Their sleeping quarters were the garret, and while a lantern swung from a beam, and Mr. and Mrs. Cal were asleep, and the boys were supposed to be asleep, those kids just wrote and rewrote a history of the West that would make all the tenderfeet in the world stay at home, and forever hold down the population of the Frontier.

And the smallest boy, named Cal after his father, had a hard time keeping awake, but was bound to do it if it killed him; and the biggest boy, named Abe after Abraham Lincoln, probably knew more about wild animals than any boy in the world; and the smallest boy never had killed any animals, except a stray mole or two, that happened to get out in the daytime, by mistake, but he was goin’ to—­and—­well, there was so much to be told, and it had to be told so fast, that no shorthand writer that ever lived could have put it all down.

But finally, no matter how interesting the company, sleep will come to healthy boys, and just before that time came, and could not be put off any longer, they happened to be talking about dreams.  Abe said that if you would tie a rope around your neck, and tie it to a beam, just before you went to sleep, you would sure dream of a hanging.  And, of course, Whitey had to try it.

He tied the rope around his neck, he tied the other end around a beam, and he went to sleep.  There were six boys in that bed, and there was a whole lot of crowding, and Whitey was sleeping on the outside.  And he didn’t have to dream about any hanging, because he came so near the real thing.  I don’t have to tell you how it happened.  Bill Jordan’s letter came mighty near not being delivered.  However, all ended happily, and save for rubbing that part of his anatomy where he wore a collar after he was grown up, Whitey was all right.

CHAPTER XI

THE T UP AND DOWN

The next day Cal Smith said that a joke was all very well, but twenty-five miles was far enough to carry it, and he staked Whitey to a horse to make the rest of the trip with, Whitey to return the horse on his way back.  When they reached Zumbro Creek it hadn’t gone down a bit, except to go down stream, and it was doing that like the dickens.  It certainly was a very bad-tempered-looking creek, but Cal Smith wasn’t afraid of it.

He had brought along all his sons, and a couple of ranch hands, and instructed them to stand by with ropes, while he took Whitey about a quarter of a mile up the creek, and the two of them plunged in.  Cal Smith was not going to let any kid try to swim a horse across that creek by himself.

It was quite a sight to see all those Smith boys standing in a line on the bank.  With the biggest one, Abe, at one end, and the smallest one, Cal, at the other, and the rest of them standing according to their sizes, they looked like a flight of steps.  And little Cal was too small to be of any use, but he didn’t know that, and some one had given him the end of a lariat to hold, and he clutched it, and looked as anxious and important as any one.