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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pony Rider Boys in Texas, by Frank Gee
+Patchin
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Pony Rider Boys in Texas
+       Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains
+
+
+Author: Frank Gee Patchin
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 10, 2006  [eBook #20087]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN TEXAS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 20087-h.htm or 20087-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/8/20087/20087-h/20087-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/8/20087/20087-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN TEXAS
+
+Or
+
+The Veiled Riddle of the Plains
+
+by
+
+FRANK GEE PATCHIN
+
+Author of The Pony Rider Boys in The Rockies, Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia
+Henry Altemus Company
+Copyright, 1910 by Howard E. Altemus
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Drop That Gun!]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. In the Land of the Cowboy
+
+      II. The Pony Riders Join the Outfit
+
+     III. Putting the Cows to Bed
+
+      IV. The First Night in Camp
+
+       V. Cutting Out the Herd
+
+      VI. Tad Takes a Desperate Chance
+
+     VII. The Herd Fords the River
+
+    VIII. The Approach of the Storm
+
+      IX. Chased by a Stampeding Herd
+
+       X. A Miraculous Escape
+
+      XI. The Vigil on the Plains
+
+     XII. Under a Strange Influence
+
+    XIII. Chunky Ropes a Cowboy
+
+     XIV. On a Wild Night Ride
+
+      XV. Fording a Swollen River
+
+     XVI. A Brave Rescue
+
+    XVII. Making New Friends
+
+   XVIII. Breaking in the Bronchos
+
+     XIX. Grit Wins the Battle
+
+      XX. Dinner at the Ox Bow
+
+     XXI. A Call for Help
+
+    XXII. Lost in the Adobe Church
+
+   XXIII. Solving the Mystery
+
+    XXIV. Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+
+   Drop That Gun!
+
+   Good for You, Kid!
+
+   As the Wagon Lurched Pong Plunged Overboard.
+
+   Tad Gave the Rope a Quick, Rolling Motion.
+
+
+
+
+The Pony Rider Boys in Texas
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN THE LAND OF THE COWBOY
+
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Guns, I reckon."
+
+"Sounds to me as if the town were being attacked. Just like war time,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Never having been to war, I can't say. But it's a noise all right."
+
+The freckle-faced boy, sitting on his pony with easy confidence,
+answered his companion's questions absently. After a careless glance up
+the street, he turned to resume his study of the noisy crowds that were
+surging back and forth along the main street of San Diego, Texas.
+
+"Yes, it's a noise. But what is it all about?"
+
+"Fourth of July, Ned. Don't you hear?"
+
+"Hear it, Tad? I should say I do hear it. Yet I must confess that it is
+a different sort of racket from any I've ever heard up North on the
+Fourth. Is this the way they celebrate it down here?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+"Why, a fellow might imagine that a band of wild Indians were tearing
+down on him. Here they come! Look out! Me for a side street!"
+
+The little Texas town was dressed in its finest, in honor of the great
+national holiday, and the inhabitants for many miles around had ridden
+in at the first streak of dawn, that they might miss none of the frolic.
+
+A rapid explosion of firearms accompanied by a chorus of wild yells and
+thrilling whoops, had caused Ned Rector to utter the exclamation of
+alarm. As he did so, he whirled his pony about, urging the little animal
+into a side street so that he might be out of the way of the body of men
+whom he saw rushing down upon them on galloping ponies.
+
+"Hurry, Tad!" he called from the protection of the side street.
+
+That others in the street had heard, and seen as well, was evident from
+the frantic haste with which they scrambled for the sidewalk, crowding
+those already there over yard fences, into stores and stairways in an
+effort to get clear of the roadway. A sudden panic had seized them, for
+well did they know the meaning of the shooting and the shouting.
+
+A band of wild, uncontrollable cowboys, free for the time from the
+exacting work of the range, were sweeping down on the town, determined
+to do their part in the observance of the day.
+
+Yet, Tad Butler, the freckle-faced boy, remained where he was
+undisturbed by the uproar, finding great interest in the excited throngs
+that were hurrying to cover. Nor did he appear to be alarmed when, a
+moment later, he found himself almost the sole occupant of the street at
+that point, with his pony backed up against the curbing, tossing its
+head and champing its bit restlessly.
+
+As for the freckle-faced boy and his companion, the reader no doubt has
+recognized in them our old friends, Tad Butler and Ned Rector, the Pony
+Rider Boys. After their exciting experiences in the Rockies, and their
+discovery of the Lost Claim, which gave each of the boys a little
+fortune of his own, as narrated in the preceding volume, "The Pony
+Rider Boys in the Rockies," the Pony Riders had turned toward Texas
+as the scene of their next journeying. With Walter Perkins and Stacy
+Brown, the boys, under the guidance of Professor Zepplin, were to join a
+cattle outfit at San Diego, whence they were to travel northward with
+it.
+
+This was to be one of the biggest cattle drives of recent years. A
+cattle dealer, Mr. Thomas B. Miller, had purchased a large herd of
+Mexican cattle, which he decided to drive across the state on the old
+trail, instead of shipping them by rail, to his ranch in Oklahoma.
+
+It had been arranged that the Pony Riders were to become members of the
+working force of the outfit during what was called the "drive" across
+the State of Texas. The boys were awaiting the arrival of the herd at
+San Diego on this Fourth of July morning. Though they did not suspect
+it, the Pony Rider Boys were destined, on this trip, to pass through
+adventures more thrilling, and hardships more severe, than anything they
+had even dreamed of before.
+
+The cattle had arrived late the previous evening, though the boys had
+not yet been informed of the fact. The animals were to be allowed to
+graze and rest for the day, while the cowmen, or such of them as could
+be spared, were given leave to ride into town in small parties. It was
+the advance guard of the cowboys whose shots and yells had stirred the
+people in the street to such sudden activity.
+
+On they came, a shouting, yelling mob.
+
+Tad turned to look at them now.
+
+The sight was one calculated to stir the heart and quicken the pulses of
+any boy. But the face of Tad Butler reflected only mild curiosity as he
+gazed inquiringly at the dashing horsemen, each one of whom was riding
+standing in his stirrups waving sombrero and gun on high.
+
+What interested the freckle-faced boy most was their masterful
+horsemanship.
+
+"Y-e-e-e-o-w!" exploded the foremost of the riders.
+
+Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
+
+As many puffs of white smoke leaped into the air from the revolvers of
+the skylarking cowmen.
+
+"W-h-o-o-o-p-e!" they chorused in a mighty yell, letting go at the same
+time a rattling fire.
+
+"Y-e-e-e-o-w!"
+
+As they swept down toward the spot where Tad was sitting on his pony,
+the cowboys swung into line six abreast, thus filling the street from
+curb to curb.
+
+This time, however, instead of shooting into the air, they lowered the
+muzzles of their revolvers, sending volley after volley into the street
+ahead of them, the leaden missiles viciously kicking up the dirt into
+miniature clouds, like those from heavy drops of rain in advance of a
+thunder squall.
+
+Tad's pony began to show signs of nervousness.
+
+"Whoa!" commanded the boy sharply, tightening his rein and pressing his
+knees firmly against the animal's sides. The prancing pony was quickly
+mastered by its rider, though it continued to shake its head in emphatic
+protest.
+
+"Out of the way, you tenderfoot!" yelled a cowman, espying the boy and
+pony directly in his path.
+
+Tad Butler did not move.
+
+"Y-e-e-e-o-w!" shrieked the band in a series of shrill cries.
+
+When they saw that the boy was holding his ground so calmly, their
+revolvers began to bark spitefully, flicking up a semicircle of dust
+about the pony's feet, causing the little animal to prance and rear into
+the air.
+
+At this Tad's jaws set stubbornly, his lips pressing themselves firmly
+together. The boy brought his quirt down sharply on the pony's flank, at
+the same time pressing the pointless rowels of his spurs against the
+sides of the frightened animal.
+
+Though Tad determinedly held his mount in its place, he was no longer
+able to check its rearing and plunging, for the wiry little animal was
+wholly unused to such treatment. Besides, a volley of revolver bullets
+about its feet would disturb the steadiest horse.
+
+Two cowboys on his side of the street had driven their mounts toward the
+lad with a yell. Tad did not wholly divine their purpose, though he knew
+that their intent was to frighten him into giving them the street. He
+felt instinctively that if he should refuse to do so, some sort of
+violence would be visited upon him.
+
+It followed a moment later.
+
+Observing that the boy had no intention of giving way to them, the two
+cowboys held their course, their eyes fixed on the offending tenderfoot
+until finally only a few rods separated them.
+
+Suddenly, both men pulled their mounts sharply to the right, and,
+digging in the spurs, plunged straight for Tad.
+
+"So that's their game, is it?" thought the boy.
+
+They were going to run him down.
+
+Tad's eyes flashed indignantly, yet still he made no move to pull his
+pony out of the street.
+
+"Keep off!" he shouted. "Don't you run me down!"
+
+"W-h-o-o-o-p!" howled the pair, at the same time letting go a volley
+right under the hoofs of his pony. It seemed to the lad that the powder
+from their weapons had burned his face, so close had the guns been when
+they pulled the triggers.
+
+Tad had braced himself for the shock that he knew was coming, gathering
+the reins tightly in his right hand and leaning slightly forward in his
+saddle.
+
+They were fairly upon him now. Two revolvers exploded into the air,
+accompanied by the long shrill yell of the plainsmen. But just when it
+seemed that the lad must go down under the rush of beating hoofs, Tad
+all but lifted his pony from the ground, turned the little animal and
+headed him in the direction in which the wild horsemen were going.
+
+The boy's clever horsemanship had saved him. Yet one of the racing cow
+ponies struck the boy and his horse a glancing blow. For the moment, Tad
+felt sure his left leg must have been broken. He imagined that he had
+heard it snap.
+
+As he swept past the boy the cowboy had uttered a jeering yell.
+
+Tad brought down his quirt with all his force on the rump of the kicking
+cow pony, whose hoofs threatened to wound his own animal.
+
+Then a most unexpected thing happened--that is, unexpected to the
+cowboy.
+
+Looking back at the boy he had attempted to unhorse, the cowman was
+leaning over far to the left in his saddle when Tad struck his horse.
+The pony, under the sting of the unexpected blow, leaped into the air
+with arching back and a squeal of rage.
+
+The cowboy's weight on the side of the startled animal overbalanced it
+and the animal plunged sideways to the street. The cowpuncher managed to
+free his left leg from the stirrup; but, quick as he was, he was not
+quick enough to save himself wholly from the force of the fall. The
+fellow ploughed the dirt of the street on his face, while the pony,
+springing to its feet, was off with a bound.
+
+The other cowpunchers set up a great jeering yell as they saw the
+unhorsing of their companion by a mere boy, while the villagers and
+country folks laughed as loudly as they dared.
+
+Yet there was not one of them but feared that the angry cowpuncher would
+visit his wrath upon the lad who had been the cause of his downfall.
+
+With a roar of rage he scrambled to his feet.
+
+In his fall the fellow's gun had been wrenched from his hand, and lay in
+the street.
+
+He picked it up as he started for Tad Butler.
+
+Tad, who had sat in his saddle calmly, now realized that he must act
+quickly if he expected to save himself.
+
+His plan was formed in a flash.
+
+Digging in the spurs, and at the same time slapping the little animal
+smartly on its side, the lad caused his little pony to leap violently
+forward.
+
+"Drop that gun!"
+
+As he uttered the stern command, the boy brought his quirt down across
+the cowman's knuckles with a resounding whack.
+
+The cowman with a yell of rage sprang at him, but the blow aimed at Tad
+Butler's head never reached him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PONY RIDERS JOIN THE OUTFIT
+
+
+At that instant a man, clad in the dress of a cowboy, leaped from the
+sidewalk. He caught the angry cowman by the collar. From the way in
+which the newcomer swung the fellow around it was evident that he was
+possessed of great strength.
+
+"Stop it!" he thundered.
+
+Tad's assailant turned on the newcomer with an angry snarl, his rage now
+beyond all control.
+
+"Let me alone! Let me get at the cub!" he cried, making a vicious pass
+at the man.
+
+The cowboy's blow was neatly parried and a mighty fist was planted
+squarely between his eyes, sending him to earth in a heap.
+
+"Get up!" commanded the man who had felled him.
+
+The cowboy struggled to his feet, standing sullenly before his
+conqueror.
+
+"Look at me, Lumpy! Didn't I tell you that I'd 'fire' you if you got
+into any trouble in town to-day?"
+
+The cowboy nodded.
+
+"Is this the way you obey orders? What sort of recommend do you suppose
+Boss Miller will give you when I tell him I found you trying to shoot up
+a kid?"
+
+"I don't care. I ain't askin' any recommends. Besides, he--he got
+in----"
+
+"Never mind what he did. I saw it all. Get your pony and back to the
+camp for yours. Let Bert come in your place. You get no more lay-offs
+till I see fit to let you. Now, git!"
+
+Thoroughly subdued, but with angry muttered protests, the cowboy, walked
+down the street, jerking his pony's head about and swinging himself into
+the saddle.
+
+"Don't be rough on the fellow. Let him stay."
+
+The newcomer turned to Tad, glancing up at the boy inquiringly.
+
+"Young fellow, you've got nerve--more nerve than sense."
+
+"Thank you. But I asked you to let the man stay. He won't do it again,"
+urged Tad.
+
+"I'm the best judge of that. And as for you, young fellow, I would
+advise you to ride your pony away from here. First thing I know you will
+be mixing it up with some of the rest of the bunch. I may not be around
+to straighten things out then, and you'll get hurt."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I think I have as much right here as anyone else. If
+those are your men I should think you might be able to teach them to
+respect other people's rights."
+
+"What, teach a cowboy?" laughed the other. "You don't know the breed.
+Take my advice and skip."
+
+Tad's rescuer strode away.
+
+The lad's introduction to cowboy life had not been of an encouraging
+nature, though it was difficult for him to believe that all cowboys were
+like the one he had just encountered.
+
+"Well, you made a nice mess of it, didn't you?" chuckled Ned Rector,
+riding up beside his companion a few minutes later. "I didn't see it,
+but I heard all about it from Bob Stallings."
+
+"Stallings? Who's he?"
+
+"The foreman of the cowboys with whom we are going."
+
+"And were those the fellows that tried to crowd me off the street?"
+
+"I reckon those were the boys," said Ned Rector quietly.
+
+"Then, I can see a nice time when we join them. They will have no love
+for me after what has happened this morning. Where is the camp?"
+
+"I don't know. Professor Zepplin says it's about four miles to the west
+of here."
+
+"When do we join them?"
+
+"Some time to-night. The foreman says they are going to start at
+daylight. He's over at the hotel talking with the Professor now. He was
+telling the Professor about your mix-up with Lumpy Bates. That's the
+name of the cowboy who ran into you. And how he did laugh when I told
+him you belonged to our crowd," chuckled Ned.
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Said he thought you'd do. He says we can't use our ponies on the
+drive."
+
+"Why not?" asked Tad, looking up quickly.
+
+"Because they are not trained on cattle work."
+
+"Pshaw! I'm sorry. Have we got to leave them here?"
+
+"No. He says we may turn them in with their herd, and use them for
+anything we care to, except around the cattle. We shall have to ride
+some of the bronchos when we are on duty."
+
+"I think I see somebody falling off," laughed Tad. "Ever ride one of
+them, Ned?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, you'll know more about them after you have."
+
+"I think I should like to go over and see Mr. Stallings," declared Tad.
+
+"All right, come along, then."
+
+They found the foreman of the outfit discussing the plans for their
+journey with Professor Zepplin, while Stacy Brown and Walter Perkins
+were listening with eager attention.
+
+"This is Master Tad Butler, Mr. Stallings," announced the Professor.
+
+"I think I have met the young man before," answered the foreman, with a
+peculiar smile.
+
+"Tad, I am surprised that you should involve yourself in trouble so soon
+after getting out of my sight. I----"
+
+"The boy was not to blame, Mr. Professor. My cowpunchers were wholly in
+the wrong. But you need have no fears of any future trouble. The bunch
+will be given to understand that the young gentlemen are to be well
+treated. You will find no luxuries, but lots of hard work on a cattle
+drive, young men----"
+
+"Do--do we get plenty to eat?" interrupted Stacy Brown apprehensively.
+
+All joined in the laugh at the lad's expense.
+
+"Chunky's appetite is a wonderful thing, Mr. Stallings," said Tad.
+
+"I think we shall be able to satisfy it," laughed the foreman. "Our cook
+is a Chinaman. His name is Pong, but he knows how to get up a meal. I
+believe, if he had nothing but sage grass and sand, he could make a
+palatable dish of them, provided he had the seasoning. Have you boys
+brought your slickers with, you?"
+
+"What's a slicker?" demanded Chunky.
+
+"A rubber blanket that----"
+
+"Oh yes. We bought an outfit of those at Austin," answered Tad.
+"Anything else that you wish us to get?"
+
+"The boys don't carry guns, do they?"
+
+Professor Zepplin shook his head emphatically.
+
+"Most certainly not. They can get into enough trouble without them. We
+have rifles in our kit, but I imagine there will be little use for such
+weapons on this trip."
+
+"You can't always tell about that," smiled the foreman. "I remember in
+the old days, when we used to have to fight the rustlers, that a rifle
+was a pretty good thing to have."
+
+"Who were the rustlers?" asked Walter.
+
+"Fellows who rustled cattle that didn't belong to them. But the old days
+have passed. Such a drive as we are making now hasn't been done on so
+large a scale in nearly twenty years."
+
+"Why not?" asked Ned.
+
+"The iron trails have put the old cow trails out of business."
+
+"Iron trails?" wondered Tad.
+
+"Railroads. We men of the plains refer to them as the iron trails.
+That's what they are in reality. Professor, do you wish the boys to take
+their turns on the herd to-night?"
+
+"As you wish, Mr. Stallings. I presume they will be anxious to begin
+their life as cowboys. I understand that's an ambition possessed by most
+of your American boys."
+
+"All right," laughed the foreman. "I'll send them out as I find I can,
+with some of the other cowpunchers, until they learn the ropes. There is
+too great a responsibility on a night man to trust the boys alone with
+that work now. But they can begin if they wish. I'll see first how the
+bunch get back from their celebration of the glorious Fourth. You'll
+come out and have supper with us?"
+
+"No, I think not. We shall ride out just after supper, if you will have
+some one to show us the way," answered the Professor.
+
+"Sure, I'll send in Big-foot Sanders to pilot you out. You boys need not
+be afraid of Big-foot. He's not half so savage as he looks, but he's a
+great hand with cows."
+
+Big-foot Sanders rode up to the hotel shortly after six o'clock. Leading
+his pony across the sidewalk, he poked his shaggy head just inside the
+door of the hotel.
+
+"Ki-yi!" he bellowed, causing everybody within hearing of his voice to
+start up in alarm. "Where's that bunch of tenderfeet?"
+
+"Are you Mr. Sanders, from the Miller outfit?" asked the Professor,
+stepping toward him.
+
+"Donno about the Mister. I'm Big-foot Sanders. I'm lookin' for a bunch
+of yearlings that's going on with the outfit."
+
+"The young gentlemen will join you in a moment, Mr. Sanders. They will
+ride their ponies around from the stable and meet you in front of the
+house."
+
+"You one of the bunch?"
+
+"I am Professor Zepplin, a sort of companion, you know, for the young
+men."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Big-foot. "I reckon you'd better forget the hard boiled
+hat you're wearin' or the boys'll be for shooting it full of holes. Take
+my advice--drop it, pardner."
+
+"Oh, you mean this," laughed the Professor, removing his derby hat.
+"Thank you. I shall profit by your advice, and leave it here when I
+start."
+
+"All the bunch got hard boiled ones?"
+
+"Oh, no. The boys have their sombreros," answered the Professor.
+
+Big-foot grunted, but whether in disapproval or approval, Professor
+Zepplin did not know. The cowpuncher threw himself into his saddle, on
+which he sat, stolidly awaiting the arrival of the Pony Riders.
+
+In a short time they came galloping from the stable at the rear of the
+hotel, and pulled up, facing the cowman.
+
+"This, Mr. Sanders, is Tad Butler," announced the Professor.
+
+"Huh!" grunted Big-foot again. "Hello, Pinto!" he said after a sharp
+glance into the freckled face. "Who's the gopher over there?"
+
+"That's Stacy Brown, otherwise known as 'Chunky,'" laughed Tad. "This is
+Ned Rector, and the young gentleman at your left is Walter Perkins, all
+members of the Pony Rider Boys' party. We are ready to start whenever
+you are."
+
+For answer, Big-foot touched his pony with a spur, the little animal
+springing into a gallop without further command. The Pony Riders
+followed immediately, Tad riding up beside the big, muscular looking
+cowboy, which position he held for half an hour without having been able
+to draw a word from him.
+
+Leaving the town due east of them, the party galloped off across the
+country in a straight line until finally the cowman pointed off across
+the plain to indicate where their destination lay.
+
+A slow moving mass of red and brown and white met the inquiring gaze of
+the boys. At first they were unable to make out what it was.
+
+"Cows," growled the guide, observing that they did not understand.
+
+"What are they doing, Mr. Sanders?" asked Tad.
+
+"Don't 'mister' me. I'm Big-foot. Never had a handle to my name. Never
+expect to. They're grazing. Be rounding them up for bed pretty soon.
+Ever been on a trail before?"
+
+Tad shook his head.
+
+"We have been up in the Rockies on a hunting trip. This is my first
+experience on the plains."
+
+"Huh! Got good and plenty coming to you, then."
+
+"And I am ready for it," answered the lad promptly. "The rougher the
+better."
+
+"There's the bunch waiting for us. All of them got back from town. The
+foreman don't allow the fellows to hang out nights when they're on a
+drive like this."
+
+Now, the rest of the Pony Rider Boys, understanding that they were
+nearing the camp of the cowboys, urged their ponies into a brisk gallop
+and drew up well into line with Tad and Big-foot. That is, all did save
+Stacy Brown, who, as was his habit lagged behind a few rods.
+
+The cowboys were standing about watching the approach of the new
+arrivals curiously, but not with any great enthusiasm, for they did not
+approve of having a lot of tenderfeet with the outfit on a journey such
+as they were taking now. They were bent on grim and serious
+business--man's work--the sort of labor that brings out all that is in
+him. It was no place for weaklings, and none realized this better than
+the cowmen themselves.
+
+Yet, they did not know the mettle that was in these four young American
+boys, though they were to realize it fully before the boundaries of the
+Lone Star State, had been left behind them.
+
+The Pony Riders dashed up to the waiting cowpunchers with a brave
+showing of horsemanship, and sprang from their saddles their eyes
+glowing with excitement and anticipation.
+
+Bob Stallings, the foreman, was the first to greet them.
+
+"Fellows, this is the bunch I've been telling you about," was Bob's
+introduction. "Where's Lumpy?" he demanded, glancing about him with a
+scowl.
+
+"Lumpy's over behind the chuck wagon," answered the cowboy of whom the
+question had been asked.
+
+"Lumpy!" bellowed the foreman.
+
+The fellow with whom Tad Butler had had such an unpleasant meeting,
+earlier in the day, came forward reluctantly, a sudden scowl on his
+face.
+
+"Lumpy, this is Tad Butler. Stick out your fist and shake hands with
+him!"
