You fry bacon and eggs and lots of other things,
besides those nice pancakes Norah makes for breakfast when we're at
home. I don't think much of that riddle, Laddie Bunker, so now!"

"I guess it is a good riddle if I only knew how to ask it," complained
her twin. "But somehow I've got it mixed up."

"Don't ask any more riddles like that. They make me hungry," declared
Vi. "And there isn't a candy shop or anything around here."

She came very near to speaking the exact truth that time. On both sides
of the railroad track where they now walked so wearily there seemed to
be almost a desert. There were neither houses nor trees, and although
the country was rolling, it was not at all pleasant in appearance.

And how tired their feet did become! If you have ever walked the
railroad tracks (which you certainly must never do unless grown people
are with you, for it is a dangerous practise) you know that stepping
from tie to tie between the rails is a very uncomfortable way to travel,
because the ties are not laid at equal distances apart. First Vi and
Laddie had to take a short step and then a long step. And if they missed
the tie in stepping, their shoes crunched right down into the wet
cinders, for the ground by no means was all dried up since the heavy
rain.

"Oh, me, I'm so tired!" complained Vi, after a while.

"So'm I," confessed her twin brother.

"And I don't see daddy coming for us," added Vi, her voice tremulous
with tears again.

[Illustration: "I SEE SOMETHING!" CRIED LADDIE.

_Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's._ (_Page 99_)]

"I see something!" cried Laddie suddenly and hopefully. He did not want
his sister to begin crying.

"Is it Daddy Bunker?" demanded Vi, looking ahead eagerly.

"It's a house--right beside the railroad," said Laddie, quickening his
own pace a little and trying to drag Vi along, as he still held her
hand.

"Where? Where is the house?" demanded Vi anxiously. "I don't see any
house."

"Well, it's a very small house. But there it is," said her brother,
pointing ahead with confidence.

"Oh! I see it, Laddie," cried Vi. "Oh, what a little house it is--and so
close to the tracks! Do you suppose anybody lives in that little house?"

"I don't know. It is small," admitted Laddie.

"Maybe a dog lives in it. It isn't much bigger than Mr. Striver's
dog-house at home in Pineville."

"I guess it isn't a dog-house. Anyway, we'll see."

"Maybe it's a candy store," suggested the revivin