Now, however, I'm not going to wait to be asked. Since you didn't take me with you, I am going to come out on my own. I want to see you again, Kiddie. I want to be your chum for a few weeks, and share your life in that shack in the Bush that you were going to build. By this time you ought to be pining for a companion.
There are so many things I want to do and to see, with you to teach me. Golf and tennis and billiards are all very well, but I yearn for the wide spaces and the wilds. I want to see a real herd of buffalo and a pack of wolves, and to go bear hunting, to do some trapping, and to see some Indians--not the imitation article that hangs around on railway stations wearing breeches and a top hat, but the real noble savage, the wigwam Redskin with painted face and feathered head-dress. But more than all, I want to live in the same world of adventure with you. So I am coming out West. Before you get this letter I shall have started, and some day very soon you may meet me riding along the trail on my way to Sweetwater Bridge.
Then when I have had enough of it, I count upon your coming back home to England with me. This is imperative. There are heaps of important things waiting for you to do and to see to here.
Always your affectionate cousin, HAROLD FRITTON.
P.S.--Give my love to Sheila, and stroke her velvet ears for me.
Kiddie drew a deep breath. Rube Carter, who was behind him dusting the books and pictures, heard him, and turned round.
"Got some bad news in that letter you're readin', Kiddie?" he asked.
Kiddie folded up the letter and replaced it in its envelope.
"No," he answered. "It ought to be good news. My cousin Harold is coming out to pay us a visit."
"That so?" said Rube. "You've told me of your cousin Harold. He's your heir, ain't he? What did you sigh for? Don't you want him?"
"It was Harold who gave me the deerhound," Kiddie explained. "He sends his love to her. And she's dead. That's why I sighed. Say, Rube, you'll like Cousin Harold."
"Dunno 'bout that," said Rube. "Guess I shall have ter take a very far back seat when he comes along. Why, by all accounts he's even more of a gentleman than you are yourself, Kiddie."
"That's quite true," Kiddie acknowledged. "But that's no disadvantage, is it? We both stand in need of a bit of polishin' up before we go home to England again."