"Now, come on, all you little Bunkers," said Cowboy Jack. "We've got to start right away for my ranch, or we won't get there before supper time; and then Maria Castrado, my cook, won't give us anything but beans for supper."
"Oh! Where are your horses?" cried Laddie and Vi together.
"Out on the range," said Cowboy Jack. "Plenty of 'em there."
"But don't we ride out to your ranch on them?" Russ wanted to know, as Cowboy Jack strode around the railroad station, again carrying Mun Bun, and they all trooped after him.
"Got something that beats cayuses," declared Cowboy Jack. "What do you think of _these_ for cow ponies?"
What he pointed out to them were two great, eight-cylinder touring-cars, both painted blue, and behind the steering-wheel of each a smiling Mexican who seemed as glad to see the Bunker children as Cowboy Jack was himself.
"Pile in! Pile in!" said Cowboy Jack in his great voice.
He gave Mun Bun over to Mrs. Bunker, who got into one car with daddy and the hand baggage. But he put all the other children into the tonneau of the other car and got in with them. It was quite plain that he was fond of children and proposed to have a lot of fun with the little Bunkers who had come so far to visit him.
"I've got a lot to show you youngsters," he said to Russ and the others when the cars started. "And I have a surprise for you out at my ranch."
"What is the surprise?" Vi asked. "Is it something we can eat? Or is it a surprise we can play with?"
"You can't eat my surprise," said Cowboy Jack, with one of his widest smiles. "But you can have a lot of fun with it."
"If I tell you now, it won't be a surprise," replied the ranchman. "So you'll have to wait and see it."
They drove through the town in the automobiles, and it seemed a good deal like an Eastern town after all. People dressed just the same as they did in Pineville and there was a five-and-ten-cent store painted red, and a firehouse with a motor-truck hook-and-ladder just like the one at home. Russ and Laddie thought maybe they would not have any use for their cowboy and Indian suits after all.
But by and by the motor-cars got clear of the town and struck into a dusty road on which there were no houses at all. In the distance Rose spied a moving bunch of cattle. _That_ looked like a ranch; but Cowboy Jack told her that his ranch was still a good many miles ahead.