+
+Lumpy did so.
+
+"Howd'y," he growled, but scarcely loud enough for any save Tad to hear.
+
+The lad smiled up at him good-naturedly.
+
+"You and I bumped ponies this morning, I guess," said Tad. "Maybe I was
+to blame after all. I'll apologize, anyway, and I hope there will be no
+hard feelings."
+
+"Lumpy!" warned Stallings when he noticed that the cowpuncher had made
+no reply to Tad's apology.
+
+"No hard feelings," grunted Lumpy Bates.
+
+He was about to turn away and again seek the seclusion of the chuck
+wagon, as the cook wagon was called by the cow boys, when Chunky came
+rolling along. In the excitement of the meeting the boys had forgotten
+all about him. The Pony Riders swung their sombreros and gave three
+cheers for Chunky Brown as he dashed up.
+
+Chunky took off his sombrero and waved it at them.
+
+Just then Chunky met with one of those unfortunate accidents that were
+always occurring to him. His galloping pony put a forefoot into a gopher
+hole, going down in a heap.
+
+Chunky, however, kept on.
+
+When the accident happened he was almost upon the waiting cowboys, his
+intention having been to pull his pony up sharply to show off his
+horsemanship, then drop off and make them a sweeping bow.
+
+Stacy Brown was possessed of the true dramatic instinct, yet few things
+ever came off exactly as he had planned them.
+
+As he shot over the falling pony's head, his body described a half curve
+in the air, his own head landing fairly in the pit of Lumpy Bates's
+stomach.
+
+Cowboy and Pony Rider went over in a struggling heap, with the Pony
+Rider uppermost.
+
+Stacy had introduced himself to the cowboys in a most unusual manner,
+and to the utter undoing of one of them, for the boy's head had for the
+moment, knocked all the breath out of the surly Lumpy Bates.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PUTTING THE COWS TO BED
+
+
+The cowpunchers roared at the funny sight of the fat boy bowling over
+their companion.
+
+Stallings, however, fearing for the anger of Lumpy, sprang forward and
+hauled the lad back by the collar, while Lumpy was allowed to get up
+when he got ready. He did so a few seconds later, sputtering and
+growling, scarcely able to contain his rage.
+
+"That's a bad way to get off a pony, young man," laughed the foreman. "I
+hope you won't dismount in that fashion around the cattle at night. If
+you do, you sure will stampede the herd."
+
+Chunky grinned sheepishly.
+
+"It doesn't take much to start a bunch of cows on the run after dark,"
+continued the foreman, "I've known of such a thing as a herd being
+stampeded because they were frightened at the rising moon. Haven't you,
+Big-foot?"
+
+Sanders nodded.
+
+"The gopher'll do it, too; he's a clumsy lout," he answered, referring
+to Stacy in a withering tone.
+
+"And now, boys, I will tell you how our watches are divided, after which
+you can go out with the cowboys and see them bed down the cows."
+
+"Bed them down?" spoke up Chunky, his curiosity aroused. "That's funny.
+I didn't know you had to put cattle to bed."
+
+"You'll see that we do. Boys, the night of the cowman on the march is
+divided into four tricks. The first guard goes on at half past eight,
+coming off at half past ten. The second guard is on duty from that time
+till one o'clock in the morning; the third, from that hour till half
+past three, while the fourth remains out until relieved in the morning.
+He usually wakes up the cook, too. And, by the way, you boys haven't
+made the acquaintance of Pong, have you? I'll call him. Unless you get
+on the right side of Pong, you will suffer."
+
+"Pong? That's funny. Sounds like ping-pong. I used to play that,"
+interrupted Stacy.
+
+"Pong is as funny as his name, even if he is a Chinaman," laughed
+Stallings. "Pong, come here."
+
+The Chinaman, having heard his name spoken, was peering inquiringly from
+the tail of the chuck wagon.
+
+Hopping down, he trotted over to the group, his weazened, yellow face
+wreathed in smiles.
+
+"Shake hands with these young gentlemen, Pong. They will be with us for
+the next two weeks," said the foreman.
+
+"Allee same likee this," chuckled Pong, clasping his palms together and
+gleefully shaking hands with himself.
+
+"That's the Chinaman's idea of shaking hands," laughed Stallings. "He
+always shakes hands with himself instead of the other fellow."
+
+Stacy Brown suddenly broke into a loud laugh, attracting all eyes to
+him.
+
+"Funniest thing I ever heard of," he muttered, abashed by the inquiring
+looks directed at him.
+
+"Now watch the heathen while I ask him what he is going to have for
+breakfast," said the foreman. "Pong, what are you going to give us out
+of the chuck wagon in the morning?"
+
+"Allee same likee this," chattered the Chinaman, quickly turning to his
+questioner, at the same time rapidly running through a series of
+pantomime gestures.
+
+The Pony Riders looked at each other blankly.
+
+"He says we are going to have fried bacon with hot biscuit and coffee,"
+Stallings informed them with a hearty laugh. "Pong is not much of a
+talker. That's about as much as you ever will hear him say. He's weak on
+talk and strong on motions."
+
+The foreman glanced up at the sky.
+
+"It's time to put the cows to bed. You young gentlemen may ride along on
+your own ponies, but keep well back from the cattle. Those of you who go
+out to-night will have to ride our ponies. All ready, now."
+
+The entire outfit mounted and set off over the plain to where the cattle
+were moving slowly about, but not grazing much. They had had their fill
+of grass and water and were now ready for the night.
+
+"Where's their beds?" asked Chunky, gazing about him curiously.
+
+"Right ahead of you," answered Stallings.
+
+The foreman's quick eye already had picked out a nice elevation on which
+the old dry grass of the previous summer's growth lay matted like a
+carpet for the cattle to bed down on.
+
+"How many of them are there in the herd?" asked Tad.
+
+"About two thousand. That was the first count. Since then we have picked
+up a few stray cows. We will be cutting those out in a day or so, when
+you will see some real cow work. Perhaps you will be able to help by
+that time."
+
+Now the cowmen galloped out on the plain, separating widely until they
+had practically surrounded the herd. They began circling slowly about
+the herd, at the same time gradually closing in on them.
+
+The animals appeared to understand fully what was expected of them, for
+they had been on the road several nights already. Besides, having had
+their fill they were anxious to turn in for the night.
+
+As they found spots to their liking, the animals began to throw
+themselves down.
+
+Tad uttered an exclamation of delight as he watched the steers going to
+their knees in hundreds, then dropping on their sides, contentedly
+chewing their cuds. It was such a sight as he never before had seen.
+
+"What are those steers on the outside there--those fellows without any
+horns?" asked Stacy.
+
+"Those are the muleys. Having no horns, they keep well out of the bunch
+and wait until the others have gone to bed as you see," the foreman
+informed him. "You will notice after a while that they will lie down
+outside the circle. If any of the cows get ugly during the night the
+muleys will spring up and get out of the way."
+
+In half an hour the last one of the great herd had "bedded down," and
+those of the cowboys who were not on guard, rode leisurely back toward
+camp.
+
+It had been decided that Tad Butler should go out on the first guard;
+Walter Perkins on the second; Ned Rector third and Stacy Brown fourth.
+
+Tad was all eagerness to begin. One of the cowmen exchanged ponies with
+him, riding Tad's horse back to camp.
+
+"You see, our ponies understand what is wanted of them," explained
+Stallings, who had remained out for a while to give Tad some instruction
+in the work before him. "Give the ordinary cow pony his head and he will
+almost tend a herd by himself."
+
+Three men ordinarily constituted the guard. In this case Tad Butler made
+a fourth. Taking their stations some four rods from the edge of the
+herd, they began lazily circling it, part going in one direction and
+part in another. In this position it would have been well-nigh
+impossible for any animal to escape without being noticed by the riders.
+
+"Now, I guess you will be all right," smiled the foreman. "Make no
+sudden moves to frighten the cattle."
+
+"Do they ever run?" asked Tad.
+
+"Run? Well, rather! And I tell you, it takes a long-legged Mexican steer
+to set the pace. Those fellows can run faster than a horse--at least
+some of them can. A stampede is a thing most dreaded by the cowmen."
+
+"Our ponies stampeded in the Rockies. I know something about that,"
+spoke up Tad.
+
+"Well, compare the stampeding of your four or five ponies with two
+thousand head of wild steers and you'll get something like the idea of
+what it means. In that case, unless you know your business you had
+better get out of the way as fast as hoss-flesh will carry you. Now,
+Master Tad, I'll bid you good night and leave you to your first night on
+the plains."
+
+"How shall I know when to come in?"
+
+"When the second guard comes out. You will hear them. If you should not
+they will let you know as they pass you."
+
+With that the foreman walked his pony away from the herd. After some
+little time Tad heard him galloping toward camp.
+
+At first Tad took the keenest enjoyment in his surroundings; then the
+loneliness of the plains came over him. He began to feel a longing for
+human companionship.
+
+A dense mantle of darkness settled down over the scene.
+
+Remembering the advice of the foreman, the lad gave his pony the rein.
+The hardy little animal, with nose almost touching the ground, began its
+monotonous crawling pace about the herd. It seemed more asleep than
+awake.
+
+In a short time a sheet of bright light appeared on the eastern horizon.
+Tad looked at it inquiringly, then smiled.
+
+"It's the moon," he decided.
+
+The boy felt a great sense of relief in his lonely vigil. Just ahead of
+him he saw a pony and rider leisurely approaching.
+
+It proved to be Red Davis, one of the first guard.
+
+Red waved his hand to the boy in passing, but no word was spoken on
+either side.
+
+After having circled the herd twice, Tad suddenly discovered a small
+bunch of cattle that had just scrambled to their feet and had begun
+grazing a little way outside the circle. The rest of the herd were
+contentedly chewing their cuds in the moonlight, grunting and blowing
+over contented stomachs.
+
+The lad was not sure just what he ought to do. His first inclination was
+to call to some of the other guards. Then, remembering the injunction
+placed upon him by the foreman, he resisted the impulse.
+
+"I am sure those cattle have no business off there," he decided after
+watching them for a few moments in silent uncertainty. "I believe I will
+try to get them back."
+
+Tightening the grip on his reins and clucking to the pony, Tad headed
+for the steers, that were slowly moving off, taking a step with every
+mouthful or so.
+
+He steered his pony well outside and headed in toward them.
+
+The pony, with keen intelligence, forced its way up to the leading steer
+and sought to nose it around. The animal resisted and swung its sharp
+horns perilously near to the side of the horse, which quickly leaped to
+one side, almost upsetting its rider.
+
+"Guess I'd better let the pony do it himself. He knows how and I don't,"
+muttered Tad, slackening on the reins.
+
+The straying animal was quickly turned and headed toward the herd, after
+which the pony whirled and went after one of the others, turning this
+one, as it did the others. In a short time the truants were all back in
+the herd.
+
+"That's the way to do it, young fellow. I told the gang back there that
+the Pinto had the stuff in him."
+
+Tad turned sharply to meet the smiling face of Big-foot Sanders, who,
+sitting on his pony, had been watching the boy's efforts and nodding an
+emphatic approval.
+
+"You'll make a cowman all right," said Big-foot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP
+
+
+The camp-fire was burning brightly when the first guard, having
+completed its tour of duty, came galloping in.
+
+In a few moments the sound of singing was borne to the ears of the
+campers.
+
+"What's the noise?" demanded Stacy Brown, sitting up with a half scared
+look on his face.
+
+"It's the 'Cowboy's Lament,'" laughed Bob Stallings. "Listen."
+
+Off on the plain they heard a rich tenor voice raised in the song of the
+cowman.
+
+    "Little black bull came down the hillside,
+    Down the hillside, down the hillside,
+    Little black bull came down the hillside,
+              Long time ago."
+
+"I don't call that much of a song," sniffed Chunky contemptuously after
+a moment of silence on the part of the group. "Even if I can't sing, I
+can beat that."
+
+"Better not try it out on the range," smiled the foreman.
+
+"Not on the range? Why not?" demanded the boy.
+
+"Bob thinks it might stampede the herd," spoke up Big-foot Sanders.
+
+A loud laugh followed at Chunky's expense.
+
+"When you get to be half as good a man on cows as your friend the Pinto,
+here, you'll be a full grown man," added Big-foot. "The Pinto rounded up
+a bunch of stray cows to-night as well as I could do it myself, and he
+didn't go about it with a brass band either."
+
+The foreman nodded, with an approving glance at Tad.
+
+Tad's eyes were sparkling from the experiences of the evening, as well
+as from the praise bestowed upon him by the big cowpuncher.
+
+"The pony did most of it," admitted the lad. "I just gave him his head,
+and that's all there was to it."
+
+"More than most tenderfeet would have done," growled Big-foot.
+
+Walter had gone out with the second guard, and the others had gathered
+around the camp-fire for their nightly story-telling.
+
+"Now, I don't want you fellows sitting up all night," objected the
+foreman. "None of you will be fit for duty to-morrow. We've got a hard
+drive before us, and every man must be fit as a fiddle. You can enjoy
+yourselves sleeping just as well as sitting up."
+
+"Humph!" grunted Curley Adams. "I'll give it as a horseback opinion that
+the only way to enjoy such a night as this, is to sit up until you fall
+asleep with your boots on. That's the way I'm going to do it, to-night."
+
+The cowboy did this very thing, but within an hour he found himself
+alone, the others having turned in one by one.
+
+"Where are your beds?" asked Stacy after the foreman had urged the boys
+to get to sleep.
+
+"Beds?" grunted Big-foot. "Anywhere--everywhere. Our beds, on the
+plains, are wherever we happen to pull our boots off."
+
+"You will find your stuff rolled up under the chuck wagon, boys," said
+Stallings. "I had Pong get out the blankets for you, seeing that you
+have only your slickers with you."
+
+The lads found that a pair of blankets had been assigned to each of
+them, with an ordinary wagon sheet doubled for a tarpaulin. These they
+spread out on the ground, using boots wrapped in coats for pillows.
+
+Stacy Brown proved the only grumbler in the lot, declaring that he could
+not sleep a wink on such a bed as that.
+
+In floundering about, making up his bunk, the lad had fallen over two
+cowboys and stepped full on the face of a third.
+
+Instantly there was a chorus of yells and snarls from the disturbed
+cowpunchers, accompanied by dire threats as to what they would do to the
+gopher did he ever disturb their rest in that way again.
+
+This effectually quieted the boy for the night, and the camp settled
+down to silence and to sleep.
+
+The horses of the outfit, save those that were on night duty and two or
+three others that had developed a habit of straying, had been turned
+loose early in the evening, for animals on the trail are seldom staked
+down. For these, a rope had been strung from a rear wheel of the wagon
+and another from the end of the tongue, back to a stake driven in the
+ground, thus forming a triangular corral. Besides holding the
+untrustworthy horses, it afforded a temporary corral for catching a
+change of mounts.
+
+In spite of their hard couches the Pony Riders slept soundly, even
+Professor Zepplin himself never waking the whole night through. Ned
+Rector had come up smiling when awakened for his trick on the third
+guard. With Stacy Brown, however, severe measures were necessary when
+one of the returning guard routed him out at half-past three in the
+morning.
+
+Stacy grumbled, turned over and went to sleep again.
+
+The guard chanced to be Lumpy Bates, and he administered, what to him,
+was a gentle kick, to hurry the boy along.
+
+"Ouch!" yelled Chunky, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
+
+"Keep still, you baby!" growled the cowman. "Do you want to wake up the
+whole outfit? There'll be a lively muss about the time you do, I reckon,
+and you'll wish you hadn't. If you can't keep shut, the boss'll be for
+making you sleep under the chuck wagon. If you make a racket there, Pong
+will dump a pot of boiling water over you. You won't be so fast to wake
+up hard working cowboys after that, I reckon."
+
+"What do you want?" demanded the boy. "What'd you wake me up for?"
+
+"It's your trick. Get a move on you and keep still. There's the pony
+ready for you. I wouldn't have saddled it but the boss said I must. I
+don't take no stock in tenderfoot kids," growled the cowpuncher.
+
+"Is breakfast ready?" asked the boy, tightening his belt and jamming his
+sombrero down over his head.
+
+"Breakfast?" jeered Lumpy. "You're lucky to be alive in this outfit, let
+alone filling yourself with grub. Get out!"
+
+Stacy ruefully, and still half asleep, made a wide circle around the
+sleeping cowmen that he might not make the mistake of again stepping on
+any of them.
+
+Lumpy watched him with disapproving eyes.
+
+The lad caught the pony that stood moping in the corral, not appearing
+to be aware that his rider was preparing him for the range, Chunky all
+the time muttering to himself.
+
+Leading the pony out, the boy gathered up the reins on the right side of
+the animal and prepared to mount.
+
+Lumpy Bates came running toward him, not daring to call out for fear of
+waking the camp. The cowman was swinging his arms and seeking to attract
+the lad's attention. Chunky, however, was too sleepy to see anything so
+small as a cowman swinging his arms a rod away.
+
+Placing his right foot in the stirrup, the boy prepared to swing up into
+the saddle.
+
+"Hi, there!" hissed Lumpy, filled with indignation that anyone should
+attempt to mount a pony from the right side.
+
+His warning came too late. Stacy Brown's left leg swung over the saddle.
+No sooner had the pony felt the leather over him than he raised his back
+straight up, his head going down almost to the ground.
+
+Stacy shot up into the air as if he had been propelled from a bow gun.
+He struck the soft sand several feet in advance of the pony, his face
+and head ploughing a little furrow as he drove along on his nose.
+
+He had no more than struck, however, before the irate cowboy had him by
+the collar and had jerked the lad to his feet.
+
+"You _tenderfoot_!" he snarled, accenting the words so that they carried
+a world of meaning with them. "Don't you know any more than to try to
+get onto a broncho from the off side? Say, don't you?"
+
+He shook the lad violently.
+
+"N-n-n-o," gasped Stacy. "D-d-does it m-m-make any difference w-w-h-i-ch
+side you get on?"
+
+"Does it make any difference?"
+
+The cowboy jerked his own head up and down as if the words he would
+utter had wedged fast in his throat.
+
+"Git out of here before I say something. The boss said the first man he
+heard using language while you tenderfeet were with us, would get fired
+on the spot."
+
+Without taking the chance of waiting until Stacy had mounted the pony,
+Lumpy grabbed the boy and tossed him into the saddle, giving the little
+animal a sharp slap on the flank as he did so.
+
+At first the pony began to buck; then, evidently thinking the effort was
+not worth while, settled down to a rough trot which soon shook the boy
+up and thoroughly awakened him.
+
+The rest of the fourth guard had already gone out, Chunky meeting the
+returning members of the third coming in.
+
+"Better hurry up, kid," they chuckled. "The cows'll sleep themselves out
+of sight before you get there, if you don't get a move on."
+
+"Where are they?" asked the boy.
+
+"Keep a-going and if you're lucky you'll run plumb into them," was the
+jeering answer as the sleepy cowmen spurred their ponies on toward camp,
+muttering their disapproval of taking along a bunch of boys on a cattle
+drive.
+
+In a few moments they, too, had turned their ponies adrift and had
+thrown themselves down beside their companions, pulling their blankets
+well about them, for the night had grown chill.
+
+Out on the plains the fourth guard were drowsily crooning the lullaby
+about the bull that "came down the hillside, long time ago."
+
+It seemed as if scarcely a minute had passed since the boys turned in
+before they were awakened by the strident tones of the foreman.
+
+"Roll out! Roll out!" he roared, bringing the sleepy cowpunchers
+grumbling to their feet.
+
+Almost before the echoes of his voice had died away, a shrill voice
+piped up from the tail end of the chuck wagon.
+
+"Grub pi-i-i-le! Grub pi-i-i-le!"
+
+It was the Chinaman, Pong, sounding his call for breakfast, in
+accordance with the usage of the plains.
+
+"Grub pi-i-i-le!" he finished in a lower tone, after which his head
+quickly disappeared under the cover of the wagon.
+
+By the time the cowmen and Pony Riders had refreshed themselves at the
+spring near which the outfit had camped, a steaming hot breakfast had
+been spread on the ground, with a slicker for a table cloth.
+
+Three cowboys fell to with a will, gulping down their breakfast in a
+hurry that they might ride out and relieve the fourth guard on the herd.
+
+"You boys don't have to swallow your food whole," smiled the foreman,
+observing that the Pony Riders seemed to think they were expected to
+hurry through their meal as well. "Those fellows have to go out. Take
+your time. The fourth guard has to eat yet, so there is plenty of time.
+How did you all sleep?"
+
+"Fine," chorused the boys.
+
+"And you, Mr. Professor?"
+
+"Surprisingly well. It is astonishing with how little a man can get
+along when he has to."
+
+"Who is the wrangler this morning?" asked the foreman, glancing about at
+his men.
+
+"I am," spoke up Shorty Savage promptly.
+
+"Wrangler? What's a wrangler?" demanded Stacy, delaying the progress of
+a large slice of bacon, which hung suspended from the fork half-way
+between plate and mouth.
+
+"A wrangler's a wrangler," answered Big-foot stolidly.
+
+"He's a fellow who's all the time making trouble, isn't he?" asked Stacy
+innocently.
+
+"Oh, no, this kind of a wrangler isn't," laughed the foreman. "The
+trouble is usually made _for_ him, and it's served up hot off the
+spider. The horse wrangler is the fellow who goes out and rounds up the
+ponies. Sometimes he does it in the middle of the night when the thunder
+and lightning are smashing about him like all possessed, and the cattle
+are on the rampage. He's a trouble-curer, not a troublemaker, except for
+himself."
+
+"I guess there are some words that aren't in the dictionary," laughed
+Tad.
+
+"I think you will find them all there, Master Tad, if you will consult
+the big book," said the Professor.
+
+The meal was soon finished, Pong having stood rubbing his palms, a happy
+smile on his face, during the time they were eating.
+
+"A very fine breakfast, sir," announced the Professor, looking up at the
+Chinaman.
+
+"He knows what would happen to him if he didn't serve good meals,"
+smiled Stallings.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Ned Rector.
+
+"Pong, tell the young gentlemen what would become of you if you were to
+serve bad meals to this outfit of cowpunchers."
+
+The Chinaman showed two rows of white teeth in his expansive grin.
+
+"Allee same likee this," he explained.
+
+"How?" asked Tad.
+
+Pong, going through the motions of drawing a gun from his belt, and
+puffing out his cheeks, uttered an explosive "pouf!"
+
+"Oh, you mean they would shoot you?" asked Walter. "I hardly think they
+would do that, Pong."
+
+"Allee same," grinned the Chinaman.
+
+"I guess we are pretty sure of having real food to eat, then," laughed
+Tad, as the boys rose from the table ready for the active work of the
+day.
+
+"We will now get to work on the herd," announced the foreman. "We had
+better start the drive this morning. When we make camp at noon we will
+cut out the strays. I trust none of you will be imprudent and get into
+trouble, for we shall have other things to look after to-day."
+
+However, the Pony Riders were destined not to pass the day without one
+or more exciting adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CUTTING OUT THE HERD
+
+
+"Getting ready for rain," announced the foreman, glancing up at the
+gathering clouds. "That will mean water for the stock, anyway."
+
+Already the great herd was up and grazing when the cowboys reached them.
+But there was no time now for the animals to satisfy their appetites.
