The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West Part 13

It was not the first time the children had traveled in a sleeping car, but they were always interested. It did seem queer to them to be traveling along in their sleep.

"Almost like a dream," Nan said, and I think she was quite right.

"Where's my basket?" Flossie asked, after they had ridden on for about an hour.

"Do you want to see if Snap is in it this time?" her father jokingly inquired.

"Snap's too big to get in my basket," Flossie answered. "He's a big dog. But I want to get some of the cookies Dinah gave me. I'm hungry."

"So'm I!" cried Freddie, who had been looking from the window. "I want a cookie too!"

"Dinah gave me some for you," Flossie said, and, when her basket had been handed down from the bra.s.s rack over the seat, she searched around in it until she had found what she was looking for--a bag of mola.s.ses and sugar cookies.

"Oh, Dinah does make such good cookies!" said Flossie, with her mouth half full, though, really, to be polite, I suppose, she should not have talked that way.

"Shall we get any cookies out on the cattle ranch?" asked Nan. "If we don't, Flossie and Freddie will miss them."

"Oh, they have cooks on ranches, same as they do in lumber camps,"

Bert declared. "I saw a picture once of a Chinese cook on a cattle ranch."

"Can a Chinaman cook?" asked Nan, in surprise. "I thought they could only iron s.h.i.+rts and collars."

"Some Chinese are very good cooks," explained Mr. Bobbsey. "And Bert is right when he says that on some ranches in the West a Chinese man does the cooking. I don't know whether we shall find one where we are going or not."

"Are we going to the lumber tract first, or to the ranch?" asked Bert.

"To where the big trees grow," answered his father. "The tract your mother is going to own is near a place called Lumberville. It is several hundred miles north and west of Chicago. We will stop off there, and go on later to the ranch. That is near a place called Cowdon."

"What funny names," laughed Bert. "Lumberville and Cowdon. You would think they were named after the trees and the cows."

"I think they were," his father said. "Out West they take names that mean something, and Lumberville and Cowdon just describe the places they are named after."

While Flossie and Freddie were looking from the window of the coach in which they were riding, while Bert and Nan were telling one another what good times they would have on the ranch and in the lumber camp, and while Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were discussing matters about the trip, there came a knock on the door.

Mr. Bobbsey opened it and a lady came in, saying:

"I am so glad to see you! I am traveling to Chicago all alone, and I saw you get on as I looked from my window in the next car. I came back to speak to you."

"Why, it's Mrs. Powendon!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey as she saw a lady whom she had first met at a Red Cross meeting. Mrs. Powendon lived in a village near Lakeport, and often came over to see Mr. and Mrs.

Bobbsey and other friends. "I am very glad you saw us and came in to see us," went on Mrs. Bobbsey. "Do sit down! So you are going to Chicago?"

"Yes. But what takes you away from Lakeport?"

"I don't suppose you heard the news, but an old uncle of mine, whom I had not seen for years, died and left me a western lumber tract and a cattle ranch. Mr. Bobbsey and I are on our way there now to look after matters, and we had to take the children with us."

"And I suppose they were very sorry about that," said Mrs. Powendon with a smile, as she looked at Nan and Bert.

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bert "Indeed we weren't sorry! We're going to have fine times!"

Then Mrs. Powendon sat down and began talking to Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, while Nan and Bert looked at magazines their father had bought for them from the train boy.

No one paid much attention to Flossie and Freddie, and it was not until some little time later that Mrs. Bobbsey, looking around the drawing room, exclaimed:

"Where are they?"

"Who?" asked her husband.

"Flossie and Freddie. They aren't here!"

That was very evident. There was no place in the little room for them to hide, and yet the children could not be seen.

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, "can they have fallen off the train?"

"Of course not!" answered her husband "They must just have gone outside in the car. I'll look."

Mr. Bobbsey was about to open the door when a knock came on it, and, as the door swung back, the face of a colored porter looked in. The man wore a white jacket.

"'Scuse me, sah," he said, talking just as Sam Johnson did, "but did you-all only want dinnah for two?"

"Dinner for two? What do you mean?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"Why, dey's two li'l children in de dinin' car. Dey says as how dey belongs back yeah, an' dey's done gone an' ordered dinnah for two--jest fo' der own selves--jest two! I was wonderin' ef you-all folks wasn't goin' to eat!"

CHAPTER X

FREDDIE, AS USUAL

"Dinner for two! Little children!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey.

"It is Flossie and Freddie!" cried his wife. "Where is the dining car?"

The waiter from the dining car, who had come back to the sleeping car where the Bobbseys had their places, smiled as he finished telling about the two children.

"Dey's right up forward in my dinin' car," he said to Mrs. Bobbsey.

"An' dey is all right, too, lady! I tooked good keer ob 'em. Dey jest walked right in, laik dey owned de place, an' I says to 'em, what will dey hab?

"Dey tells me dat dey done want dinnah fo' two, an' I starts to gib it to 'em, but de conductor says as how dey belonged to a party back heah, an' mebby de odder folks would want somethin' to eat, too. An', as anyhow, dey had bettah be tol'."

"I'm hungry!" exclaimed Bert.

"So'm I!" added Nan.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I must go and see about them."