“Me—­I’m going,” declared Jimmie Time stoutly, and waited.

Boogies wavered a tremulous moment.

“I’m going with you,” he managed at last.

He blurted the words.  They had to rush out to beat down his native caution with quick blows.

“Listen!” said Jimmie Time impressively.  “We got money enough to start.  Then we just strike out for the peraries.”

“Like the guy in the story!” Boogies glowed at the adept who before his very eyes was turning a beautiful dream into stark reality.  He was praying that his own courage to face it would endure.

“You hurry home,” commanded Jimmie, “and cop an axe and all the grub you can lay your hands on.”

Boogies fell from the heights as he had feared he would.

“Aw, chee!” he said sanely.  “And s’pose me stepmother gets her lamps on me!  Wouldn’t she bean me?  Sure she would!”

“Bind her and gag her,” said Jimmie promptly.  “What’s one weak woman?”

“Yah!  She’s a hellion and you know it.”

“Listen!” said Jimmie sternly.  “If you’re going into the wild and lawless life of the peraries with me you got to learn to get things.  Jesse James or Morgan’s men could get me that axe and that grub, and not make one-two-three of it.”

“Them guys had practice—­and likely they never had to go against their stepmothers.”

“Do I go alone, then?”

“Well, now—­”

“Will you or won’t you?”

Boogies drew a fateful breath.

“I’ll take a chance.  You wait here.  If I ain’t back in one hour you’ll know I been murdered.”

“Good, my man!” said Jimmie Time with the air of an outlaw chief.  “Be off at once.”

Boogies was off.  And Boogies was back in less than the hour with a delectable bulging meal sack.  He was trembling but radiant.

“She seen me gitting away and she yelled her head off,” he gasped; “but you bet I never stopped.  I just thought of Jesse James and General Grant, and run like hell!”

“Good, my man!” said Jimmie Time; and then, with a sudden gleam of the practical, he inventoried the commissary and quartermaster supplies in the sack.  He found them to be:  One hatchet; one well-used boiled hambone; six greasy sugared crullers; four dill pickles; a bottle of catchup; two tomatoes all but obliterated in transit; two loaves of bread; a flatiron.

Jimmie cast the last item from him.

“Wh’d you bring that for?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” confessed Boogies.  “I just put it in.  Mebbe I was afraid she’d throw it at me when I was making my getaway.  It’ll be good for cracking nuts if we find any on the peraries.  I bet they have nuts!”

“All right, then.  You can carry it if you want to, pard.”