+They were supposed to have eaten amply since daylight.
+
+The trail was to be taken up again and by the time the steers were
+bedded down at night, they should be all of fifteen miles nearer the
+Diamond D. Ranch for which they were headed.
+
+The start was a matter of keen interest to the Pony Riders. To set the
+herd in motion, cowboys galloped along the sides of the line giving vent
+to their shrill, wolf-keyed yell, while others pressed forward directly
+in the rear.
+
+As soon as the cattle had gotten under way six men were detailed on each
+side, and in a short time the herd was strung out over more than a mile
+of the trail.
+
+Two riders known as "point men" rode well back from the leaders, and by
+riding forward and closing in occasionally, were able to direct the
+course of the drive.
+
+Others, known as "swing men," rode well out from the herd, their duty
+being to see that none of the cattle dropped out or strayed away. Once
+started, the animals required no driving.
+
+This was a matter of considerable interest to the Pony Riders.
+
+"Don't they ever stop to eat?" asked Tad of the foreman.
+
+"Occasionally. When they do, we have to start them along without their
+knowing we are doing so. It's a good rule to go by that you never should
+let your herd know they are under restraint. Yet always keep them going
+in the proper direction."
+
+The trail wagon, carrying the cooking outfit and supplies, was not
+forgotten. Drawn by a team of four mules, the party seldom allowed it to
+get far away from them, and never, under ordinary circumstances, out of
+their sight. The driver walked beside the mules, while the grinning face
+of Pong was always to be seen in the front end of the wagon.
+
+He was the only member of the outfit who never seemed to mind the
+broiling mid-day heat. He was riding there on this hot forenoon, never
+leaving his seat until the foreman, by a gesture, indicated that the
+herd was soon to be halted for its noonday meal. While the cattle were
+grazing, the cowboys would fall to and satisfy their own appetites.
+
+After the cattle had finally been halted, three men were left on guard
+while the others rode back to the rear of the line. In the meantime Pong
+had been preparing the dinner, which was ready almost as soon as the men
+had cast aside their hats.
+
+"When it comes to cooking for an outfit like this, a Chinaman beats
+anything in the world," laughed Stallings. "At least, this Chinaman
+does."
+
+Pong was too busy to do more than grin at the compliment, even if he
+fully grasped the meaning of it.
+
+The meal was nearly half-finished when the cowpunchers were startled by
+a volley of revolver shots accompanied by a chorus of shrill yells.
+
+"What's up now?" demanded Ned Rector and Tad in one breath.
+
+Every member of the outfit had sprung to his feet.
+
+"Sounds like a stampede," flung back the foreman, making a flying leap
+for his pony.
+
+The other cowboys were up like a flash and into their saddles, uttering
+sharp "ki-yis" and driving in the spurs while they laid their quirts
+mercilessly over the rumps of the ponies.
+
+Tad Butler, Ned Rector and Walter Perkins were not far behind the cowmen
+in reaching their own ponies and leaping into their saddles.
+
+Not so with Chunky. He only paused in his eating long enough to look his
+surprise and to direct an inquiring look at the Chinaman, while the
+others went dashing across the plain toward the herd.
+
+"Allee same likee this," announced Pong, making a succession of violent
+gestures that Stacy did not understand.
+
+But the boy nodded his head wisely and went on with his eating.
+
+Out where the grazing herd had been peacefully eating its noonday meal
+all was now excitement and action.
+
+Revolvers were popping, cowboys were yelling and the herd was surging
+back and forth, bellowing and dashing in and out, a shifting, confused
+mass of color and noise.
+
+The boys did not know what to make of it.
+
+"Yes; they are stampeding," decided Ned, riding alongside of Tad Butler.
+
+"I don't believe it," answered Tad. "It looks to me as if something else
+were the trouble."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know. It's an awful mix-up, whatever they may call it."
+
+"Yes; see! They are fighting."
+
+Surely enough, large numbers of the cattle seemed to be arrayed against
+each other, sending up great clouds of dust as they ran toward each
+other, locked horns and engaged in desperate conflict. It was noticed,
+however, that the muleys kept well out of harm's way, standing aloof
+from the herd and looking on ready to run at the shake of a horn in
+their direction.
+
+"Now, look there! What are they doing?" asked Walter.
+
+"They seem to be cutting out a bunch of steers," answered Tad. "That's
+funny. I can't imagine what it is all about." Neither could Professor
+Zepplin, who had ridden up at a more leisurely pace, explain to the boys
+the meaning of the scene they were viewing.
+
+"If we knew, we might turn in and help," suggested Walter.
+
+"That's right," replied Tad. "Suppose we ride up there where the men
+are at work. We may find something to do. Anyway, we'll find out what
+the trouble is."
+
+Starting up their ponies, the boys galloped up the line, keeping a safe
+distance from the herd as they did so, and halting only when they had
+reached the trail leaders, as the cattle at the head of the line are
+called.
+
+"What's the trouble?" shouted Ned as they came within hailing distance
+of the perspiring foreman.
+
+"Mixed herd," he called back, curtly, driving his pony into the thick of
+the fight and yelling out his orders to the men.
+
+"I know almost as much about it as I did before," announced Ned,
+disgustedly. "Got any idea, Tad?"
+
+"Yes; I have."
+
+"For goodness sake, let's have it, then. If I don't find out what's
+going on here, pretty soon, I shall jump into the fight in sheer
+desperation."
+
+"Mr. Stagings said it was a mixed herd. Don't you think that must mean
+that a lot of cattle who don't belong there have mixed up with ours?"
+asked the freckle-faced boy.
+
+"I guess that's the answer, Tad. But, if so, how can they tell one from
+the other?" wondered Walter.
+
+"From the brands. I have learned that much about the business. Every one
+of our herd is branded with a capital D in the center of a diamond. That
+is the brand of Mr. Miller's ranch--the Diamond D Ranch. Evidently they
+are cutting out all that haven't that brand on."
+
+"Hello! There's Chunky. Now, what do you suppose he is up to!" exclaimed
+Ned.
+
+Stacy Brown had finished his meal, mounted his pony and was now riding
+toward the herd at what was for him a reckless speed.
+
+All at once they saw him pull his mount sharply to the left and drive
+straight at a bunch of cattle that the cowboys had separated from the
+herd a few moments before.
+
+The boy was too far away, the racket too loud, for their voices to reach
+him in a warning shout.
+
+Stacy, having observed the cattle straying away, and having in mind Tad
+Butler's achievement in driving back a bunch of stray steers, thought he
+would do something on his own account.
+
+"I'll show them I can drive steers as well as anybody," he told himself,
+bringing down the quirt about the pony's legs.
+
+The strong-limbed little beast sprang to his work with a will. He
+understood perfectly what was wanted of him. A few moments more, and he
+had headed off the rapidly moving bunch, effectually turning the
+leaders, sending them on a gallop back toward the vast herd fighting and
+bellowing in the cloud of dust they had stirred up.
+
+The cowboys were so fully occupied with their task that they had failed
+to observe Stacy Brown's action, nor would they have known anything
+about it had not Tad, yelling himself hoarse, managed to attract the
+attention of the foreman.
+
+Tad pointed off to where Chunky was jumping his pony at the fleeing
+cattle, forcing them on with horse and quirt.
+
+They had almost reached the main herd before Tad succeeded in informing
+the foreman.
+
+One look was enough for Stallings.
+
+Before he could act, however, the stray herd had once more mingled and
+merged with his own. The work of the cowboys had gone for naught.
+
+Stallings fired three shots into the air as a signal to his men to stop
+their cutting out.
+
+"Will you young men do me a favor?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Stallings," answered Tad.
+
+"Then ride around the herd and tell the boys not to try any more cutting
+out until the herd has quieted down. The dust is so thick that we can't
+do anything with the cows, anyway. You have some sense, but that's more
+than I can say for your friend, Brown. Of all the idiotic--oh, what's
+the use? Tell him to mind his own business and keep half a mile away
+from this herd for the rest of the afternoon."
+
+"All right, sir. Where did those cattle come from?"
+
+"I don't know, Tad. They have broken away from some nearby ranch.
+Probably somebody has cut a wire fence and let them out. That's the
+worst of the wire fence in the modern cow business. They can get through
+wire without being seen. But they can't get by a cowpuncher without his
+seeing them."
+
+"How many cattle do you think have got mixed with ours?"
+
+"I should imagine there were all of five hundred of them," answered the
+foreman.
+
+Tad uttered a long-drawn whistle of astonishment.
+
+"Will--will you ever be able to separate them?" asked Ned.
+
+"We sure will. But it means a hot afternoon's work."
+
+"May we help you, Mr. Stallings?" spoke up Walter.
+
+"Yes; I shall be able to use you boys, some, I guess. It's a wonder to
+me that those cows didn't stampede our whole herd. Had it been night,
+our stock would have been spread over a dozen miles of territory by this
+time. Being day, however, our herd preferred to stay and fight the
+newcomers. I hope they clean up the bunch for keeps."
+
+Pleased that they had been given a task to perform, the boys rode away,
+Tad and Walter going in one direction, while Ned Rector galloped off in
+another, that they might reach the cowmen in the shortest possible time.
+
+The men they found sitting on their horses awaiting orders, though they
+understood what was in the mind of the foreman almost as well as if he
+had told them by word of mouth.
+
+They found Big-foot and Lumpy Bates expressing their opinion of the
+mix-up in voices loud with anger. But, upon discovering the boys, the
+cowmen quickly checked their flow of language.
+
+"Did you see what that--that----" bellowed Lumpy as Tad rode up to him.
+
+"Yes; I saw it," laughed Tad.
+
+"You think this is some kind of a joke, eh?" roared Lumpy, starting his
+pony toward Tad.
+
+The boy's smile left his face and clucking to his pony he rode slowly
+forward toward the angry cowpuncher, meeting the fellow's menacing eyes
+unflinchingly.
+
+"Is there anything you wish to say to me, Mr. Bates?" asked the lad
+calmly.
+
+Lumpy's emotions were almost too great for speech. He controlled himself
+with an effort.
+
+"No--only this. I--I'll forget myself some day, and clean up one of you
+idiotic tenderfeet."
+
+"Perhaps you would like to begin on me, sir," said Tad steadily. "If you
+feel that way I should prefer to have you do that rather than to try it
+on any of my companions. Stacy Brown may be indiscreet, but I'd have you
+understand he is no idiot."
+
+"What--what----"
+
+"You have determined to get square with us ever since we joined out with
+you last night, and I knew that you and I would have to have an
+understanding before long. We might as well have it now, though there's
+nothing of enough consequence to have a quarrel about----"
+
+"You threaten me?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind, Mr. Bates. I only wish to tell you that my
+companions are the guests of this outfit, and we propose to act like
+gentlemen. Every other member of the outfit, not excepting the Chinaman,
+has given us fine treatment. You have hung back, hoping you would have a
+chance to get us run off the trail."
+
+The cowpuncher's fingers were opening and closing convulsively.
+
+"You--you run into me. The whole bunch had the laugh on me and----"
+
+"If I remember correctly, it was you who ran me down. But we'll drop
+that. Will you shake hands and forget your bad temper?" asked the lad,
+reaching over and offering a hand to the cowboy.
+
+For an instant the fellow glared at him, then with a snarl he jerked his
+pony about and drove in the rowels of the spurs.
+
+"Lumpy's got on the grouch that won't come off," grinned Big-foot.
+"Better keep a weather eye on the cayuse. If he gets obstreperous, just
+you let me know."
+
+"Thank you," smiled Tad. "I thought I had better say something to him
+before it went too far. I knew he meant mischief to us ever since he ran
+into me yesterday at San Diego."
+
+Tad then delivered his message and rode on to the next cowpuncher.
+
+For fully an hour the cattle surged and fought, some being killed and
+trampled under foot, while others were so seriously wounded that they
+had to be shot later in the day.
+
+After a time the battle dwindled down to individual skirmishes, with two
+or three animals engaged at a time, until finally the entire herd moved
+off to the fresher ground that had not been trodden upon, and began
+grazing together as contentedly as if nothing had occurred to disturb
+them.
+
+All immediate danger of a stampede having passed, Stallings fired a shot
+as a signal for the cowmen to join him. This they did on the gallop.
+
+After a conference, during which each man gave his opinion as to whom
+the stray herd belonged to, none recognizing the brand, Stallings made
+up his mind what to do.
+
+"You will begin at the lower end and cut out as you go through the herd.
+Cut the newcomers to the west, which will be starting them back toward
+where they came from, wherever that may be. At the same time while we
+cut, we will be moving our cows north, which is the direction in which
+we want them to go."
+
+In the meantime Stacy Brown had ridden up. He was sitting disconsolately
+on his pony near where the conference was being held, having been
+roundly scored by every cowboy in the outfit.
+
+The foreman motioned him to ride over to him.
+
+"Young man, can you carry a message back to camp and get it straight!"
+
+Stacy thought he could.
+
+"Then go back and tell the heathen to pack up his belongings and come
+on. There will be no more eating done in this outfit till we have cut
+out that new bunch. Tell the driver to be ready to move when he sees us
+start. We'll get in a few miles before dark, yet, if we have good luck."
+
+Stacy rode away full of importance to deliver the foreman's order.
+
+Then the cutting out began. Cowboy after cowboy dashed into the herd
+coming out usually with his pony pressing against the side of an
+unwilling steer and pushing him along in the right direction by main
+force.
+
+And here was where the Pony Riders made themselves useful. As an animal
+was cut out, the boys would ride in behind it and worry the steer along
+until they had gotten it a safe distance to the west of the main herd.
+
+"There's a Diamond D steer in that bunch," Tad informed one of the
+cowpunchers as he rushed a big, white steer out.
+
+"Never mind; we'll trim the mixed outfit after we get more of the bunch
+out," answered the cowboy, riding back into the herd.
+
+While doing the cutting out the men also drove out the few cattle that
+had strayed into the herd earlier in the journey.
+
+For three hours this grilling work had kept up, the perspiring cowboys
+yelling, their ponies squealing under the terrific punishment they were
+getting from both riders and steers.
+
+But in the excitement of their own work, the Pony Riders had had little
+time in which to observe what the cowmen were doing.
+
+Tad thought of a plan by which he might assist them further. So he
+galloped his pony over to the edge of the main herd and waited until the
+foreman dashed out with two red, fighting steers, which he gave a lively
+start on their way to join the mixed herd.
+
+"Mr. Stallings, may I cut back some of the Diamond D animals in the
+mixed herd?" he asked.
+
+"Think you can do it, kid?"
+
+"I can try."
+
+"All right. Go ahead. Be careful that you don't turn back any of the
+other brands, though. Above all, look out for yourself."
+
+Tad galloped back to his companions, his face flushed, the dust standing
+out on his blue shirt, turning it almost gray.
+
+"Keep this herd up, fellows," he shouted. "I'm going to try my hand at
+cutting out."
+
+Fortunately, the pony understood what was wanted of it, and, the moment
+it had located an animal which it was desired to cut out, the pony went
+at the work with a will. Tad, triumphant and warm, rode out driving a
+Diamond D steer ahead of him, applying his quirt vigorously to the
+animal's rump until he had landed it safely in the ranks of the main
+herd.
+
+Again and again had the boy ridden in among the cattle, seemingly taking
+no account of the narrow escapes both rider and pony were having from
+the sharp horns of the long-legged Mexican cattle.
+
+One big, white fellow gave the lad more trouble than all the rest that
+he had cut out, and when once Tad had run him out into the open the
+perspiration was dripping from his face.
+
+But his battle was not yet won. The steer, for some reason best known to
+itself, did not wish to return to its own herd. It fought every inch of
+the way, wearing down pony and rider until they were almost exhausted.
+
+Tad Butler's blood was up, however. He set his jaw stubbornly and
+plunged into the work before him.
+
+Bob Stallings, shooting a glance in the boy's direction understood what
+he had in hand, for the foreman had made the acquaintance of this same
+steer himself, earlier on the drive.
+
+The lad had worried the animal nearly to its own herd, after half an
+hour's struggle, when, despite all his efforts, it broke away and dashed
+back toward the mixed bunch.
+
+"I'll get him if it's the last thing I ever do," vowed the boy.
+
+A rawhide lariat hung from his saddle bow, and though he had practised
+with the rope on other occasions, he did not consider himself an expert
+with it. He had watched the cowboys in their use of it and knew how they
+threw a cow with the rope.
+
+On the spur of the moment Tad decided to use the lariat.
+
+Lifting it in his right hand and swinging the great loop high above his
+head, he dashed up to the running steer, and when near enough to take a
+cast, let go of the loop.
+
+It fell over the horns of the white animal as neatly as a cowboy could
+have placed it there.
+
+The coil ran out in a flash; yet quick as the boy was, he found himself
+unable to take a hitch around the pommel of his saddle with the free
+end.
+
+The running steer straightened the rope and Tad shot from his saddle
+still clinging desperately to the line.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+TAD TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE
+
+
+When the freckle-faced boy took his unexpected plunge, it chanced that
+neither cowboys nor Pony Riders were looking his way.
+
+No one knew of his plight.
+
+As he felt the line running through his hand, Tad Butler had given it a
+quick hitch around his right wrist, so that when the rope drew taut, and
+the pony braced itself to meet the shock, the lad fairly flew through
+the air.
+
+The white steer had been headed for the mixed bunch which the Pony
+Riders were guarding. With the stubbornness of its kind, it wheeled
+about the instant it felt the tug on the rope and dashed for the main
+herd, Tad's body ploughing up the dust as he trailed along at a fearful
+pace behind the wild animal, whirling over and over in his rapid flight.
+
+The lad's eyes were so full of sand dust that he was unable to see where
+he was going. He had slight realization of the peril that confronted
+him.
+
+"Look! Look!" cried Walter Perkins.
+
+"What is it?" cried Ned Rector.
+
+"What's that the steer is dragging?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"And there's Tad's pony standing out there alone," added Walter.
+"You--you don't think Tad----"
+
+"As I'm alive, it is Tad! He is being dragged by the steer. He'll be
+killed! Watch this herd, I am going after him!" shouted Ned, putting
+spurs to his pony and dashing toward the main herd.
+
+At that moment the white steer, trailing its human burden, rushed in
+among the other cattle and was soon lost among them.
+
+Ned did not dare to set up a loud shout of warning for fear of
+frightening the cattle. However, he was waving his hat and excitedly
+trying to attract the attention of some of the cowmen.
+
+They were too busy to give any heed to him.
+
+Ned drove his pony in among the struggling cattle with no thought of his
+own danger.
+
+The cowmen were roping and rushing the stock that did not belong to
+them. As it chanced, however, most of them were working at the upper
+end, or head of the herd.
+
+The foreman, for some reason, had galloped down the line, casting his
+eyes keenly over the herd. Instantly he noticed that something was
+wrong, though just what it was, he was unable to decide. Then his eyes
+caught the figure of Ned Rector, the center of a sea of moving backs and
+tossing horns. The boy was standing in his stirrups still swinging his
+sombrero above his head.
+
+It took the foreman but an instant to decide what to do. Wheeling his
+pony, he fairly dived into the mass of cattle, lashing to the right and
+left of him with his ready quirt, the cattle resentfully shaking
+threatening heads at pony and rider and making efforts to reach them
+with their sharp-pointed horns.
+
+"What is it?" shouted Stallings after he had ridden in far enough to
+make his voice reach Ned Rector.
+
+"It's Tad!"
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"He's in there," answered Ned, pointing.
+
+"Where? What do you mean?"
+
+"I don't know. It's the white steer. He dragged him."
+
+Stallings thought he understood. He had seen the lad working with the
+unruly animal only a few moments before.
+
+"What's the trouble--did the boy rope him?" shouted the foreman.
+
+Ned nodded.
+
+"He'll be trampled to death!" snapped the foreman, rising high in his
+stirrups and looking over the herd. There were several white steers in
+the bunch, but the one in question was so much larger than the others
+that Stallings thought he would have no difficulty in picking out the
+animal. Not finding him at once, the foreman fired two shots in the air
+to attract the attention of the cowboys. Three of them soon were seen
+working their way in.
+
+"Open up the herd!" he shouted.
+
+"Whereabouts?" asked Reddy Davis.
+
+"Anywhere. Look out for the big, white cow. The boy's roped to him!"
+
+They understood at once.
+
+Big-foot Sanders had heard, and began working like an automatic machine.
+The way the cattle, big and little, fell away before his plunging pony
+and ready quirt was an object lesson for those of the Pony Riders who
+were near enough to see his effort.
+
+In the thick of it was Ned Rector, driving his pony here and there,
+anxiously watching for the white steer.
+
+"There he is!" shouted Ned, suddenly espying the animal still dashing
+about.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There, to the right of you!"
+
+Forcing his mount through the crowded ranks, Stallings in a moment found
+himself within reach of the white beast. However, there were three or
+four cattle between himself and the one he wanted.
+
+The foreman's rope circled in the air above his head, then the great
+loop squirmed out over the backs of the cattle, dropping lightly over
+the horns of the white one.
+
+The steer felt the touch of the rope and knew the meaning of it. As the
+animal sprang forward, Stallings took a quick turn about the pommel of
+his saddle and the pony braced its fore feet. When the shock came, the
+cattle over whose backs the rope lay felt it even more than did the pony
+itself. Three of them were forced to their knees bawling with sudden
+fright and pain.
+
+The head of the white steer was jerked to one side. A swing of the rope
+and the steer was thrown heavily.
+
+"Get in there!" roared Stallings.
+
+Ned at the moment, chanced to be nearer than were any of the others to
+the animal, and to him fell the perilous work of holding down the
+kicking beast.
+
+He knew exactly what was expected of him, having seen a cowboy hold a
+steer down for a quick branding that morning.
+
+Ned spurred in and leaped to the ground.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation he threw himself on the neck of the
+struggling animal, whose flying hoofs made the attempt doubly dangerous.
+
+This act of Ned enabled Stallings to jump from his pony and run to the
+lad's assistance, leaving the pony braced to hold the line taut.
+
+The foreman sprang to the rear, where he observed the form of Tad Butler
+doubled up, lying half under the body of a big, red steer.
+
+Stallings picked him up, quickly cutting the lariat.
+
+"Slip the loops off his horns!" he commanded. "Look out that you don't
+get pinked by them."
+
+"Is Tad hurt?" called Ned anxiously.
+
+"Lucky if he ain't dead," answered the foreman, hurrying to his pony,
+which he mounted taking the boy in his arms. By this time Ned had the
+ropes and had sprung away from the steer's dangerous horns.
+
+Tad's form hung limp and lifeless over the saddle. His face, with the
+sand and dust ground into it, was scarcely recognizable.
+
+Ned followed the foreman as soon as he could get his pony. By the time
+Ned reached them, Stallings had laid Tad down and was making a quick
+examination.
+
+"Get water! Hurry!" he commanded sharply.
+
+"Where?" asked Ned, glancing about him, undecided which way to turn.
+
+"The chuck wagon. Ride, kid! Ride!"
+
+Ned bounced into his saddle without so much as touching his stirrup.
+With a sharp yell to the animal he sped away over the plain, urging on
+the little pony with quirt and spur.
+
+The way Ned Rector rode that day made those of the cowmen who saw him
+open their eyes.
+
+Ned began shouting for water as soon as he came in sight of the wagon,
+which, by this time, was packed for the start.
+
+Pong, understanding from the boy's tone that the need was urgent, was
+filling a jug from the tap barrel by the time Ned rode up beside the
+wagon. He had less than a minute to wait.
+
+Grabbing the jug from the hands of the grinning Chinaman, and unheeding
+Pong's chuckled "allee same," Ned whirled about and raced for the herd.
+
+The lad struggled to keep back the tears as he realized that, even with
+all his haste, it might be too late.
+
+That Tad should come out of that melee of flying hoofs and prodding
+horns without being at least seriously injured was more than he could
+hope.
+
+Faster and faster ran the pony, behind him a rising cloud of yellow
+dust. Ned's fingers were stiff and numb from carrying the heavy jug, and
+the lump in his throat was growing larger, it seemed to him, with every
+leap of the animal under him.
+
+Now Ned could see the cowmen galloping in and gazing from their ponies.
+He knew they were looking at Tad. Stallings was bent over him, pouring
+something down the boy's throat.
+
+Ned's heart gave a great bound. Tad Butler must be alive or there would
+be no need for the liquid that the foreman was forcing down his throat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HERD FORDS THE RIVER
+
+
+"Is he--is he----" asked Ned, weakly, after they had taken the jug of
+water from his hand.
+
+"He's alive, if that's what you mean," answered Stallings. "I'm afraid
+he's got a slight concussion of the brain. He doesn't come around the
+way I should like to see him."
+
+"Sure it isn't a fracture!" asked the Professor, who had just arrived on
+the scene.
+
+"No, I hardly think so."
+
+The foreman washed the unconscious boy's face, soaking Tad's head and
+neck and searching for the seat of the trouble.
+
+"Huh! Steer kicked him," grunted Stallings. "It was a glancing blow,
+luckily for the kid."
+
+They worked over the lad for fully half an hour before he began to show
+signs of returning consciousness. At last his trembling eyelids
+struggled apart and he smiled up at them weakly.
+
+"Ah! He's all right now, I guess," laughed the foreman, with a world of
+relief in his tone. "Boys, get busy now and cut out the rest of those
+cows. If the young man is not able to ride we'll put him in the chuck
+wagon when it comes up. Feel bad anywhere, now?" he asked.
+
+"My--my head weighs a ton."
+
+"I should think it would. Did the white steer kick you?"
+
+"I--I don't know. Hello, Professor. I roped him all right, didn't I, Mr.
+Stallings?"
+
+"You did. But you got roped yourself, too, I reckon. Think you'll be
+able to ride in the trail wagon? If not we'll have to send you back to
+town."
+
+"That'll be the best place for the tenderfoot," growled Lumpy Bates.
+
+Stallings turned a stern eye upon him.
+
+"Lumpy, when I want your opinion I'll let you know. What are you doing
+here, anyway? Get into that cut out and be mighty quick about it!"
+
+Lumpy rode away growling.
+
+"I'll ride in no trail wagon," announced Tad Butler, with emphasis.
+
+"I guess you will have to, my boy."
+
+"I'll ride my pony if I have to be tied on," he declared resolutely.
+
+The foreman laughed heartily.
+
+"Well, we'll see about that. You boys all have good stuff in you. I see
+that Master Walter and the gopher are still out there looking after that
+bunch of cattle."
+
+"I told them to do so," spoke up Tad.
+
+"And they are obeying orders. That's the first thing to learn in this
+business."
+
+"May I sit up now?"
+
+"You may try."
+
+Tad's head spun round when he raised himself up. The lad fought his
+dizziness pluckily, and mastered it. After a little while they helped
+him to his feet. Finally feeling himself able to walk he started
+unsteadily away from them.
+
+"Where are you going?" demanded the Professor.
+
+"Pony," answered Tad.
+
+"I protest, Tad. You will come back here at once."
+
+Tad turned obediently.
+
+"Please, Professor. I'm all right."
+
+"Let the boy go. He will be all right in a few moments after he has
+gotten into the saddle," urged the foreman. "Besides, he's too much of a
+man to be treated like a weakling. He'll get more bumps than that before
+he leaves this outfit, if I'm any judge."
+
+The Professor motioned to Tad to go on, which the lad did, petting his
+pony as he reached him, and then pulling himself into the saddle with
+considerable effort.
+
+"I'm ready for business now," he smiled, waving a hand to the foreman.
+
+"Better look on and let the rest do the work," advised Stallings,
+mounting his own tough pony and riding into the thick of the cutting out
+process.
+
+But Tad Butler could no more sit idly by while the exciting work was
+going on than could the foreman himself. The first steer that was cut
+out from the main herd, after Stallings went back, found Tad Butler
+alongside of it, crowding it toward his own herd farther out. And this
+work he kept up until all the strangers had been separated from the
+Diamond D stock.
+
+"There, I'm glad that job is done," exclaimed Stallings, whipping off
+his hat and drawing a sleeve across his perspiring brow.
+
+"Too bad I had to go and upset things so," said Tad.
+
+"Never mind. It's all in a day's work. On a cattle drive if it isn't one
+thing it's sure to be another. We have been lucky enough not to have a
+stampede thus far. That isn't saying we won't, however. If you feel like
+working you can ride up and join the point men. We'll make five or six
+miles before it is time to bed down the herd."
+
+To Tad's companions was left the task of driving the strange cattle a
+couple of miles to the west and leaving them there.
+
+The boys could not well lose the main herd; for, no sooner had they
+started on the trail than a great cloud of dust slowly floated up into
+the air. Tad, in his position near the head of the line, and well out to
+one side of it, was free from this annoyance. The longer the lad was in
+the saddle, the stronger he seemed to feel, and the only trace that was
+now left of his recent experience among the hoofs of the Mexican steers
+was a bump on one side of his head almost as large as a hen's egg.
+
+It was near sundown when the foreman, who had ridden on ahead some time
+before, came back with the information that a broad stream that was not
+down on his map lay just ahead of them.
+
+"There's not more than thirty feet of swimming water there, and I
+believe I'll make a crossing before we go into camp," he announced
+briefly.
+
+"How deep is the water?" asked Big-foot Sanders.
+
+"In the middle, deep enough to drown, but on the edges it's fordable.
+The cows will be glad of a drink and a swim after the heat of to-day."
+
+With this in mind the cowmen were instructed to urge the cattle along at
+a little stronger pace, that they might all get well over before the
+night came on.
+
+The animals seemed to feel the presence of water ahead of them, for they
+ceased their grazing by the wayside and swung into a rapid pace, such a
+pace as always gladdens the heart of the cowboy. The steers held it
+until the rays of the setting sun were reflected on the surface of the
+broad sluggish stream.
+
+The Pony Riders dashed forward intent upon reaching the stream first.
+Tad followed them upon receiving permission from the foreman to do so.
+
+The banks on each side were high and steep, making it far from an ideal
+fording place. Stallings, however, thought it better to cross there than
+to take the time to work the herd further down. Joining the boys, he
+cast his glance up and down the stream to decide whether his judgment
+had been correct.
+
+"I thought we were going to cross the river," said Stacy Brown.
+
+"That's exactly what we are going to do," replied the foreman.
+
+"But where's the bridge? I don't see any?" objected the lad.
+
+"Right there in front of you."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Chunky, there is no bridge," Tad informed him. "We have to wade, just
+as the cattle will."
+
+"And swim, too, part of the way," added Stallings.
+
+"But we'll get wet," wailed Chunky.
+
+"No doubt about that," roared the foreman.
+
+"Swim the river with our horses?" exclaimed Ned. "Hurrah! That will be
+great!"
+
+"I shall be glad to get some of this dust washed off me," laughed Tad.
+"Besides, the bump on my head will feel better for it, I think."
+
+"Spread out, boys. The cattle are coming up on the run. They will push
+you into the river before you are ready if you happen to be in their
+way," warned Stallings.
+
+The riders clucked to their ponies and all galloped up stream some
+distance that they might be well out of the way of the oncoming herd.
+
+The thirsty animals plunged into the water with a mighty splash. Some
+forded until their feet could no longer touch the ground, after which
+they swam to the other side, while others paused to drink until those
+behind them forced them out into the stream also.
+
+In a few moments the stream was alive with swimming cattle, the herd
+being spread out for a full quarter of a mile up and down the stream. To
+the rear, yelling cowboys were urging on the stragglers and forcing the
+herd into the cool waters.
+
+It was an inspiring sight for the boys.
+
+Here and there a cowman would ride his pony into the water and turn the
+leaders, who were straying too far up or down the river.
+
+After half an hour of watering, the men began to force the cattle to the
+opposite bank. There was a great scramble when the steers started to
+climb the steep bluff. The first ones to try it went half way up on a
+run.
+
+Losing their footing they came tumbling to the foot of the bluff,
+knocking a number of the other cattle back into the water.
+
+There was much bellowing and floundering about, but the relentless
+forcing from the other side swept the unfortunate ones to the crest of
+the tide and up the steep bank.
+
+Now that the loose dirt had slipped down the footing grew more secure,
+and the animals soon fell into trails of their own making, up which they
+crept three and four abreast.
+
+Once on the other side they started to graze as contentedly as if they
+had not just passed through a most trying experience.
+
+Two of the cowmen who had forded the stream further down, now appeared
+opposite the main fording place, to take charge of the cattle.
+
+"Get across, boys," shouted the foreman.
+
+With an answering shout Tad and Ned slid their ponies down the sharp
+bluff, plunging into the water and heading straight across.
+
+"Slip out of your saddles and hang on!" called the foreman.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the two boys slid into the water with a
+splash, but keeping tight hold on the pommels of their saddles.
+
+"Let go the reins," directed Stallings. "The ponies know where to go."
+
+Now the lads were being drawn rapidly through the water, and almost
+before they knew it their feet rested on the bottom of the shallow
+stream a short distance from the opposite bank.
+
+"Hooray!" shouted Tad, waving his water-soaked sombrero. "Come in. The
+water's great!"
+
+"Come on, Chunky," called Ned.
+
+"I'll wait and go over in the wagon," decided Chunky.
+
+"You'll do nothing of the sort," snapped the foreman. "You will swim, if
+you get over at all."
+
+Professor Zepplin, not to be outdone by his young charges, bravely rode
+his animal into the stream.
+
+The boys set up a shout of glee when he, too, finally dropped into the
+river with a great splash. Instead, however, of allowing the pony to tow
+him, the Professor propelled himself along with long powerful strokes of
+his left hand, while with the right he clung to the saddle pommel.
+
+"Three cheers for Professor Zepplin!" cried Tad as the German, dripping
+but smiling, emerged from the water and scrambled up the bank, leaving
+his pony to follow along after him.
+
+The cheers were given with a will.
+
+Stacy Brown, however, was still on the other side with the straggling
+cattle which were coming along in small bunches.
+
+"Young man, if you expect to get in for supper, you'd better be fording
+the stream," suggested Big-foot Sanders.
+
+The mention of supper was all that Stacy needed to start him.
+
+"Gid-ap!"
+
+The pony slid down the bank on its haunches, Stacy leaning far back in
+the saddle that he might not pitch over the animal's head.
+
+"Chunky would make a good side hill rider, wouldn't he?" jeered Ned.
+
+"Depends upon whether he were going up or down," decided Tad.
+
+"Look out! There he goes!" exclaimed Walter.
+
+The boy's mount had mired one foot in a quicksand pocket and had gone
+down on its knees. But Chunky kept right on going.
+
+He hit the water flat on his stomach, arms and legs outspread, clawing
+and kicking desperately.
+
+The fat boy opened his mouth to cry out for help.
+
+As a result Stacy swallowed all the water that came his way. Floundering
+about like a drowning steer, choking and coughing, he disappeared from
+sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE APPROACH OF THE STORM
+
+
+"He's gone down!" cried a voice from the other side of the stream.
+
+Tad sprang down the bank and leaped in, striking out for the spot where
+Stacy had last been seen.
+
+Cattle were scattered here and there and the boy had to keep his eyes
+open to prevent being run down. He had almost reached the place where he
+had made up his mind to dive, should Stacy not rise to the surface, when
+a great shout from the bluff caused Tad to turn.
+
+"Wha--what is it?" he called.
+
+"Look! Look!" cried Ned Rector.
+
+"I don't see anything. Is it Chunky? Is he all right?"
+
+"Yes. He's driving oxen just now," answered Ned.
+
+By this time the cowpunchers had joined in the shouting. Tad could see,
+however, that they were shouting with merriment, though for the life of
+him he could not understand what there was to laugh about.
+
+Several steers were between him and the spot on which the glances of the
+others were fixed.
+
+"Come on in," called Ned.
+
+The lad swam shoreward with slow, easy strokes. Then he discovered what
+they were laughing at.
+
+Stacy, grasping desperately as he went down, had caught the tail of a
+swimming steer. He had been quickly drawn to the surface, and out
+through an opening between the treading animals, appeared the fat boy's
+head.
+
+Chunky was not swimming. He was allowing the steer to do that for him,
+clinging to its tail with all his strength. The lad's eyes were blinded
+for the moment by the water that was in them. He did not release his
+hold of the tail when they had reached the shore, but hung on
+desperately while the steer, dragging him along through the mire,
+scrambled up the bank.
+
+There was no telling how long Stacy might have hung to the animal's
+tail, had not Stallings grabbed him by the collar as he rose over the
+crest of the bank. Stallings shook him until the water-soaked clothes
+sent out a miniature rain storm and the boy had coughed himself back to
+his normal condition.
+
+"Well, you are a nice sort of cowboy," laughed the foreman. "When you
+are unable to do anything else to interest your friends, you try to
+drown yourself. Go, shake yourself!"
+
+Stacy rubbed the water from his eyes.
+
+"I--I fell in, didn't I?" he grinned.
+
+After having ferried the trail wagon over, everybody was ready for
+supper. No one seemed to mind the wetting he had gotten. Professor
+Zepplin made a joke of his own bedraggled condition, and the boys gave
+slight heed to theirs.
+
+The cattle were quickly bedded down and guards placed around them almost
+immediately, for the clouds were threatening. Stallings' watchful eyes
+told him that a bad night was before them. How bad, perhaps he did not
+even dream.
+
+Supper was ready a short time after the arrival of the wagon, and,
+laughing and joking, the boys gathered about the spread with a keen zest
+for the good things that had been placed before them.
+
+"Do you boys feel like going out on guard to-night?" asked the foreman
+while they were eating.
+
+"I do for one," answered Tad.
+
+"And I," chorused the rest of the lads.
+
+"I see your recent wetting has not dampened your spirits any," laughed
+Stallings.
+
+"Conditions make a lot of difference in the lives of all of us,"
+announced the Professor. "Now, were these boys at home they'd all catch
+cold after what they have been through this afternoon. Their clothes, as
+it is, will not be dry much before sunrise."
+
+"And perhaps not even then," added the foreman, with an apprehensive
+glance at the sky.
+
+"What did you say, Mr. Stallings?"
+
+"I am thinking that it looks like rain."
+
+"What do we do when it rains?" asked Stacy Brown.
+
+"Same as any other time, kid," growled Big-foot Sanders.
+
+"I know; but what do you do?" persisted Chunky.
+
+"Young feller, we usually git wet," snapped Curley Adams, his mouth so
+full of potatoes that they could scarcely understand him.
+
+"He means where do we sleep?" spoke up Tad.
+
+"Oh, in the usual place," answered the foreman. "The only difference is
+that the bed is not quite so hard as at other times."
+
+"How's that, Mr. Stallings?" inquired Walter.
+
+"Because there's usually a puddle of water under you. I've woke up many
+a morning on the plains with only my head out of water. I'd a' been
+drowned if I hadn't had the saddle under my head for a pillow. However,
+it doesn't matter a great sight. After it has been raining a little
+while a fellow can't get any wetter, so what's the odds?"
+
+"That's what I say," added Ned Rector.
+
+Stacy Brown shook his head, disapproval plainly written on his face.
+
+"I don't agree with you. I have never been so wet that I couldn't be
+wetter."
+
+"How about when you came out of the river at the end of a cow's tail
+this afternoon? Think you could have been any more wet?" jeered Ned.
+
+"Sure thing. I might have drowned; then I'd been wet on the inside as
+well as the outside," answered the fat boy, wisely, his reply causing a
+ripple of merriment all around the party.
+
+"I guess the gopher scored that time, eh?" grinned Big-foot.
+
+That night Stacy was sent out on the second guard from ten-thirty to one
+o'clock. They had found him asleep under the chuck wagon, whence he was
+hauled out, feet first, by one of the returning guards.
+
+Tad had turned in early, as he was to be called shortly before one to go
+out with the third guard and to remain on duty till half-past three.
+
+For reasons of his own the foreman had given orders that all the ponies
+not on actual duty, that night, were to be staked down instead of being
+hobbled and turned out to graze.
+
+Tad heard the order given, and noting the foreman's questioning glances
+at the heavens, imagined that it had something to do with weather
+conditions.
+
+"Do you think Mr. Stallings is worried about the weather?" asked the lad
+of Big-foot Sanders, as he rode along beside the big cowman on the way
+to the bedding place of the herd.
+
+"I reckon he is," was the brief answer.
+
+"Then you think we are going to have a storm?"
+
+"Ever been through a Texas storm?" asked Big-foot by way of answering
+the boy's question.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, you won't call it a storm after you have. There ain't no name in
+the dictionary that exactly fits that kind of a critter. A stampede is a
+Sunday in a country village as compared with one of them Texas howlers.
+You'll be wishing you had a place to hide, in about a minute after that
+kind of a ruction starts."
+
+"Are they so bad as that?"
+
+"Well, almost," answered the cowman. "I've heard tell," he continued,
+"that they've been known to blow the horns off a Mexican cow. Why, you
+couldn't check one of them things with a three inch rope and a snubbing
+post."
+
+Tad laughed at the quaintness of his companion's words. The sky near the
+horizon was a dull, leaden hue, though above their heads the stars
+twinkled reassuringly.
+
+"It doesn't look very threatening to me," decided Tad Butler, gazing
+intently toward the heavens.
+
+"Well, here's where we split," announced the cowboy, riding off to the
+left of the herd, Tad taking the right. Shortly after the lad heard the
+big cowman break out in song:
+
+    "Two little niggers upstairs in bed,
+    One turned ober to de oder an' said,
+    How 'bout dat short'nin' bread,
+    How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?"
+
+Tad pulled up his pony and listened until the song had been finished. It
+was the cowpuncher's way of telling the herd that he had arrived and was
+on hand to guard them against trouble.
+
+"Big-foot seems to have a new song to-night," mused Tad.
+
+Now the lad noticed that there was an oppressiveness about the air that
+had not been present before.
+
+A deep orange glow showed on the southern horizon for an instant, then
+settled back into the prairie, leaving the gloom about the young cowboy
+even more dense than it had been before.
+
+"Feels spooky," was Tad's comment.
+
+Not being able to sing to his own satisfaction, Tad shoved his hands
+deep into his trousers pockets and began whistling "Old Black Joe." It
+was the most appropriate tune he could think of.
+
+"Kind of fits the night," he explained to the pony, which was picking
+its way slowly about the great herd. Then he resumed his whistling.
+
+The guards passed each other without a word, some being too sleepy;
+others too fully occupied with their own thoughts.
+
+The night, by this time, had grown intensely still, even the insects and
+night birds having hushed their weird songs.
+
+A flash more brilliant than the first attracted the lad's attention.
+
+"Lightning," he muttered, glancing off to the south. "I guess Mr.
+Stallings was right about the storm." Yet, directly overhead the stars
+still sparkled. In the distance Tad saw the comforting flicker of the
+camp-fire, about which the cowmen were sleeping undisturbed by the
+oppressiveness of the night.
+
+"I guess the foreman knew what he was talking about when he said we were
+going to have a storm," repeated Tad. "I wonder how the cattle will
+behave if things get lively."
+
+As if in answer to his question there came a stir among the animals on
+the side nearest him.
+
+Tad began whistling at once and the cows quieted down.
+
+"They must like my whistling. It's the first time anything ever did,"
+thought the lad.
+
+Far over on the other side of the herd Big-foot crooned to his charges
+the song of the "Two little niggers upstairs in bed."
+
+"Sanders' stock must be walking in their sleep, too. I wonder----"
+
+A brilliant flash lighted the entire heaven, causing Tad Butler to cut
+short the remark he was about to make.
+
+A deep rumble of thunder, that seemed to roll across the plain like some
+great wave, followed a few seconds later.
+
+The lad shivered slightly.
+
+He was not afraid. Yet he realized that he was lonely, and wished that
+some of the other guards might come along to keep him company.
+
+Glancing up, Tad made the discovery that the small spot of clear sky had
+disappeared. By now he was unable to see anything. He made no effort to
+direct the pony, leaving it to the animal's instinct to keep a proper
+distance from the herd and follow its formation.
+
+The thunder gradually became louder and the flashes of lightning more
+frequent. The herd was disturbed. He could hear the cattle scrambling to
+their feet. Now and then the sound of locking horns reached him as the
+beasts crowded their neighbors too closely in their efforts to move
+about.
+
+Tad tried to sing, but gave it up and resumed his whistling.
+
+"I'm glad Chunky is not out on this trick," thought the boy aloud. "I am
+afraid he would be riding back to camp as fast as his pony could carry
+him."
+
+No sooner had the words left his mouth than a flash, so brilliant that
+it blinded Tad for the moment, lighted up the prairie. A crash which, as
+it seemed to him, must have split the earth wide open, followed almost
+instantly.
+
+Another roar, different from that caused by the thunder, rose on the
+night air, accompanied by the suggestive rattle of meeting horns and the
+bellowing of frightened cattle.
+
+By this time Tad had circled around to the west side of the herd. The
+instant this strange, startling noise reached him he halted his pony and
+listened.
+
+Off to the north of him he saw the flash of a six-shooter. Another
+answered it from his rear. Then a succession of shots followed quickly
+one after the other.
+
+The lad began slowly to understand.
+
+He could hear the rush and thunder of thousands of hoofs.
+
+"The cattle are stampeding!" cried Tad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHASED BY A STAMPEDING HERD
+
+
+"Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!"
+
+The long soothing cry echoed from guard to guard.
+
+It was the call of the cowman, in an effort to calm the frightened
+animals. Here and there a gun would flash as the guards shot in front of
+the stampeding herd, hoping thereby to turn the rush and set the animals
+going about more in a circle in order to keep them together until they
+could finally be quieted.
+
+It was all a mad chaos of noise and excitement to the lad who sat in his
+saddle hesitatingly, not knowing exactly what was expected of him under
+the circumstances.
+
+Off toward the camp a succession of flashes like fireflies told the
+cowpunchers on guard that their companions were racing to their
+assistance as fast as horseflesh could carry them.
+
+The storm had disturbed the herd from the instant of the first flash of
+lightning, and, as other flashes followed, the excitement of the animals
+increased until, at last, throwing off all restraint, they dashed
+blindly for the open prairie.
+
+Desperately as the guards struggled to turn the herd, their efforts had
+no more effect than if they had been seeking to beat back the waves of
+the sea.
+
+Tad was recalled to a realization of his position when, in a dazzling
+flash of lightning, he caught a momentary glimpse of Big-foot Sanders
+bearing down on him at a tremendous speed. Tad saw something else,
+too--a surging mass of panic-stricken cattle, heads hanging low, horns
+glistening and eyes protruding, sweeping toward him.
+
+"Ride! Ride!" shouted Big-foot.
+
+"Wh--where?" asked Tad in as strong a voice as he could command.
+
+"Keep out of their way. Work up to the point as soon as you can and try
+to point in the leaders. We've got to keep the herd from scattering.
+I'll stay in the center and lead them till the others get here. Bob will
+send along some of the fellows to help you as soon as possible."
+
+While delivering his orders Big-foot had turned his pony, and, with Tad,
+was riding swiftly in advance of the cattle, in the same direction that
+they were traveling. To have paused where they were would have meant
+being crushed and trampled beneath the hoofs of the now maddened
+animals.
+
+"Now, git!"
+
+Tad pulled his pony slightly to the right.
+
+"Use your gun!" shouted Big-foot. "Burn plenty of powder in front of
+their noses if they press you too closely!"
+
+He had forgotten that the lad did not carry a gun, nor did he realize
+that he was sending the boy into a situation of the direst peril.
+
+Tad, by this time, had a pretty fair idea of the danger of the task that
+had been assigned to him. But he was not the boy to flinch in an
+emergency.
+
+Pressing the rowels of his spurs against the flanks of the reaching pony
+and urging the little animal on with his voice, Tad swept obliquely
+along in front of the herd.
+
+Now and then a flash of lightning would show him a solid mass of cattle
+hurling themselves upon him. At such times the lad would swerve his
+mount to the left a little and shoot ahead for a few moments, in an
+attempt to get sufficient lead of them to enable him to reach the right
+or upper end of the line.
+
+In this way Tad Butler soon gained the outside of the leaders. By
+dropping back and working up the line, he pointed them in to the best of
+his ability.
+
+The lightning got into his eyes as he strained them wide open to take
+account of his surroundings. He would pass a hand over his face
+instinctively, as if to brush the flash away, groping for an instant for
+his bearings after he had done so.
+
+He remembered what Bob Stallings had said in speaking of a stampede.
+
+"Keep them straight and hold them together. That's all you can do. You
+can't stop them," the foreman had said.
+
+The lad was doing this now as best he could, yet he wondered that none
+of the cowmen had come to his assistance.
+
+Again and again did Tad Butler throw his pony against the great
+unreasoning wave on the right of the line, and again and again was he
+buffeted back, only to return to the battle with desperate courage.
+
+All at once the lad found himself almost surrounded by the beasts. A
+lightning flash had shown him this at the right time. Had it been a few
+seconds later Tad must have gone down under their irresistible rush.
+
+The pony, seeming to realize the danger fully as much as did its rider,
+bent every muscle in its little body to bear itself and rider to safety.
+
+Yet try as they would, they were unable to get back to the right point
+to take up the turning work again.
+
+The cattle had closed in about the lad in almost a crescent formation,
+Tad's position being about the center of it.
+
+"Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!" shouted Tad, taking up the cry that he had
+heard the cowboys utter earlier in the stampede.
+
+His voice was lost in the roar of the storm and the thunder of the
+rushing herd.
+
+Tad realized that there was only one thing left for him to do. That was
+to keep straight ahead and ride. He would have to ride fast, too, if he
+were to keep clear of the long-legged Mexican cattle.
+
+They were descending a gradual slope that led down into a broad, sandy
+arroyo where still stood the rotting stumps of oak and cottonwood trees
+that once lined the ancient water course.
+
+By this time the main herd lay to the rear nearly two miles, the cattle
+having separated into several bands. However, the lad was unaware of
+this.
+
+Suddenly, in the darkness, rider and pony crashed into a dense mesquite
+thicket.
+
+There was not a second to hesitate, for they were already in. The
+leading cattle tore in after Tad with a crashing of brush and a rattle
+of horns--sounds that sent a chill up and down his spine in spite of all
+the lad's sturdy courage.
+
+The herd was closing in on him, leaving the boy no alternative but to go
+through the thicket himself, and to go fast at that.
+
+Tad formed his plan instantly. He made up his mind to ride it out and
+let his pony have its own way. Yet the boy never expected to come
+through the mesquite thicket without being swept from his pony and
+trampled under the feet of the savage steers.
+
+He gave the pony a free rein, clutched both cantle and pommel of the
+saddle and braced himself for the shock that he was sure would come. The
+cow pony tore through the growth at a fearful pace, while the boy's
+clothes hung in shreds where they had been raked by the mesquite thorns.
+
+All at once Tad felt himself going through the air with a different
+motion. He realized that he was falling. The pony had stumbled and with
+its rider was plunging headlong to the ground. The cattle were
+thundering down upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE
+
+
+"That settles me!" said the lad bitterly.
+
+The next instant he hit the ground with a force that partially stunned
+him. His pony, whose nose had ploughed the ground, was up like a flash.
+Realizing its danger, the little animal gave a snort and plunged into
+the mesquite, leaving its rider lying on the ground with a fair prospect
+of being crushed to death beneath, the hoofs of the stampeding steers.
+
+Tad recovered himself almost instantly. His first instinct was to run,
+in the hope of overtaking the fleeing pony.
+
+"That'll be sure death," he told himself.
+
+The cattle were almost upon him. If he were to do anything to save
+himself he would have to act quickly.
+
+It came to him suddenly that what the pony had fallen over might be made
+to act as a shield for himself. The boy sprang forward, groping in the
+dark amid the roaring of the storm and the thunder of the maddened herd.
+His hands touched a log. He found that it had so rotted away on one side
+as to make a partial shell. It was not enough to admit a human body, but
+it served as a sort of screen for him. Tad burrowed into it as far as he
+could get.
+
+"I hope there are no snakes in here," he thought, snuggling close.
+
+Yet between the two he preferred to take his chances with snakes, at
+that moment, rather than with the crazy steers.
+
+The leaders of the steers cleared the log, just grazing it with their
+hind feet as they went over, sending a shower of dust and decayed wood
+over Tad.
+
+The cattle immediately following the leaders did not fare so well. A
+number of them, leaping over the log at the same instant, fell headlong
+as the pony had done before them. However, the steers were less
+fortunate. Before they were able to scramble to their feet, others
+following had tumbled over on top of them, and Tad Butler found himself
+wedged in behind a barricade of bellowing cattle, whose flying hoofs
+made him hastily burrow deeper into the decayed log.
+
+This obstruction soon caused the main body to swerve. Their solid front
+had been broken at last, yet they continued on as wildly as before,
+bellowing and horning one another in their mad flight.
+
+The rain, which had held back during the brilliant electrical display,
+now came down in drenching torrents, packing down the sand of the plain
+which the wind, before, had picked up and tossed into the air in dense
+clouds.
+
+Tad was soaked to the skin almost instantly. But he did not mind this.
+His thought, now, was to get out of his perilous position and follow the
+herd.
+
+The cattle that had fallen so near him, were now one by one extricating
+themselves from their predicament, each one giving vent to a bellow as
+it did so and dashing after its companions.
+
+The lad was not slow to crawl from his hiding place the moment he
+considered it safe to do so. As it was, he got away before the snarl of
+steers had entirely unraveled itself.
+
+What to do Tad did not know. His pony gone, and, with no sense of
+direction left, he was in sore straits.
+
+"I'll follow the cattle," he decided. "Besides, it's my business to stay
+with them if I can. I'll do it as long as I've got a leg to stand on,"
+he declared, cautiously working around those of the cattle that were
+leaping from the heap and running away.
+
+The mesquite was still full of stragglers dashing wildly here and there.
+In the darkness, the boy was really in great danger. There were no large
+trees behind which he could dodge to get out of the way of the animals
+as they rushed toward him, nor was he able to see them when they did get
+near him. He was obliged to judge of their direction by sound alone.
+This was made doubly difficult since the rain had begun to fall, for
+now, young Butler could scarcely distinguish one sound from another.
+
+Once a plunging steer hit the lad a glancing blow with its great side,
+hurling him into a thicket of bristling mesquite. The thorns gashed his
+face and body, almost stripping the remnants of his tattered clothes
+from him.
+
+Still, with indomitable pluck, the lad sprang to his feet, stubbornly
+working his way through the thicket.
+
+He came out finally on the other side and floundering about for a time,
+found himself once more on a plain, which he had observed in the light
+from a flash of lightning extended away indefinitely. Off to the west,
+he plainly made out a large body of cattle. Apparently they were now
+headed to the northwest.
+
+It was almost a hopeless task for one to expect to be able to overhaul
+them on foot, and even were he to do so he could accomplish nothing
+after reaching them.
+
+But Tad kept on just the same, with the rain beating him until he was
+gasping for breath, the lightning playing about him in lingering sheets
+of yellow flame.
+
+He had run on in this way for fully half an hour when a flash disclosed
+an object to the right of him. It was moving, but Tad was sure it was
+not a steer.
+
+The boy changed his course somewhat and trotted along with more caution,
+shading his eyes with a hand that he might make out what it was when the
+next flash came.
+
+"It's a pony!" he shouted. "It's my pony!"
+
+The animal was standing with lowered head, gazing straight at the boy.
+
+Tad whistled and called with a long drawn "Whoa-oo-ope!"
+
+The pony made no move to approach, nor did it attempt to run away. But
+Tad had had experience enough with the cow ponies by this time to know
+that the animal was not likely to stand still and permit him to come up
+with it. At any moment it was likely to kick its heels in the air and
+dash away.
+
+"I've got to make a run for him," decided the lad, stepping cautiously
+forward, making a slight detour that he might come up from the animal's
+left instead of approaching him directly from the front.
+
+After having done this, Tad waited, crouching low. He chuckled to
+himself as he observed that the pony was looking straight ahead, not
+having discovered his master's new position.
+
+The boy was not more than two rods from him.
+
+Measuring the distance with his eyes, he waited until the lightning
+flash died out, then ran on his toes straight for where he believed the
+horse was standing. It was Tad's purpose to grab the animal about the
+neck.
+
+Instead he ran straight against the pony's side with a resounding bump.
+
+The pony uttered a grunt of fear, springing straight up into the air.
+
+"Whoa, Barney!" coaxed the lad. But Barney had no idea of obeying the
+command at that moment. It is doubtful if, in the fright of the sudden
+collision, he even understood what was wanted of him.
+
+Tad's hands had missed the neck. Instead they had grasped the pommel and
+cantle of the saddle, so that when the pony leaped, Tad's feet were
+jerked clear of the ground.
+
+As the animal came down on all fours, Tad threw himself into the saddle.
+
+Instantly the pony's back arched, and, with a cough, it went off into a
+series of bucks, twisting, whirling and making desperate efforts to
+unseat its rider.
+
+For the first few minutes the lad could do no more than hold on. At the
+first opportunity, however, he let go of the pommel long enough to reach
+forward and pick up the reins, which hung well down on the pony's neck.
+
+"Now, buck, Barney, you rascal!" shouted Tad gleefully, giving a gentle
+pressure with the spurs.
+
+Barney at once decided to stop bucking.
+
+Tad clucked to him and shook out the reins.
+
+Away they went on the trail of the cattle, heading to the northwest,
+where the lad could plainly see them running.
+
+At the pace the pony was going they were able to overhaul the herd in a
+short time. Tad had clung to his quirt when he was thrown. Reaching the
+head of the line of charging beasts, he rode straight at the leaders,
+bringing the quirt again and again across the noses of those nearest to
+him. This treatment served to deflect the line a little; yet, try as he
+would, Tad seemed unable to turn the bunch toward home. Yet he kept
+steadily at his work, "milling" the steers, as the turning process is
+called, until pony and rider were well-nigh exhausted.
+
+Tad knew he was a long way from camp and alone with the herd. After a
+time the animals seemed to him to be slackening their speed. Discovering
+this, he untied the slicker or rubber blanket from the saddle cantle,
+and, riding against the leaders again, flaunted the slicker in their
+faces, shouting and urging at the same time.
+
+"If I had a gun I believe I could stop them right away," he said. "But
+I'm going to turn them if it's the last thing I ever do."
+
+The fury of the storm was abating and the lightning flashes were
+becoming less frequent.
+
+Now that he had succeeded in turning the point of the herd, it proved
+much easier to keep them under control. Besides, it gave both boy and
+pony a breathing spell. The hard riding was not now necessary.
+
+Round and round young Butler kept the herd circling for nearly an hour.
+The steers, moving more and more slowly, Tad concluded wisely that they
+were growing tired of this and that they would quiet down. His judgment
+proved correct. The storm passed. He could hear it roaring off to the
+northwest where the lightning flamed up in intermittent flashes.
+
+"Wonder what time it is," queried Tad aloud, searching about in his
+clothes for his watch.
+
+"Pshaw, I've lost it," he exclaimed. "Well, it is not so much of a loss
+after all. I paid only a dollar for it and I've had more than a dollar's
+worth of fun to-night. I wonder what I look like. I must be a sight."
+
+It now lacked only an hour of dawn, but, of course, the boy did not know
+this. In the darkness preceding the dawn he had no idea of the size of
+the bunch of cattle that he had led out over the plain. He knew it must
+be large, however.
+
+At last daybreak was at hand, the landscape and the herd being faintly
+outlined in the thin morning light. Tad was surprised to find that he
+had milled the cattle into a compact bunch. Now the boy began galloping
+around the herd, speaking words of encouragement to the animals as he
+went, whistling and trying to sing, until finally he was rewarded by
+seeing some of them begin to graze.
+
+"I've done it," shouted Tad gleefully. "I've bagged the whole bunch. I
+wonder what Mr. Stallings will say to that. I don't believe Big-foot
+Sanders could beat that. The next question is, where am I? I don't know.
+I guess I'm lost for sure. But I've got lots of company."
+
+To add to his perplexity, a light fog was drifting over the plain from
+the southeast, shutting out what little view there was in the early
+morning light.
+
+The cattle were now grazing as contentedly as if they never had known
+such an experience as a stampede. It was useless, however, to attempt to
+drive them, for he might be leading them away from camp instead of
+toward it.
+
+Tad was wet and hungry, and now that he was able to get a look at
+himself, he discovered that his belt was about the only whole thing left
+of his equipment. Scarcely a vestige of his trousers remained; his shirt
+hung in ribbons, his hat was lost and his leggins had been stripped off
+clean.
+
+Tad laughed heartily as he surveyed himself.
+
+"Well, I am a sight! I guess I shall need a whole new harness before I
+drive cattle much more."
+
+All he could do now was to wait for the sun to rise. Then, he might be
+able to determine something about his position.
+
+But the sun was a long time in making its appearance that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE VIGIL ON THE PLAINS
+
+
+"I wish I had a drink of water," said Tad after some hours had passed.
+Instead of drifting away, the fog had become more dense. He could see
+only part of the herd now. However, as they showed no disposition to
+run, Tad felt no concern in that direction. He was obliged to ride
+around the herd more frequently than would otherwise have been the case,
+in order to keep the straying ones well rounded in.
+
+The hours passed slowly, and with their passing Tad's appetite grew. He
+sat on his pony, enviously watching the cattle filling their stomachs
+with the wet grass.
+
+"I almost wish I were a steer," declared Tad. "I could at least satisfy
+my hunger."
+
+Then the lad once more took up his weary round.
+
+Off to the eastward, all was still excitement. The herd had broken up
+into many parts during the stampede and the cowmen were having a hard
+time in rounding up the scattered bunches.
+
+A few of them had succeeded in working some of the animals back to the
+bedding ground of the previous night, where the animals were left in
+charge of one man.
+
+With the coming of the morning and the fog, which blanketed everything,
+their work became doubly difficult. The storm had wiped out almost all
+traces of the trail made by the different herds in their escape, until
+even an Indian would have been perplexed in an effort to follow them.
+
+"Who is missing?" asked Stallings, riding into camp after a fruitless
+search for his cattle.
+
+"Tad Butler, for one," answered Walter Perkins.
+
+"Let's see. He was on guard with Big-foot Sanders," mused the foreman.
+"Big-foot has not shown up, so the young man probably is with him. No
+need to worry about them. Big-foot knows this country like a book. You
+can't lose him. Then there's Curley Adams and Lumpy Bates to come in
+yet. I can see us eating our Thanksgiving dinner on the trail if this
+thing keeps up much longer."
+
+Yet, despite these discouragements, the foreman kept his temper and his
+head.
+
+"Is there nothing we can do toward finding the boy?" asked Professor
+Zepplin anxiously.
+
+"Does it look like it?" answered Stallings, motioning toward the fog
+that lay over them like a dull, gray, cheerless blanket.
+
+Late in the afternoon Curley and Lumpy came straggling into camp with
+the remnants of the herd, with which they had raced out hours before. An
+hour afterwards, Big-foot Sanders drove in with a bunch of two hundred
+more.
+
+"Where's the Pinto?" asked Stallings as Big-foot rode up to the trail
+wagon and reported.
+
+"The Pinto? Why, I haven't seen the kid since the bunch started on the
+rampage last night. I thought he was with me on the other end of the
+herd. Hasn't he come in yet?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the kid's lost. All the cows back?"
+
+"I don't know. I'll look over the herd and make an estimate. You come
+along with me."
+
+Together the foreman and the big cowman rode out to the grazing ground,
+where they circled the great herd, glancing critically over them as they
+rode.
+
+"What do you think?" asked Big-foot as they completed the circuit of the
+herd.
+
+"I should say we were close to five hundred head short," decided the
+foreman. "How does it look to you?"
+
+"I reckon you're about right. Suffering cats, but that was a run! Never
+saw a bunch scatter so in my life."
+
+"Couldn't be helped. The night was so dark you couldn't tell whether you
+had a hundred or a thousand with you. Did you strike any cross trails
+while you were coming in!"
+
+"Nary a one--not in the direction I came from. If I'd kept on last
+night, at the rate I was going, I'd have rounded up in Wyoming some time
+to-day I reckon. Sorry the Pinto's strayed away. He'll have a time of it
+finding his way back. Reckon we won't see the kid again this trip,"
+decided Big-foot.
+
+"We've got to," answered the foreman sharply. "We don't move from this
+bed till he's been picked up, even if it takes all summer."
+
+"You--you don't reckon he's with that other bunch, do you?"
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised. The boy has pluck and I have an idea that if
+he got in with a lot of cows he'd stick to them till the pony went down
+under him."
+
+"More'n likely that's what happened. I'll tell you what we had better
+do----"
+
+"Get all the boys together who are not needed on guard," interrupted
+Stallings. "Let them circle out to the west and southwest and shoot.
+Have each man fire a shot every five minutes by the watch as they move
+out. That will keep them in touch with each other, and will act as a
+guide to the kid if he happens to be within hearing."
+
+"How far shall we go?"
+
+"Half an hour out. It's not safe to leave the herd any longer unless the
+fog clears away. As soon as that goes we'll organize a regular search. I
+want those cows, and I want to find the boy."
+
+The men quickly mounted their ponies and disappeared in the fog,
+following the orders given by the foreman. After a time those in camp
+could faintly hear the distant cracks of the cowpunchers' pistols as
+they fired their signals into the air.
+
+In the meantime Tad Butler was keeping his lonely vigil on the fogbound
+plains many miles away.
+
+The fog was still hovering over the herd as the afternoon waned, and the
+lad's body was dripping wet from it. Occasionally he brushed a hand
+across his face, wiping away the moisture.
+
+Darkness settled down earlier than usual that night. Yet, to the boy's
+great relief, the fog lifted shortly afterwards and the stars came out
+brightly.
+
+With the skill of an old cowman Tad had bedded down the herd and began
+to ride slowly about them, whistling vigorously. His face ached from the
+constant puckering of his lips, and his wounds gave him considerable
+pain. Yet he lost none of his cheerfulness.
+
+At times Tad found himself drooping in his saddle as his sleepiness
+overcame him. But he fought the temptation to doze by talking to himself
+and bringing the quirt sharply against his legs.
+
+"Tad Butler, don't you dare to go to sleep!" he warned himself. "It's
+the first real duty you have had to perform, so you're not going to make
+a mess of it. My, but I'm hungry!"
+
+From that on the boy never allowed his eyelids to drop, though at times
+they felt as if weighted down with lead.
+
+After what seemed an eternity, the gray dawn appeared on the eastern
+horizon. Immediately Tad began routing out the cows that they might have
+an opportunity to graze before the rising of the sun. It was his
+intention to point them toward where he believed the camp to be the
+moment they had grazed to their satisfaction. Until then it would not be
+wise to start the animals on their course.
+
+About six o'clock, deciding that they had eaten enough, Tad began
+galloping up and down, shouting and applying his quirt here and there to
+the backs of the cows. It was slow work for one lone horseman to start
+five hundred cattle on the trail. Yet, after half an hour of effort, he
+had the satisfaction of seeing them begin to move.
+
+"Whoop!" shouted the boy. "I'm a real cowboy this time!"
+
+Yet his task was more difficult than he had imagined it could be. While
+he was urging on one part of the herd, the others would lag by the
+wayside and begin to graze.
+
+Constant effort and continual moving about at high speed on his part,
+were necessary to keep up any sort of movement among the cattle.
+
+The lad headed as nearly as possible for the southeast, believing that
+he had come from that direction.
+
+At the same time a party had set out from the camp in search of young
+Butler. They had laid their course more toward the southwest. Holding
+these directions the two parties would not come within some miles of
+each other.
+
+Tad's eyes were continually sweeping the plains in hope of discovering a
+horseman or some signs of the main herd, which he was sure must have
+been rounded up long before. Not a trace of them could he discover.
+
+Once the boy straightened up in his saddle believing he had heard the
+report of a gun. After listening for some time he came to the conclusion
+that he had been in error.
+
+"I guess it's my stomach imagining things," grinned Tad Butler.
+
+He had now been out for two nights, and was now well along on the second
+day. During all that time he had not had a mouthful to eat. His lips
+were dry and parched; his throat burned fearfully. Still, he kept
+resolutely on. About two o'clock in the afternoon the herd came upon a
+clump of trees. Tad at sight of it, spurred his pony on, attracted by
+the greenness of the grass about the place, hoping that he might find a
+spring.
+
+But he was doomed to disappointment. There was no sign of water to be
+found. With almost a sob in his throat the boy swung himself into his
+saddle again.
+
+"Barney, you and I ought to be camels. Then we could carry all the water
+we need," he told the pony. "If we don't find some pretty soon I reckon
+we'll dry up and blow away. Gid-ap, Barney!"
+
+Once more the lad began his monotonous pounding back and forth along the
+side of the herd which was now spread out over a full half mile of
+territory, urging with all his strength in order to get the animals to
+quicken their pace.
+
+In the camp, Stallings and the others had begun to show their worriment.
+Not a trace had been found of boy or herd. The main hope of the foreman
+was that Tad might come upon a ranch or a town somewhere, in his course,
+and in that way get help to direct him back to camp. As for the cattle,
+he feared that they had become so split up that it would be well-nigh
+impossible to get them together again.
+
+During the whole afternoon, Bob Stallings had been riding about his own
+herd, sweeping the plain with a pair of field glasses.
+
+A speck of dust far to the northwest suddenly attracted his attention.
+Stallings halted his pony, and, sitting in his saddle almost motionless,
+gazed intently at the tiny point that had come within range of his
+vision.
+
+"I wonder what that is," mused the foreman. "It can't be any of our
+party, for they would not be likely to be away off there--that is,
+unless they have rounded up the bunch."
+
+Stallings, after a while, wheeled his pony and dashed back to camp.
+
+"If any of the men come in, tell them to head northwest and come on as
+fast as they can."
+
+"Do you see anything?" asked the Professor anxiously.
+
+"I don't know. I hope I do," answered the foreman, leaping into his
+saddle and putting spurs to his mount. "It may be some other herd
+crossing the state," he muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the speck
+that was slowly developing into a miniature cloud.
+
+The foreman urged his pony to its best pace, and, in the course of half
+an hour he was able to make out a herd of cattle. That was all he could
+tell about it. However, it was not long before he discovered a lone
+horseman working up and down the herd.
+
+Stallings was in too great a hurry to use his glasses now. He was
+driving his pony straight at the yellow mark off there on the plain,
+without swerving or appearing to exert any pressure at all on the bridle
+rein.
+
+"It's the Pinto, as I'm alive!" he breathed.
+
+The horseman with the herd saw him now, and rising in his saddle, waved
+a hand at the foreman.
+
+In a few moments Stallings came rushing up with a shout of joy.
+
+[Illustration: Good for You, Kid!]
+
+"Good for you, kid! How are you?"
+
+"Baked to a turn," answered Tad hoarsely, but with face lighting up
+joyously. "I never was so thirsty in my life."
+
+"What? Haven't you had anything to drink?"
+
+"Not a drop in two days."
+
+"Great heavens, boy! You head that pony for camp mighty quick. Ride for
+it! You will have no difficulty in following my trail back. Don't drink
+much at a time. Take it in little sips," commanded the foreman in short,
+jerky sentences.
+
+"Yes, but what about the herd?" asked Tad Butler.
+
+"Never you mind the herd. I'll see to them. You move!"
+
+Stallings noticed that the boy sat in his saddle very straight, and he
+knew well enough the effort it cost him to do so.
+
+"I think I'll stay," answered the lad after a moment of indecision.
+
+"You'll go!"
+
+Tad shook his head.
+
+"I've pulled them through, even if I have had quite a time of it. Now
+I'm going to stay with them. I guess I can stand it as well as any of
+your men could under similar circumstances. They wouldn't desert the
+herd, would they?"
+
+Stallings glanced at him sharply.
+
+"All right," he said. "If you insist upon it. By good rights I ought to
+order you in. But I understand just how you feel, kid. Here, take a
+drink of this brandy. It will brace you up," said the foreman, producing
+a flask from his pocket. "I keep it for emergencies, as the men are not
+allowed to use it while on duty."
+
+"Thank you," answered the boy, with an emphatic shake of the head. "I
+don't drink."
+
+"I understand. But this is medicine," urged the foreman. "It will set
+you right up."
+
+"I haven't the least doubt of it," grinned the boy. "But I don't want to
+be set up that way. You'll excuse me, Mr. Stallings. Don't urge me,
+please."
+
+The foreman replaced the flask in his pocket, a queer smile flickering
+about the corners of his mouth.
+
+"You are the right stuff, kid," he muttered. "If you stayed in this
+business you'd be a foreman before you knew it. You are a heap sight
+better than a lot of them now. Fall in. I'll ride around on the other
+side of the herd, and urge them along from the rear. You ride up to the
+right of the line and keep them pointed. Follow our trail. You will make
+out the main herd very soon."
+
+With renewed strength, Tad went at his work, though it was with an
+effort that he kept his saddle. He was afraid he must collapse before
+reaching the camp, and his straining eyes kept searching for the herd
+and the white-topped wagon that he knew held what he needed most of all
+at that moment--drink and food!
+
+Soon Tad and the foreman made out a rising cloud of dust approaching
+them at a rapid rate. Stallings waved his hand toward the cloud and
+nodded to Tad, being too far away to call.
+
+The lad shook his head in reply. He understood what the foreman meant.
+Men were coming to their assistance and the boy was to push on for camp
+alone.
+
+The cowpunchers began to laugh as they rode up and observed the boy's
+tattered condition.
+
+"So the Pinto got a dose this time, eh?" jeered Lumpy Bates.
+
+"You shut up!" snarled Big-foot Sanders, turning on him menacingly.
+"He's brought them cows back, and I'll bet a new saddle it's more'n you
+could have done. Don't you see the kid's near all in? Here you, Pinto,
+you hike for camp!" he shouted.
+
+"I'm staying with the cattle," announced Tad, firmly.
+
+"Cattle nothing. It's the camp for yours and mighty quick!"
+
+Without waiting for argument Big-foot grasped the reins of Tad's bridle
+and whirling his own mount about, galloped away, fairly dragging Tad
+Butler and his tired pony after him.
+
+With no reins in his hands the boy was powerless to interfere. All he
+could do was to sit in his saddle and be towed into camp.
+
+"Please don't take me in this way. Let me ride in," he begged as they
+neared the camp.
+
+"All right," laughed Big-foot, slacking up and tossing the reins back
+over the pony's neck. "It's a terrible thing to be proud, when a
+fellow's down and out. But I want to say one thing, kid."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"There ain't a gamer critter standing on two hoofs than you--bar none.
+And that goes."
+
+Tad laughed happily.
+
+"I haven't done anything. I----"
+
+"Haven't done anything?" growled Big-foot, riding close and peering down
+into the boy's scarred and grimy face. "Say, don't pass that out to the
+bunch. Lumpy'll say you're fishin' for compliments. I don't want to
+thump him, but, if he passes out any talk as reflects on what you've
+done for this outfit, I'll thrash him proper."
+
+They were now so near to the camp that the Professor and the boys were
+able to recognize the horsemen.
+
+They set up a great shout.
+
+"Meet me with a pail of water," yelled Tad. "I'm hot."
+
+Pong heard him and almost immediately emerged from the chuck wagon with
+a tin pail full of water.
+
+"Throw it on me, quick," commanded the lad, leaping from his pony.
+
+Pong tipped the pail and was about to dash it over the lad when Big-foot
+suddenly freed a foot from the stirrup. He gave the pail a powerful kick
+sending it several feet from him, its contents spilling over the ground.
+
+"You idiot! You fool heathen!" roared Big-foot. "The Pinto didn't say he
+wanted boiling hot water thrown on him. He said he was hot. If you
+wasn't the cook of this outfit, and we'd all starve to death without
+you, I'd shoot you plumb full of holes, you blooming idiot of a heathen
+Chinee!"
+
+"Allee same," chuckled Pong, showing his gleaming teeth.
+
+"What! You climb into that wagon before I forget you're the cook!" fumed
+Big-foot, jumping his pony threateningly toward the Chinaman. Pong
+leaped into the protection of his wagon.
+
+"Boys," said the big cowman, "the Pinto has come back with the crazy
+steers. He's rounded up the whole bunch and never lost a critter. Look
+at him, if you don't believe me. Ain't he a sight?"
+
+Tad smiled proudly as he sipped the water which one of the boys had
+brought to him.
+
+"Any man as says he ain't a sight has got a fight on with Big-foot
+Sanders. And that goes, too!" announced the cowman, glaring about him.
+
+"Three cheers for Tad Butler, champion cowpuncher!" cried Ned Rector.
+
+"Hooray!" bellowed Big-foot. "Y-e-e-e-o-w!"
+
+"Hip-hip, hooray!" chorused the boys, hurling their sombreros into the
+air. Their wild yells and cat calls made the cattle off on the grazing
+grounds raise their heads in wonder.
+
+"Allee same likee this," chuckled the grinning Chinaman from the front
+end of the chuck wagon, at the same time making motions as if he, too,
+were cheering.
+
+The boys roared with laughter.
+
+Big-foot Sanders grunted and turned his back on the grinning face of
+Pong.
+
+"One of these days I sure will forget that heathen's the cook," he
+growled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+UNDER A STRANGE INFLUENCE
+
+
+"We will move to-morrow shortly after daybreak," announced the foreman
+at supper that night.
+
+"Will you put me on the fourth guard this evening, Mr. Stallings?" asked
+Tad Butler.
+
+"You take the fourth guard? A cowpuncher who hasn't had a wink in more
+than two days? Why, I wouldn't ask a steer to do that! No kid, you roll
+up in your blankets and sleep until the cook routs you out for
+breakfast."
+
+"I'll take my trick just the same. I can sleep at home when I get back.
+I don't want to miss a minute of this fun," returned Tad.
+
+"Fun--he calls it fun!" grunted Lumpy.
+
+"It's just the beginning of the fun," answered Big-foot. "I knew things
+would begin to happen when we got near the Nueces."
+
+"Why?" asked Ned Rector.
+
+"I don't know. There seems to be some queer influence at work round
+these parts. Last time I was over this part of the trail we had a
+stampede almost every night for a week. Two months ago I heard of an
+outfit that lost more'n half its stock."
+
+"How about it, Mr. Stallings?" laughed Tad. "Are you superstitious,
+too?"
+
+The boys noted that the foreman frowned and would not answer at once.
+
+"Not exactly. Big-foot means the adobe church of San Miguel."
+
+"What's that?" interrupted Chunky.
+
+"An old Mexican church on the plains. Probably hasn't been used for a
+hundred years or more. You boys will have a chance to explore the place.
+It's not far from the Ox Bow ranch, where we take in another herd. We
+shall be there a couple of days or so until the cattle get acquainted.
+Besides, we shall have to buy some fresh ponies. Four of ours broke
+their legs in the stampede and had to be shot."
+
+"Oh, that's too bad," answered Tad. "I'm sorry. I don't like to see a
+horse get hurt."
+
+"No more do I, Master Tad. But in this business it is bound to happen. I
+think we shall be able to get some green bronchos. They usually have a
+bunch of them at the Ox Bow ranch. You will see some fun when we break
+them in," laughed the foreman.
+
+"I think I should like to take a hand in that myself. But I am anxious
+to hear more about the haunted church."
+
+"Who said anything about a haunted church?" demanded Stacy Brown.
+
+"The gopher is right. The church isn't haunted. It just happens that
+cowmen fall into a run of hard luck in that neighborhood now and then."
+
+"Do you believe in spooks, Mr. Stallings!" asked Walter.
+
+"Never having seen one, I don't know whether I do or not. Were I to see
+one I might believe in them," laughed the foreman.
+
+"I saw a ghost once," began Stacy Brown.
+
+"Never mind explaining about it," objected Ned. "We'll take your word
+for it and let it go at that."
+
+Tad Butler had gotten into a fresh change of clothes after having taken
+a bath in a wash tub behind the trail wagon. His wounds pained him, and
+he was sleepy, so the lad turned in shortly after his supper, and was
+soon sound asleep.
+
+Nothing occurred to disturb the camp that night, and when finally Tad
+was awakened to take his watch, it seemed as if he had been asleep only
+a few minutes. However, he sprang up wide awake and ready for the work
+ahead of him. As usual, he went out with Big-foot. A warm friendship had
+sprung up between the big cowboy and Tad Butler. They were together much
+of the time when their duties permitted.
+
+"Is there any truth in that spook story?" asked Tad, as the two rode
+slowly out to where the herd was bedded down.
+
+Big-foot hesitated.
+
+"You can call it whatever you want to. I only know that things happen to
+most every outfit that gets within a hundred miles of the place. Why,
+out at the Ox Bow ranch, they have the worst luck of any cattle place in
+the state. If it wasn't for the fact that they keep their cows fenced in
+with wire fences, they wouldn't have a critter on the place."
+
+"But, I don't understand," protested Tad. "I don't seem to get it
+through my head what it is that causes all the trouble you tell me
+about."
+
+"No more does anybody else. They just know that hard luck is lying
+around waiting for them when they get near and that's all they know
+about it."
+
+"When shall we be near there?" asked Tad Butler.
+
+"We are near enough now. Our troubles have begun already. Herd
+stampeded. Ponies broke their legs and had to be shot. Nobody knows what
+else will break loose before we get a hundred miles further on."
+
+"I am anxious to see the place," commented Tad.
+
+"You won't be after you've been there. I worked on a cow herd near the
+place two years ago."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Well, I got out after I'd been pitched off my pony and got a broken
+leg. That was only one of the things that happened to me, but it was
+enough. I got out. And here I am running my head right into trouble
+again. Say, kid!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You'd better ask the Herr Professor to let you carry a gun. You'll need
+it."
+
+"What for--to lay ghosts with?" laughed the boy.
+
+"Well, mebby something of that sort."
+
+"Don't need it. I guess my fists will lay out any kind of a ghost that I
+run against. If they won't, no gun will do any good. I don't believe in
+a boy's carrying a pistol in his pocket. It will get him into more
+trouble than it will get him out of."
+
+"Well, that's some horseback sense," grunted Big-foot. "I never built up
+against that idee before, but I reckon it's right. We don't need 'em
+much either, except to frighten the cows with when they start on a
+stampede, and----"
+
+"It doesn't seem to stop them," retorted Tad, with a little malicious
+smile. "It strikes me that a boy without a gun can stop a runaway herd
+about as quickly as can a cowboy with one."
+
+"Right again, my little pardner. Scored a bull's-eye that time. I guess
+Big-foot Sanders hasn't any call to be arguing with you."
+
+"We were talking about spooks," the boy reminded him. "I am anxious to
+see that church. I've wanted to see one all my life----"
+
+"What? A church?"
+
+"No; a spook."
+
+"Oh! Can't promise to show you nothing of the sort. But I'll agree to
+stack you up against a run of hard luck that will make you wobbly on
+your legs."
+
+"That will be nothing new, Big-foot. I've had that already."
+
+"Sure thing. That's the beginning of the trouble. As I was saying
+before, we don't need the guns for any other reason unless it's against
+cattle rustlers. Sometimes they steal cattle these days, but not so much
+as they did in the early days of the cattle business."
+
+"Think we will meet any rustlers?" asked Tad, with sudden interest.
+
+"Nary a rustler will tackle this herd. First place, we are not yet in
+the country where they can work profitably----"
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Oh, anywhere where there's mountains for them to hide in. I'll show you
+where the rustlers used to work, when we get further along on the trail.
+But, as I was saying, there are no rustlers hereabouts."
+
+"Oh," answered Tad Butler, somewhat regretfully.
+
+"You never mind about hunting trouble. Trouble is coming to this outfit
+good and plenty, and I reckon a kid like you will be in the middle of
+it, too. You ain't the kind that goes sneaking for cover when things are
+lively. I saw that the other night. Stallings is going to write to Boss
+Miller about the way you stuck to the herd when it ran away."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I dunno. Guess 'cause he knows it'll make the old man smile. We boys
+will come in for an extra fiver at the end of the trip, for saving the
+herd, I reckon."
+
+"That's where you have the best of me," laughed Tad. "No fives for me. I
+get my pay out of the fun I am having. I think I am overpaid at that.
+Well, so long, Big-foot," announced the lad as they finally reached the
+herd.
+
+"So long," answered the cowman, turning his pony off to take the
+opposite side of the sleeping cattle. In a few moments Tad heard his
+strident voice singing to the herd again.
+
+The hours passed more quickly than had been the case the last time Tad
+was on guard, for he had much to think of and to wonder over.
+
+Daybreak had arrived almost before he knew it and the call for breakfast
+sounded across the plain.
+
+As soon as he had been relieved, Tad Butler galloped back to camp,
+bright-eyed and full of anticipation, both for the meal and for the ride
+that was before them that day.
+
+Corn cakes were on the bill of fare that morning and the Pony Riders
+shouted with glee when they discovered what Pong had prepared for them.
+
+"Bring on the black strap," called Stallings.
+
+Stacy Brown glanced at the foreman suspiciously.
+
+"Why do you want a black strap for breakfast?" he demanded.
+
+"To put on the corn cakes of course, boy," laughed Stallings.
+
+"I've heard of using a black strap to hitch horses with----"
+
+"And to correct unruly boys," added Professor Zepplin.
+
+"But I never did hear of eating it on corn cakes."
+
+Everybody laughed at Chunky's objection.
+
+"You will eat this strap when you see it," answered Stallings, taking a
+jug from the hands of the Chinaman and pouring some of its contents over
+the cakes on his plate.
+
+"What is it!" asked Ned Rector.
+
+"Molasses. It's what we call black strap. Help yourselves. Never mind
+the gopher there. He never eats black straps for breakfast," the foreman
+jeered.
+
+"Here, I want some of that," demanded Stacy, half-rising and reaching
+for the jug. "My, but it's good!" he decided with his mouth full.
+
+"That's all right," answered Walter. "But please do not forget that
+there are some others in this outfit who like cakes and molasses. Please
+pass that jug this way."
+
+"Yes, the pony won't be able to carry him to-day if he keeps on for ten
+minutes more, at the rate he's been going," laughed Ned Rector. "I never
+did have any sort of use for a glutton."
+
+"Neither did I," added Chunky solemnly, at which both Pony Riders and
+cowboys roared with laughter.
+
+"Going to be another scorcher," decided the foreman, rising and
+surveying the skies critically. "We shall not be able to make very good
+time, I fear."
+
+"When do you expect to reach the Nueces River?" asked the Professor.
+
+"I had hoped to get there by to-morrow. However, it doesn't look as if
+we should be able to do so if it comes off so hot."
+
+"Is the Nueces a large river?" asked Walter.
+
+"Sometimes. And it is a lively stream when there happens to be a freshet
+and both forks are pouring a flood down into it. We will try to bed down
+near the river and you boys can have some sport swimming. Do all of you
+swim?"
+
+"Yes," they chorused.
+
+"That's good. The cowpunchers will have a time of it, too."
+
+"I can float," Stacy Brown informed him eagerly.
+
+"So could I if I were as fat as you. I could float all day," retorted
+Ned Rector. "You couldn't sink if you were to fill your pockets with
+stones. There is some advantage in being fat, anyway."
+
+"He didn't seem to float the day he fell in among the steers," said one
+of the cowboys.
+
+"That isn't fair," interrupted Stallings. "The steers put the gopher
+under, that day. Any of you would have gone down with a mob of cows
+piling on top of you."
+
+"The river is near the church you were telling me about, isn't it?"
+inquired Tad of Big-foot in a low tone.
+
+Sanders nodded solemnly.
+
+Tad's eyes sparkled eagerly. He finished his breakfast rather hurriedly
+and rose from the table. As he walked away he met the horse wrangler
+bringing the day ponies. The lad quickly saddled his own mount after a
+lively little struggle and much squealing and bucking from the pony.
+
+Tad was eager to reach the river and get sight of the mysterious church
+beyond. Yet, he did not dream of the thrilling experiences that were
+awaiting them all at the very doors of the church of San Miguel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CHUNKY ROPES A COWBOY
+
+
+"Wow! Help! Help!"
+
+The herd had been moving on for several hours, grazing comfortably along
+the trail, when the sudden yell startled the entire outfit.
+
+The cowboys reined in their ponies and grasped their quirts firmly,
+fully expecting that another stampede was before them.
+
+Instead, they saw Stacy Brown riding away from the herd, urging his pony
+to its best speed. Right behind him, with lowered head and elevated tail
+was a white muley, evidently chasing the lad.
+
+What the boy had done to thus enrage the animal no one seemed to know.
+However, it was as pretty a race as they had seen thus far on the drive.
+
+"Point him back! He can't hurt you!" shouted the foreman.
+
+Instead of obeying the command, Stacy brought down his quirt on the
+pony, causing the little animal to leap away across the plain in a
+straight line.
+
+The cowboys were shouting with laughter at the funny spectacle.
+
+"Somebody get after that steer!" roared the foreman. "The boy never will
+stop as long as the critter keeps following him, and we'll have the herd
+following them before we know it."
+
+"I'll go, if you wish," said Tad Butler.
+
+"Then go ahead. Got your rope?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It'll be good practice for you."
+
+Tad was off like a shot, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.
+
+"That boy's got the making of a great cowpuncher in him," said the
+foreman, nodding his head approvingly.
+
+Tad's pony was the swifter of the two, and besides, he was riding on an
+oblique line toward the runaway outfit.
+
+It was the first opportunity the lad had had to show off his skill as a
+cowman, for none had seen his pointing of the herd on the night of the
+stampede. He was burning with impatience to get within roping distance
+of the steer before they got so far away that the cowmen would be unable
+to see the performance.
+
+"Pull up and turn him, Chunky," called Tad.
+
+"I can't."
+
+"Why not? Turn in a half circle, then I shall be able to catch up with
+you sooner."
+
+"Can't. The muley won't stop long enough for me to turn around."
+
+Tad laughed aloud. He now saw that it was to be a race between the steer
+and his own pony. The odds, however, were in favor of the steer, for
+Stacy Brown was pacing him at a lively gait, and Tad was still some
+distance behind.
+
+The latter's pony was straining every muscle to overhaul the muley. Tad
+finally slipped the lariat from the saddle bow. Swinging the great loop
+above his head, he sent it squirming through the air. At that instant
+the muley changed its course a little and the rope missed its mark by
+several feet. Now it was dragging behind the running pony.
+
+By this time Tad had fallen considerably behind. He took up the race
+again with stubborn determination.
+
+Coiling the rope as he rode on, he made another throw.
+
+The noose fell fairly over the head of the muley steer, this time.
+Profiting by a previous experience, the lad took a quick turn about the
+pommel of the saddle. The pony braced itself, ploughing up the ground
+with its little hoofs as it did so.
+
+A jolt followed that nearly threw Tad from his saddle. The muley steer's
+head was suddenly jerked to one side and the next instant the animal lay
+flat on its back, its heels wildly beating the air.
+
+"Whoop!" shouted Tad in high glee, waving his hat triumphantly to the
+watching cowpunchers.
+
+The steer was up in a moment, with Tad Butler watching him narrowly.
+
+"Cast your rope over his head, Chunky."
+
+Chunky made a throw and missed.
+
+The angry steer rose to its feet and charged him.
+
+Stacy Brown held the muleys in wholesome awe, though, having no horns,
+they were the least dangerous of the herd.
+
+"Yeow!" shrieked Chunky, putting spurs to his pony and getting quickly
+out of harm's way.
+
+The steer was after him at a lively gallop, with Tad Butler and his pony
+in tow. Tad had prudently shaken out the reins when he saw the animal
+preparing to take up the chase again.
+
+Waiting until the steer had gotten under full headway, the lad watched
+his chance, then pulled his pony up sharply.
+
+This time the muley's head was jerked down with such violence that it
+turned a partial somersault, landing on its back with a force that must
+have knocked the breath out of it.
+
+Again and again did Tad repeat these tactics, the pony seemingly
+enjoying the sport fully as much as did the boy himself. After a time he
+succeeded in getting the unruly beast headed toward the herd.
+
+Once he had done that he let the animal have its head and they sailed
+back over the trail at a speed that made the cowboys laugh. Tad seemed
+to be driving the steer, with Stacy Brown riding well up to the animal's
+flanks, laying on his quirt to hasten its speed, every time he got a
+chance.
+
+As they neared the herd, Tad in attempting to release the rope from the
+pommel let it slip through his hands.
+
+The lad was chagrined beyond words.
+
+"Rope him quick, Chunky!" he cried.
+
+Lumpy Bates, observing the mishap, had spurred toward the running steer,
+intending to cast a lariat over one of the animal's feet and throw it so
+they could remove the lariat from its neck.
+
+Just as the cowboy wheeled his mount in order to reach one of the
+steer's hind feet, Chunky clumsily cast his own rope.
+
+Instead of reaching the muley steer, the loop caught the left hind foot
+of the cowpuncher's galloping pony.
+
+"Cinch it!" called Tad as the loop followed an undulating course through
+the air.
+
+Chunky did cinch it gleefully about his saddle pommel. At the same time
+he cinched something else.
+
+The cowpuncher's mount went down, its nose burrowing into the turf.
+Lumpy was so taken by surprise that he had no time to save himself. He
+shot over the pony's neck, landing flat on his back several feet in
+advance of the pony's nose.
+
+The watching cowboys set up a jeering yell.
+
+Lumpy scrambled to his feet, his face purple with rage.
+
+"You tenderfoot!" shrieked Curley Adams. "To let the gopher rope you
+like a yearling steer!"
+
+Chunky sat on his mount with blanched face, now realizing the enormity
+of his act.
+
+"I--I didn't mean to do it," he stammered.
+
+At first Lumpy did not know what had caused his pony to fall. But no
+sooner had he gotten to his feet than he comprehended. With a savage
+roar he sprang for the fat boy with quirt raised above his head,
+prepared to bring it down on Stacy Brown the instant he reached him.
+
+The blow would have been bad enough had it been delivered in the
+ordinary way. The cowboy, however, had gasped the quirt by the small end
+and was preparing to use the loaded butt on the head of the boy who had
+been the cause of his fall.
+
+Tad had halted upon observing the accident, laughing uproariously at the
+spectacle of Lumpy Bates being roped by Stacy Brown.
+
+When he saw the quirt in the hands of the cowpuncher, however, and
+realized what his purpose was, the laughter died on the lips of Tad
+Butler.
+
+"Drop that quirt, Lumpy!" he commanded sternly.
+
+Lumpy gave no heed to the command, but broke into a run for Stacy.
+
+Tad, who was a few rods away, put spurs to his pony, at the same time
+slipping off the lariat from the other side of his saddle.
+
+"The Pinto's going to rope him," gasped the cowboys. All were too far
+away to be of any assistance. Stallings was with another part of the
+herd, else he would have jumped in and interfered before Tad's action
+had become necessary.
+
+Tad's pony leaped forward under the pressure of the spurs. The boy began
+spinning the noose of the lariat above his head.
+
+The cowboys were watching in breathless suspense.
+
+Tad sent the loop squirming through the air, turning his pony so as to
+run parallel with the one on which Stacy was sitting, half paralyzed
+with fear, as he gazed into the rage-contorted face of Lumpy Bates.
+
+As the quirt was descending, Tad's rope slipped over the cowboy's head
+and under one arm. This time, however, the lad did not cinch the rope
+over his saddle pommel. He held it firmly in his hand, with a view to
+letting go after it had served its purpose, having no desire to injure
+his victim.
+
+Lumpy Bates went over as if he had been bowled over with a club, and
+before he had realized the meaning of it he had been dragged several
+feet.
+
+Tad jerked his pony up sharply and slowly rode back to where his victim
+was desperately struggling to free himself.
+
+"Y-e-e-e-o-ow!" screamed the cowboys, circling about the scene, their
+ponies on a dead run, discharging their six-shooters into the air,
+giving cat calls and wild war-whoops in the excess of their joy.
+
+Big-foot Sanders, however, had not joined in their merriment. Instead,
+he had ridden up within a couple of rods of where Lumpy Bates was lying.
+Big-foot sat quietly on his pony, awaiting the outcome.
+
+At last Lumpy tore off the lariat's grip and scrambled to his feet. He
+glared about him to see whence had come this last indignity.
+
+"I did it, Lumpy," announced Tad Butler quietly.
+
+"You----"
+
+"Wait a minute before you tell me what you are going to do," commanded
+Tad. "Chunky did not mean to throw you. He was trying to rope the steer.
+He'll tell you he is sorry. But you were going to hit him because you
+were mad. If you'd struck him with the butt of that quirt you might have
+killed him. I had to rope you to prevent that. Is there anything you
+want to say to me now?"
+
+"I'll show you what I've got to say," snarled the cowboy, starting for
+Tad.
+
+"Stop! Lumpy Bates, if you come another foot nearer to me I'll ride you
+down!" warned Tad, directing a level gaze at the eyes of his adversary.
+
+The cowboy gazed defiantly at the slender lad for a full moment.
+
+"I'll fix you for that!" he growled, turning away.
+
+At that moment Big-foot Sanders rode in front of him and pulled up his
+pony.
+
+"What's that ye say?"
+
+"Nothing--I said I'd be even with that cub."
+
+"I reckon ye'd better not try it, Lumpy. The kid's all right. Big-foot
+Sanders is his friend. And that's the truth. Don't let it get away from
+you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ON A WILD NIGHT RIDE
+
+
+"Your fat friend, over there, is making queer noises, Master Tad. Must
+be having a bad dream."
+
+Big-foot had reached a ponderous hand from his blankets and shaken Tad
+roughly.
+
+"Mebby the gopher's having a fit. Better find out what ails him."
+
+The rain was falling in torrents. The men were soaked to the skin, but
+it did not seem to disturb them in the least, judging by the quality of
+their snores.
+
+Tad listened. Stacy Brown surely was having trouble of some sort. The
+lad threw off his blankets and ran over to where his companion was
+lying.
+
+"Chunky's drowning," he exclaimed in a voice full of suppressed
+excitement.
+
+Big-foot leaped to his feet, hurrying to the spot.
+
+Stacy was lying in a little depression in the ground, a sort of puddle
+having formed about him, and when Tad reached him the lad had turned
+over on his face, only the back part of his head showing above the
+water. He appeared to be struggling, but unable to free himself from his
+unpleasant position.
+
+They jerked him up choking and coughing, shaking him vigorously to get
+the water out of him.
+
+"Wha--what's the matter!" stammered the boy.
+
+"Matter enough. Trying to drown yourself?" growled the cowboy.
+
+"Di--did I fall in?"
+
+"Did you fall in? Where do you think you are?"
+
+"I--I thought I fell in the river and I was trying to swim out,"
+answered the boy, with a sheepish grin that caused his rescuers to shake
+with merriment.
+
+"Guess we'll have to get a life preserver for you," chuckled Big-foot.
+"You ain't safe to leave around when the dew is falling."
+
+"Dew? Call this dew? This is a flood."
+
+"Go find a high piece of ground, and go to bed. We haven't got time to
+lie awake watching you. Be careful that you don't step on any of the
+bunch. They ain't likely to wake up in very good humor a night like
+this, and besides, Lumpy Bates is sleeping not more'n a rope's length
+from you. You can imagine what would happen if you stepped on his face
+to-night."
+
+Chunky shivered slightly. He had had one experience with the ill-natured
+cowpuncher that day and did not care for another.
+
+"I'll go to bed," he chattered.
+
+"You'd better. What's that?" exclaimed the cowpuncher sharply, pausing
+in a listening attitude.
+
+"Some one coming," answered Tad. "They seem to be in a hurry."
+
+"Yes, I should say they were. I reckon the trouble is coming, kid."
+
+A horseman dashed up to the camp that lay enshrouded in darkness, save
+for the lantern that hung at the tail board of the chuck wagon.
+
+"Roll out! Roll out!"
+
+It was the voice of Curley Adams.
+
+The cowpunchers scrambled to their feet with growls of disapproval,
+demanding to know what the row was about.
+
+"What is it, a stampede?" called Big-foot, hastily rolling his blankets
+and dumping them in the wagon.
+
+"No; but it may be. The boss wants the whole gang to turn out and help
+the guard."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"The cows are restless. They're knocking about ready to make a break at
+any minute."
+
+"What? Haven't they bedded down yet?" asked Big-foot.
+
+"No, nary one of them. And they ain't going to to-night."
+
+"I knew it," announced the cowman, with emphasis.
+
+"Knew what?" asked Tad.
+
+"That we were in for trouble. And it's coming a-running."
+
+By this time the horse wrangler had rounded up the ponies, and the
+cowboys, grumbling and surly, were hurriedly cinching on saddles. A few
+moments later the whole party was riding at full gallop toward the herd.
+
+"Where's the gopher?" inquired Big-foot, after they had ridden some
+distance. "Did we leave him behind?"
+
+"I guess Chunky is asleep," laughed Tad.
+
+"Best place for him. He'd have the herd on the run in no time if he was
+to come out to-night. Never knew a human being who could stir up so much
+trouble out of nothing as he can. We're coming up with the herd now. Be
+careful where you are riding, too."
+
+All was excitement. The cattle were moving restlessly about, prodding
+each other with their horns, while guards were galloping here and there,
+talking to them soothingly and whipping into line those that had strayed
+from the main herd.
+
+Bunches of fifteen or twenty were continually breaking through the lines
+and starting to run. Quirts and ropes were brought into use to check
+these individual rushes, the cowmen fearing to use their weapons lest
+they alarm the herd and bring on a stampede.
+
+"What's the trouble!" demanded Big-foot as they came up with the
+foreman.
+
+"I don't know. Bad weather, I guess. The evil one seems to have gotten
+into the critters to-night. Lead your men up to the north end of the
+line. We will take care of these fellows down here as best we can."
+
+The men galloped quickly to their stations. Then in the driving rain
+that soaked and chilled them the cowmen began their monotonous songs,
+interrupted now and then by a shout of command from some one in charge
+of a squad.
+
+There was no thunder or lightning this time. The men were thankful for
+that; it needed only some sudden disturbance to start the animals going.
+
+The disturbance came after an hour's work. The cowmen had brought some
+sort of order out of the chaos and were beginning to breathe easier.
+Stallings rode up to the head of the herd giving orders that the cattle
+be pointed in and kept in a circle if possible. To do this he called
+away all the men at the right save Tad Butler and Big-foot Sanders. As
+it chanced, they were at the danger spot when the trouble came.
+
+Chunky had been awakened by the disturbance in camp, not having fully
+aroused himself until after the departure of the men, however. He sat
+up, rubbing his eyes, grumbling about the weather and expressing his
+opinion of a cowpuncher's life in no uncertain terms.
+
+Finding that all had left him, the lad decided to get his pony and
+follow.
+
+"What's the matter, Pong?" he called, observing the Chinaman up and
+fixing the curtains about his wagon.
+
+"Allee same likee this," answered Pong hopping about in imitation of an
+animal running away.
+
+"He's crazy," muttered Chunky, going to his pony and swinging himself
+into the saddle.
+
+Chunky urged the animal along faster and faster. He could hear the
+cowboys on beyond him though he was able to see only a few yards ahead
+of him. However, the boy was becoming used to riding in the dark and did
+not feel the same uncertainty that he had earlier.
+
+"I'll bet they are getting ready to run away," he decided.
+
+In that, Stacy was right. Before he realized where he was he had driven
+his pony full into the rear ranks of the restless cattle.
+
+Chunky uttered a yell as he found himself bumping against the sides of
+the cows and sought to turn his pony about.
+
+The startled steers nearest to him fought desperately to get away from
+the object that had so suddenly hurled itself against them. Instantly
+there was a mix-up, with bellowing, plunging steers all about him.
+
+"Help! Help!" shouted the boy.
+
+Now his pony was biting and kicking in an effort to free itself from the
+animals that were prodding it with horns and buffeting it from side to
+side.
+
+Only a moment or so of this was necessary to fill the cattle with blind,
+unreasoning fear. With one common impulse they lunged forward. Those
+ahead of them felt the impetus of the thrust just as do the cars of a
+freight train under the sudden jolt of a starting engine.
+
+"What's up?" roared the foreman.
+
+"They're off!" yelled a cowman.
+
+"Head them!"
+
+"Can't. They're started in the center of the herd."
+
+With heads down, the entire herd was now charging straight ahead.
+Big-foot Sanders and Tad Butler, nearly half a mile ahead, felt the
+impetus, too.
+
+"Keep your head, boy," warned the cowpuncher. "We are in for a run for
+our money, now."
+
+It came even as he spoke. With a bellow the cattle started forward at a
+lively gallop.
+
+"Whoa-oo-ope!" cried Big-foot, riding in front of the plunging leaders.
+
+He might as well have sought to stay the progress of the wind. The
+leaders swept man and boy aside and dashed on.
+
+"Better keep them straight and not try to stop them, hadn't we?" shouted
+Tad, with rare generalship.
+
+"That's the trick! Can you hold your side?" roared Big-foot in reply.
+
+"I'll try," answered the boy, riding so close to the leaders that they
+rubbed sides with his pony. The latter, understanding what was wanted of
+him, pushed sturdily on holding the cattle with his side, leaning toward
+them to give the effort the benefit of his entire weight.
+
+One end of Tad's neckerchief had come loose and was streaming straight
+out behind him, while the broad brim of his sombrero was tipped up by
+the rushing breeze.
+
+It was a wild and perilous ride. Yet the lad thought nothing of this.
+His whole thought was centered on the work in hand, that of keeping the
+cattle headed northward. Tad was unable to tell whether they were going
+in a straight line or not, but this time he had the big cowman to rely
+upon.
+
+"Give way a little!" warned Big-foot.
+
+"Right!" answered the lad, pulling his pony to one side, then
+straightening him again.
+
+"We'll hit the Injun Territory by daylight if we keep on at this gait!
+You all right?"
+
+"Yes. But I think the herd is spreading out behind me," answered Tad.
+
+"Never mind that. They'll likely follow the leaders."
+
+Off to the rear they could hear the sharp reports of the cowboys'
+revolvers as they sought to stay the mad rush. Big-foot, however, had
+thought it best not to resort to shooting tactics. They were making
+altogether too good headway. If only they were able to keep the cattle
+headed the way they were going the herd would be none the worse off for
+the rush and the outfit would be that much further along on the journey.
+The thundering hoof-beats behind them as the living tide swept down upon
+them, was not a pleasant sound to hear. Yet Big-foot and Tad were
+altogether too busy to be greatly disturbed by it.
+
+They had gone on for fully half an hour, after that, with no apparent
+decrease in the speed of the stampede. The ponies were beginning to show
+their fatigue. Tad slowed down a little, patting his faithful little
+animal to encourage it and quiet its nerves.
+
+As he did so, the boy's attention was again called to the fact that a
+solid wall of cattle had apparently closed in behind him.
+
+"Big-foot!" he shouted.
+
+"Yes?" answered the cowboy, in a far away voice, for some distance now
+separated the two.
+
+"It looks to me as if they were closing in on us. What do you think?"
+
+"Wait! I'll see."
+
+The cowboy pulled up a little and listened.
+
+"Right you are. They have spread out in a solid wall."
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+"Ride! Ride for your life!" came the excited reply.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To your right. Don't let them catch you or you'll be trampled under
+their feet. They'll never stop, now, till they get to the river."
+
+"Is it near here?"
+
+"Only a few miles ahead. I can hear it roar now. A flood is coming down
+it. Hurry!"
+
+Tad had barely heard the last word. Already he had swung his pony about
+and was galloping with all speed to the right in an effort to get free
+of the herd before they crowded him and his pony into the turbulent,
+swollen river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FORDING A SWOLLEN RIVER
+
+
+The first light of the morning revealed to Tad Butler the narrow escape
+he had had. He had barely passed the outer point of the stampeding herd
+when the cattle rushed by him.
+
+On beyond, less than half a mile away, he made out the river in the
+faint light. His companion was nowhere to be seen. However, that was not
+surprising, as the cattle now covered a large area; so large that Tad
+was unable to see to the other side of the herd.
+
+As the day dawned the cattle began to slacken their speed, and, by the
+time the leaders reached the river bank, the rush was at an end. Some of
+the stock plunged into the edge of the stream where they began drinking,
+while others set to grazing contentedly.
+
+As the light became stronger, the lad made out the figure of Big-foot
+Sanders approaching him at an easy gallop.
+
+"We did it, didn't we, Big-foot?" exulted Tad Butler.
+
+"That we did, Pinto. And there comes the rest of the bunch now,"
+Big-foot added, pointing to the rear, where others of the cowboys were
+to be seen riding up.
+
+Stallings was the first to reach them.
+
+"Good job," he grinned. "We are at the river several hours ahead of
+schedule time. Doesn't look very promising, does it?"
+
+"River's pretty high. Are you thinking of fording it this morning?"
+asked Big-foot, looking over the swollen stream.
+
+"We might as well. The water will be higher later in the day. We may not
+be able to get across in several days if we wait too long."
+
+"What do you think started the cattle this time?" asked Tad.
+
+"I don't think. I know what did it."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"It was that clumsy friend of yours."
+
+"The gopher?" asked Big-foot.
+
+"Allee same, as Pong would say. That boy is the limit. Is he always
+falling into trouble that way?"
+
+"Yes, or falling off a pony," laughed Tad.
+
+"There he comes, now."
+
+Stacy rode up to them, his face serious and thoughtful.
+
+"Well, young man, what have you to say for yourself?" asked the foreman.
+
+"I was going to ask you, sir, where we are going to get our breakfast?"
+
+Stallings glanced at Tad and Big-foot, with a hopeless expression in his
+eyes.
+
+"Go ask the Chinaman," he answered rather brusquely.
+
+"I can't. He isn't here."
+
+"Well, that's the answer," laughed the foreman, riding to the river bank
+and surveying the stream critically.
+
+Tad and Big-foot Sanders joined him almost immediately.
+
+"Think we can make it, chief?"
+
+"I think so, Sanders. One of us had better ride over and back to test
+the current."
+
+"I'll try it for you," said Tad.
+
+"Go ahead. Sanders, you ride back and tell Lumpy to return to camp and
+bring on the outfit. They can't reach us until late in the afternoon, as
+it is. I presume that slant-eyed cook is sitting in his wagon waiting
+for us to come back. Hurry them along, for we shall be hungry by the
+time we have finished this job."
+
+Tad promptly spurred his pony into the stream. After wading out a little
+way he slipped off into the water, hanging by the pommel, swimming with
+one hand to relieve the pony as much as possible.
+
+The boy made the crossing without mishap, Stallings observing the
+performance to note how far down the stream the pony would drift. Tad
+landed some five rods lower down. On the return, the drift was not quite
+so noticeable.
+
+"We'll make it," announced the foreman. "If you want to dry out, ride
+back and tell the bunch to crowd the cattle in as rapidly as possible.
+The faster we can force them in the less they will drift down stream."
+
+"Very well, sir," replied the boy, galloping off to deliver his message.
+
+With a great shouting and much yelling the cowboys began their task of
+urging the cattle into the river. Not being over-thirsty, it was no easy
+task to induce the animals to enter the water, but when the leaders
+finally plunged in the rest followed, fairly piling on top of one
+another in their efforts to follow the pilots of the herd. Above and
+below, the cowboys who were not otherwise engaged were swimming the
+river endeavoring to keep the animals from straying one way or another.
+
+Tad Butler and his companions were aiding in this work, shouting from
+the pure joy of their experience, and, in an hour's time, the last steer
+had swum the stream and clambered up the sloping bank on the other side.
+
+"There!" announced the foreman. "That's a bad job well done. I wish the
+trail wagon were here. A cup of hot coffee wouldn't go bad after an hour
+in the water."
+
+"After several of them, you mean," added Tad. "You know we have been out
+in the rain all night."
+
+"Yes, and you did a bang-up piece of work, you and Big-foot. How did you
+happen to lead the cattle straight ahead, instead of turning the
+leaders?"
+
+"It was the kid's suggestion," answered Big-foot Sanders. "He's got a
+man's head on his shoulders that more'n makes up for what the gopher
+hasn't got."
+
+"It does, indeed," agreed Stallings.
+
+"How are we going to get that trail wagon over when it comes up!" asked
+one of the men.
+
+"That's what's bothering me," answered the foreman. "Perhaps our young
+friend here can give us a suggestion. His head is pretty full of ideas,"
+added the foreman, more with an intent to compliment Tad than in the
+expectation of getting valuable suggestions from him.
+
+"What is your usual method?" asked the boy.
+
+"Well, to tell the truth, I've never had quite such a proposition as
+this on my hands."
+
+"I guess you will have to float it over."
+
+"It won't float. It'll sink."
+
+"You can protect it from that."
+
+"How?" asked the foreman, now keenly interested.
+
+"First take all the stuff out of it. That will save your equipment if
+anything happens to the wagon. Ferry the equipment over on the backs of
+the ponies. If it's too heavy, take over what you can."
+
+"Well, what next?" asked Stallings.
+
+"Get some timbers and construct a float under the wagon."
+
+"Where you going to get timber around these parts?" demanded Big-foot.
+
+"I see plenty of trees near the river. Cut down a few and make a raft of
+them."
+
+"By George, the kid's hit it!" exclaimed Stallings, clapping his thigh
+vigorously. "That's exactly what we'll do. But we'll have to wait till
+the wagon gets here. The axes are all in the wagon."
+
+"Mebby I'm particularly thick to-day, but I'd like to inquire how you
+expect to get the outfit over, after you have the raft under it?"
+demanded Shorty Savage. "Answer that, if you can?"
+
+"I think that is up to the foreman," smiled Tad. "Were I doing it I
+think I should hitch ropes to the tongue and have the ponies on the
+other side draw the wagon across. Of course, you are liable to have an
+accident. The ropes may break or the current may tip your wagon over.
+That's your lookout."
+
+"Now will you be good?" grinned the foreman. "You know all about it, and
+it would be a good idea to let the thought simmer in your thick head for
+a while. It may come in handy, some day, when you want to get across a
+river."
+
+Shorty walked away, none too well pleased.
+
+About three o'clock in the afternoon the wagon hove in sight, and the
+boys rode out to meet it.
+
+It was decided to camp on the river bank until after they had eaten
+their evening meal, after which there would still be time to ferry over.
+While the meal was being cooked Stallings sent some of the men out to
+cut down four small trees and haul them in.
+
+They grumbled considerably at this, but obeyed orders. Tad went along,
+at the suggestion of the foreman, to pick out such trees as he thought
+would best serve their purpose.
+
+The trail wagon's teams were used to haul the logs in and by the time
+the work was finished a steaming hot supper had been spread by the
+smiling Chinaman.
+
+Professor Zepplin had come along with the wagon. He said he was a little
+stiff from the wetting he had received, but otherwise was all right.
+
+"Now, young man, I'll let you boss the job," announced Stallings as Tad
+rose from the table. "I give you a free hand."
+
+With a pleased smile, Tad set about constructing his raft. Ned Rector
+swam the river with the ropes, and fastened them to trees so they would
+not be carried away by the current. The wagon was then run down into the
+water by hand, the ropes made fast, and all was ready for the start.
+
+"What are you going to do about the drift?" asked the foreman, who had
+been interestedly watching the preparations.
+
+"We are going to tie ropes to the two wheels on the upper side. One is
+to be held on this side of the river, the other from the opposite side.
+I think the kitchen will ford the river as straight as you could draw a
+chalk line," announced Tad.
+
+"I guess it will," answered the foreman, with a suggestive glance at
+Professor Zepplin.
+
+"All right when you get ready over there," called Tad to the waiting
+cowboys on the other side.
+
+They had taken firm hold of the ropes with their right hands, their left
+hands holding to the pommels of their saddles.
+
+"Ready!" came the warning cry from the other side.
+
+"Haul away!" shouted Tad.
+
+The ropes secured to the tongue of the trail wagon straightened, and the
+wagon began to move out into the stream.
