pack?" cried Jean. "These young Apaches are after my
scalp."

"Reckon the boys fetched it onto the porch," replied the rancher.

Guy Isbel opened the door and went out. "By golly! heah's three
packs," he called. "Which one do you want, Jean?"

"It's a long, heavy bundle, all tied up," replied Jean.

Guy came staggering in under a burden that brought a whoop from the
youngsters and bright gleams to the eyes of the women. Jean lost
nothing of this. How glad he was that he had tarried in San Francisco
because of a mental picture of this very reception in far-off wild
Arizona.

When Guy deposited the bundle on the floor it jarred the room. It gave
forth metallic and rattling and crackling sounds.

"Everybody stand back an' give me elbow room," ordered Jean,
majestically. "My good folks, I want you all to know this is somethin'
that doesn't happen often. The bundle you see here weighed about a
hundred pounds when I packed it on my shoulder down Market Street in
Frisco. It was stolen from me on shipboard. I got it back in San Diego
an' licked the thief. It rode on a burro from San Diego to Yuma an'
once I thought the burro was lost for keeps. It came up the Colorado
River from Yuma to Ehrenberg an' there went on top of a stage. We got
chased by bandits an' once when the horses were gallopin' hard it near
rolled off. Then it went on the back of a pack horse an' helped wear
him out. An' I reckon it would be somewhere else now if I hadn't
fallen in with a freighter goin' north from Phoenix to the Santa Fe
Trail. The last lap when it sagged the back of a mule was the riskiest
an' full of the narrowest escapes. Twice my mule bucked off his pack
an' left my outfit scattered. Worst of all, my precious bundle made the
mule top heavy comin' down that place back here where the trail seems
to drop off the earth. There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack.
Sometimes it was on top an' other times the mule. But it got here at
last.... An' now I'll open it."

After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented the
suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy, Jean
leisurely untied the many knots round the bundle and unrolled it. He
had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained.