Barney drove in, about as hot as I was, I guess.
So, when I got home and found a letter from Frosty, my mind was open for something new.

The letter was short, but it did the business and gave me a hunger for the old days that nothing but a hard gallop over the prairie-lands, with the wind blowing the breath out of my nostrils, could satisfy.

He said the round-up would start in about a week.

That was about all, but I got up and did something I'd never done before.
I took the letter and went straight down to dad's private den and interrupted him when he was going over his afternoon letters with Crawford.

Dad was very particular not to be interrupted at such times; his mail-hours were held sacred, and nothing short of a life-or-death matter would have taken me in there--in any normal state of mind.
Crawford started out of his chair--if you knew Crawford that one action would tell you a whole lot--and dad whirled toward me and asked what had happened.