+
+"Be careful. Don't pay out that rope too fast," directed Tad to the man
+on his side of the stream.
+
+The trail wagon floated out easily on the swiftly moving current. It was
+greeted by a cheer from the Pony Rider Boys. Those of the cowboys who
+were not otherwise engaged joined with a will.
+
+"There's that fool Chinaman," growled Stallings, observing the grinning
+face of Pong peering from the tail of the wagon. "Look out, the dragon
+will get you, sure, if you fall out!" he warned. "I don't care anything
+about you, but we can't afford to be without a cook."
+
+"There goes the fool!" cried Big-foot. "Now we sure will starve to
+death."
+
+[Illustration: As the Wagon Lurched Pong Plunged Overboard.]
+
+As the wagon lurched in the current, the Chinaman had plunged overboard
+and disappeared beneath the surface.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A BRAVE RESCUE
+
+
+"Save him, somebody! The fool's fallen overboard!" roared the foreman.
+"I can't let go this rope!"
+
+Tad had not seen the cook take his plunge, so, for the moment, he did
+not realize what had occurred.
+
+"Who's overboard," young Butler demanded sharply.
+
+"The cook," answered Stallings excitedly. "Can't any of you slow pokes
+get busy and fish him out?"
+
+"Pong!" cried Tad as the head of the Chinaman appeared on the surface.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the lad leaped into his saddle.
+
+"Yip!" he shouted to the pony, accentuating his command by a sharp blow
+with the quirt.
+
+The pony leaped forward.
+
+"Here, he's not up there; he's in the river I tell you!" shouted the
+foreman.
+
+Tad had driven his mount straight up the bank behind them. He paid no
+attention to the warning of the foreman, having already mapped out his
+own plan of action.
+
+Reaching the top of the sloping bank, Tad pulled his pony to the right
+and dashed along the bluff, headed down the river.
+
+"Watch your lines or you'll have the wagon overboard, too," he called
+back. "I'll get Pong out."
+
+Big-foot Sanders scratched his head reflectively.
+
+"Ain't the Pinto the original whirlwind, though?" he grinned. "I never
+did see the like of him, now. He'll get that heathen out while we are
+standing here trying to make up our minds what to do."
+
+"Yes, but I'm afraid the Chinaman will drown before Tad gets to him,"
+said the foreman, with a shake of his head. "Here, don't let go of this
+rope while you are staring at the kid. I can't hold it alone."
+
+Tad drove his pony to its utmost speed until he had reached a point some
+little distance below where the head of the Chinaman had last been seen.
+
+All at once the lad turned sharply, the supple-limbed pony taking the
+bank in a cat-like leap, landing in the water with a splash.
+
+Tad kept his saddle until the pony's feet no longer touched the bottom.
+Then he dropped off, clinging to the mane with one hand. The cook was
+nowhere to be seen, but Tad was sure he had headed him off and was
+watching the water above him with keen eyes.
+
+"There he is below you!" shouted a voice on shore. "Look out, you'll
+lose him."
+
+Tad turned at the same instant, giving the pony's neck a sharp slap to
+indicate that he wanted the animal to turn with him.
+
+The lad saw the Chinaman's head above the water. Evidently the latter
+was now making a desperate effort to keep it there, for his hands were
+beating the water frantically.
+
+"Keep your hands and feet going, and hold your breath!" roared Tad.
+"I'll be----"
+
+Before he could add "there," the lad suddenly discovered that there was
+something wrong with his pony. It was the latter which was now beating
+the water and squealing with fear.
+
+One of the animal's hind hoofs raked Tad's leg, pounding it painfully.
+Tad released his hold of the mane and grasped the rein.
+
+Throwing up its head, uttering a snort, the pony sank out of sight,
+carrying its master under. Tad quickly let go the reins and kicked
+himself to the surface.
+
+The pony was gone. What had caused its sudden sinking the lad could not
+imagine. There was no time to speculate--not an instant to lose if he
+were to rescue the drowning cook.
+
+Throwing himself forward, headed downstream, Tad struck out with long,
+overhand strokes for the Chinaman. Going so much faster than the
+current, the boy rapidly gained on the victim.
+
+Yet, just as he was almost within reach of Pong, the latter threw up his
+hands and went down.
+
+Tad dived instantly. The swollen stream was so muddy that he could see
+nothing below the surface. His groping hands grasped nothing except the
+muddy water. The lad propelled himself to the surface, shaking the water
+from his eyes.
+
+There before him he saw the long, yellow arms of the Chinaman protruding
+above the surface of the river. This time, Tad was determined that the
+cook should not escape him. Tad made a long, curving dive not unlike
+that of a porpoise.
+
+This time the lad's hands reached the drowning man. The long, yellow
+arms twined themselves about the boy, and Tad felt himself going down.
+
+With rare presence of mind the boy held his breath, making no effort to
+wrench himself free from the Chinaman's grip. He knew it would be effort
+wasted, and, besides, he preferred to save his strength until they
+reached the surface once more.
+
+Half a dozen cowpunchers had plunged their ponies into the river, and
+were swimming toward the spot where Tad had been seen to go down, while
+the foreman was shouting frantic orders at them. The wagon had been
+ferried to the other side, and Stallings had run to his pony, on which
+he was now dashing madly along the river bank.
+
+"Look out that you don't run them down!" he roared. "Keep your wits
+about you!"
+
+"They're both down, already!" shouted a cowboy in reply.
+
+"We'll lose the whole outfit at this rate," growled another. Yet, not a
+man was there, unless perhaps it may have been Lumpy Bates, who would
+not have risked his own life freely to save that of the plucky lad.
+
+After going down a few feet, Tad began treading water with all his
+might. This checked their downward course and in a second or so he had
+the satisfaction of realizing that they were slowly rising. The current,
+however, was forcing them up at an angle.
+
+This, to a certain extent, worked to the boy's advantage, for the
+Chinaman was underneath him, thus giving Tad more freedom than had their
+positions been reversed.
+
+"There they are!" cried Big-foot Sanders as the Chinaman and his
+would-be rescuer popped into sight.
+
+"Go after them!" commanded Stallings.
+
+Urging their ponies forward by beating them with their quirts, the
+cowboys made desperate efforts to reach the two.
+
+Tad managed to free one arm which he held above his head.
+
+"The rope! He wants the rope! Rope him, you idiots!" bellowed the
+foreman.
+
+Big-foot made a cast. However, from his position in the water, he could
+not make an accurate throw and the rope fell short.
+
+Tad saw it. He was struggling furiously now, ducking and parrying the
+sweep of that long, yellow arm, with which Pong sought to grasp him.
+
+A quick eddy caught the pair and swept them out into the center of the
+stream, around a bend where they were caught by the full force of the
+current. This left their pursuers yards and yards to the rear.
+
+Tad saw that they would both drown, if he did not resort to desperate
+measures. Drawing back his arm, the lad drove a blow straight at Pong's
+head, but a swirl of the current destroyed the boy's aim and his fist
+barely grazed the cheek of the Chinaman.
+
+Quick as a flash, Tad Butler launched another blow. This time the
+Chinaman's head was jolted backwards, Tad's fist having landed squarely
+on the point of the fellow's jaw.
+
+But Pong was still struggling, and the lad completed his work by
+delivering another blow in the same place.
+
+"I hope I haven't hurt him," gasped the boy.
+
+Tad threw himself over on his back, breathing heavily and well-nigh
+exhausted. He kept a firm grip on the cook, however, supporting and
+keeping the latter's head above water by resting the Chinaman's neck on
+his arm as they floated with the current.
+
+In the meantime, Stallings was dashing along the bank roaring out his
+orders to the cowboys, calling them ashore and driving them in further
+down. Yet, each time it seemed as though the floating pair drifted
+farther and farther away.
+
+But Tad Butler was still cool. Now that he was getting his strength
+back, he began slowly to kick himself in toward shore, aiding in the
+process by long windmill strokes of his free arm.
+
+He did not make the mistake of heading directly for the shore, but
+sought to make it by a long tack, moving half with the current and half
+against it. The lad had made up his mind that the cowboys would never
+reach them and that what was to be done must be done by himself.
+
+"Can you make it?" called Stallings.
+
+"Yes. But have some one--on the other side--toss me a rope--as soon as
+possible. I don't know--whether Pong--is done for--or not," answered the
+boy in short breaths.
+
+Stallings plunged his pony into the current and swam for the other side.
+Reaching there, he galloped at full speed toward the point for which Tad
+seemed to be aiming.
+
+The foreman rode into the water until it was up to his saddle and where
+the pony was obliged to hold its head high to avoid drowning.
+
+There the foreman waited until the lad had gotten within roping
+distance.
+
+"Turn in a little," directed Stallings. "You'll hit that eddy and land
+out in the middle, if you don't."
+
+A moment more and the foreman's lariat slipped away from the circle it
+had formed above his head.
+
+Tad held an arm aloft, and the loop dropped neatly over it. Stallings
+pulled it and Tad grasped the rope after the loop had tightened about
+his arm.
+
+"Haul away," he directed.
+
+The foreman turned his pony about and slowly towed cook and boy ashore.
+
+The cowboys, observing that Tad was being hauled in, headed for the
+shore. Reaching it, they put spurs to their ponies and came down to the
+scene at a smashing gait.
+
+Leaping off, they sprang into the water, picking up Tad and the Chinaman
+and staggering ashore with them.
+
+The lad was pale and shivering. They laid him down on the bank. But Tad
+quickly pulled himself to his feet.
+
+"I must look after Pong," he said.
+
+"You let the heathen alone," growled Big-foot Sanders. "Us tenderfeet'll
+look after him. That's what we are, a bunch of rank tenderfeet. You're
+the only seasoned, all around, dyed-in-the-wool, genuwine cowpuncher in
+the whole outfit. That's the truth."
+
+Tad smiled as he hurried to where the foreman was working over the
+unconscious cook.
+
+"Is he dead?" asked the lad, apprehensively.
+
+"Dead? Huh!" grunted Curley Adams. "Heathen Chinese don't die as easy as
+that."
+
+After a few minutes the cook went off into a paroxysm of choking and
+coughing. Then he opened his eyes.
+
+Chunky Brown was standing near, blinking down wisely into the yellow
+face of Pong.
+
+"You fell in, didn't you?" he asked solemnly.
+
+"Allee samee," grinned the yellow man, weakly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAKING NEW FRIENDS
+
+
+Professor Zepplin, fully as wet as the others, met the returning outfit.
+Everybody was wet. It seemed to have become their normal condition.
+
+"Did you get the wagon over?" asked Tad.
+
+"You bet," replied the foreman. "As soon as we get all the water shook
+out of that heathen we'll set him to making coffee for the outfit. It's
+too near dark now to do any more work; and, besides, I guess the cattle
+are bedded down for the night. I think they're ready for a night's rest
+along with ourselves. What happened to that pony?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," answered Tad. "That was too bad, wasn't it?"
+
+"Cramps I guess," suggested Big-foot. "They have been known to have 'em
+in the water. That water must have had an iceberg in it somewhere up the
+state. Never saw such all-fired cold water in my life. Whew!"
+
+"That's one pony more we've got to buy, that's all. But I don't care.
+I'd rather lose the whole bunch of them than have anything happen to the
+Pinto," announced the foreman.
+
+"Or the cook," added Tad, with a smile.
+
+"Yes; it's a very serious matter for an outfit of this kind to lose its
+cook. We could get along without a foreman very well, but not without a
+cook."
+
+"Especially when you have a bunch of hungry boys with you. What about
+the new ponies?"
+
+"I'll ride over to Colonel McClure's ranch in the morning and see what
+we can do. You may go with me if you wish."
+
+"I should like to very much. Is that where you expect to get the other
+herd of cattle as well?"
+
+"Yes. Better take an earlier trick on guard to-night, for we shall start
+right after breakfast in the morning."
+
+"Very well," replied Tad. "Guess I'll get my coffee now."
+
+Big-foot Sanders was already helping himself to the steaming beverage,
+when Tad reached the chuck wagon.
+
+"Well, kid, what about it?" greeted the big cowman.
+
+"What about what?"
+
+"Trouble."
+
+Tad smiled broadly.
+
+"There does seem to be plenty of it."
+
+"And plenty more coming. You'll see more fun before we are clear of this
+part of the country."
+
+"I don't very well see how we can have much more of it. I should imagine
+we have had our share."
+
+"Wait. We'll be here three or four days yet and mebby more," warned the
+cowboy.
+
+Tad went out with the second guard that night. Contrary to the
+expectations of Big-foot Sanders and some others, the night passed
+without incident, the next morning dawning bright and beautiful.
+
+For some reason the foreman decided, at the last moment, that he would
+not go to the Ox Bow ranch. Instead, he instructed Big-foot Sanders to
+take three of the men with him and pick out what ponies they needed from
+Colonel McClure's stock. They were to bring the animals out to camp
+where the boys would break them in.
+
+Tad set out with them, after a hurried breakfast, leaving his young
+companions to amuse themselves as best they could.
+
+"How far do we have to ride, Big-foot?" asked the lad after they were in
+their saddles.
+
+"Mile or two, I guess. It's been a long time since I was through these
+parts. There's that church I've been telling you about."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There, near the bedding-down ground. Seems as though the boss might
+have put the cows further away from the place."
+
+Tad surveyed the structure with keen interest. The white walls of the
+old adobe church reflected back the morning light in a whitish glare.
+About the place he observed a rank growth of weeds and evil cacti, the
+only touch of life to be seen being the birds that were perched on its
+crumbling ridges, gayly piping their morning songs.
+
+"It looks deserted."
+
+"I reckon it is," answered Big-foot. "Anyway, it ought to be. Ain't fit
+for human beings to roost in."
+
+"Humph! I don't believe there is anything spooky about that building.
+I'm going to investigate, the first time I get the chance. Have we time
+to stop this morning?"
+
+"No; we'll have to be getting along. The ponies we are after will have
+to be hobbled and got back to camp somehow. I expect we'll have a merry
+circus with them. If we get back in time for supper we'll be lucky."
+
+"That will be fun," exulted Tad. "Mr. Stallings promised me I might
+break one of them. My pony having been drowned, I should like to break a
+fresh one for myself."
+
+"And break your neck at the same time. I know you've got the sand, but
+you let that job out, kid. You don't know them bronchos."
+
+"I thought you said I was no longer a tenderfoot," laughed Tad.
+
+"Sure thing, but this is different."
+
+"I'll chance it. You show me the pony I cannot ride, and I will confess
+that I am a tenderfoot."
+
+Their arrival at the Ox Bow ranch was the signal for all the dogs on the
+place to try out their lungs, whereat a dozen cowboys appeared to learn
+the cause of the uproar. The McClure house stood a little back, nestling
+under a bluff covered with scant verdure, but well screened from the
+biting northers of the Texas winter. Further to the south were the ranch
+buildings, corrals, the cook house and a log cabin, outside of which
+hung any number of bridles and saddles, some of which the ranchers were
+mending and polishing when Stalling's men arrived on the scene.
+
+Big-foot introduced himself and was received with many a shout and
+handshake. Bill Blake, the foreman of the ranch after greeting the new
+arrival, turned inquiringly to Tad Butler, who had dismounted.
+
+"I didn't know you used kids in your business, Big-foot," he grinned.
+
+Big-foot flushed under the imputation.
+
+"Mebby you call him a kid, but if you'd see the lad work you'd change
+your mind mighty quick," answered the big cowman, with a trace of
+irritation in his voice. He explained to Blake what the boy was doing
+with the outfit, at the same time relating some of the things that the
+slender, freckle-faced boy from the East had accomplished.
+
+"Shake, Pinto," exclaimed Bill Blake cordially. "I reckon Mr. McClure
+would like to talk with you. Big-foot and I have got some business over
+in the ranch house, you see," smiled the foreman.
+
+"I see," replied Tad, though not wholly sure whether he did or not.
+
+"He's over there talking with his boss wrangler now. Come along and I'll
+give you a first-class knock-down to him."
+
+Tad found the ranch owner to be a man of refinement and kindly nature,
+yet whose keen, quizzical eyes seemed to take the lad in from head to
+foot in one comprehensive glance.
+
+"So you are learning the business, eh? That's right, my lad. That's the
+way to go about it, and there's no place like a drive to learn it, for
+that's where a man meets about every experience that comes in the life
+of a cowman."
+
+Tad explained about the Pony Riders, and that their trip was in the
+nature of a pleasure jaunt, they being accompanied by Walter Perkins's
+instructor and that they were with the outfit for a brief trip only.
+
+Mr. McClure became interested at once.
+
+"I should like to hear more about your experiences," he said. "Won't you
+come up to the house with me, while your man talks horse with my
+foreman?"
+
+Tad flushed slightly as he glanced down over his own rough, dust-covered
+clothes.
+
+"I--I am afraid I am not fit, sir."
+
+"Tut, tut. We ranchers learn to take a man for what he is worth, not for
+what he has on. You have been riding. Naturally you would not be
+expected to appear in broadcloth. No more do we expect you to. Had I a
+son, I should feel far better satisfied to see him as you stand before
+me now, than in the finest of clothes. Come, I want you to meet my
+family."
+
+Tad, somewhat reluctantly, followed the rancher to his house. Much to
+the lad's discomfiture, he was ushered into the drawing-room of the
+first southern home he had ever entered.
+
+"Be seated, sir. I will call my daughters. We have so few guests here
+that the girls seldom see anyone during the time they are home from
+school."
+
+Mr. McClure left the room, and Tad, after choosing a chair that he
+considered least liable to be soiled by his dusty clothes, sat down,
+gazing about him curiously. He found himself in a room that was by far
+the handsomest he had ever seen, while from the walls a long line of
+family ancestors looked down at him from their gilt frames.
+
+Tad had found time for only a brief glance about him, when the sound of
+voices attracted his attention. At first he was unable to decide whence
+the voices came. They seemed to be in the room with him, yet there was
+no one there save himself.
+
+Turning about he discovered that a curtained doorway led directly into
+another room, and that it was from the adjoining room that the sound had
+come.
+
+"You say Ruth is bad again to-day, Margaret?"
+
+"No, mother, I would not say that exactly. Yet she does not seem to be
+quite herself, and I thought it best to tell you. I feared that perhaps
+she was going to have one of her old attacks."
+
+"Say nothing to her of your suspicions. The last one passed over, I
+think largely because we appeared to treat her mood lightly. Poor child,
+she has never ceased to grieve for the man whom her parents refused to
+permit her to marry. I think your Aunt Jane made a grievous mistake. I
+told her so plainly when she brought Ruth here to us, hoping she might
+forget her youthful love affair."
+
+Tad Butler's cheeks burned.
+
+That he had unwittingly played eavesdropper troubled him not a little.
+The boy rose and walking to a window on the further side of the room,
+stood with hat crumpled in both hands behind him, gazing out.
+
+The voices ceased. Yet a moment later Tad started and turned sharply.
+
+"Well, young man, what are you doing here?"
+
+Before him he saw a woman just short of middle age. He inferred at once
+that she was the elder of the two women whom he had heard speaking
+behind the curtain.
+
+"I am waiting for Mr. McClure," answered Tad, bowing politely, his face
+flushing under its tan.
+
+"Does he know that you are here?" she asked in a milder tone.
+
+"Oh, yes. He asked me to wait here until he returned."
+
+"Pardon me, I----"
+
+"Ah, here you are, my dear. I have been looking for you. I wish you to
+meet Master Thaddeus Butler, who, with three companions and a tutor, is
+crossing the state with the Miller herd. It is the most unique vacation
+in these days. Master Butler, this is Mrs. McClure. My daughters will
+join us in a moment."
+
+Mrs. McClure shook hands cordially with their young guest.
+
+"Welcome to Ox Bow," she smiled. "At first, as your back was turned to
+me, I took you for one of the men. Instantly you faced me I saw the
+mistake I had made. Won't you be seated?"
+
+Under her cordial manner Tad Butler was soon at his ease. Almost before
+he was aware of the fact Mrs. McClure had drawn from him the main facts
+relating to the journeyings of the Pony Riders.
+
+Mrs. McClure's two daughters, Sadie and Margaret, entered the room soon
+afterwards, Tad being presented to them. Margaret, the elder of the two,
+was a fair-haired girl of perhaps nineteen years, while her sister
+Sadie, who was darker, Tad judged to be about his own age.
+
+Both girls shook hands smilingly with their guest.
+
+"I hope you will pardon me for appearing in such a disreputable
+condition," begged the lad. "I really am not fit to be seen."
+
+His quaint way of putting it brought forth a general laugh.
+
+"You need make no apology. We are all ranchers here. Even my daughters
+and my niece ride, and sometimes accompany the foreman on drives from
+one part of the ranch to another. As for my niece, though brought up in
+the East, she is a born cattle woman. There is hardly a cowman on the
+place who can ride better than she."
+
+"Your man tells us that you are the best horseman in your outfit," said
+Mr. McClure.
+
+"I don't think I quite deserve that compliment, sir," answered Tad. "But
+I am very fond of horses. I find, by kind treatment, one can do almost
+anything with them."
+
+"My idea exactly," nodded Mr. McClure approvingly. "The cowpuncher
+doesn't look at it that way, however. He wouldn't feel at home on a
+horse that didn't break the monotony by bucking now and then. Did you
+ever ride a bucker?"
+
+"Once. I expect to break one of the animals I understand we are to get
+from you."
+
+His host whistled softly.
+
+"You have a large contract on hand, young man. The ponies I am turning
+off are the worst specimens we ever had on the ranch. Some of them never
+had a bridle on, for the very good reason that no one ever has been able
+to get close enough to them to put bridles on. I hope you will not be
+foolish enough to try to break any of that stock."
+
+"Oh, we'll rope them and get a headstall on, anyway. The rest will come
+along all right, I think," smiled Tad.
+
+"Ah, my niece, Miss Brayton!" exclaimed the rancher, introducing a young
+woman who had just entered the room.
+
+"With the Miller outfit?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," answered Tad.
+
+"Who is your foreman?"
+
+"Stallings--Bob Stallings."
+
+Tad thought Miss Brayton one of the most beautiful women he had ever
+seen. Yet there was something about her that affected him strangely.
+Perhaps it was her abrupt manner of speaking. At any rate the lad
+experienced a sense of uneasiness the moment she entered the room. He
+did not stop to ask himself why. Tad merely knew that this was true.
+Miss Brayton had little to say, but her quietness was more than atoned
+for by the vivacity of Sadie and Margaret.
+
+As Tad was taking his leave the entire family accompanied him out into
+the yard.
+
+"If your duties will permit we should like to have you and your
+companions dine with us to-morrow evening," said Colonel McClure.
+
+"Yes; by all means," added Mrs. McClure.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Butler, we should love to have you," added Sadie.
+
+"Besides, we want to meet your friends," said Margaret.
+
+"And I am sure we should enjoy coming. It seems almost an imposition for
+four of us boys to camp out in your dining room at the same time,"
+laughed Tad.
+
+"I assure you it will be doing us a favor," protested the rancher. "You
+will bring your Professor, also. We'll have a real family party."
+
+Tad somewhat reluctantly agreed to bring his companions, though he
+disliked the idea of going to so fine a place for dinner in their rough,
+weather-beaten clothing.
+
+The boy bade them all good-bye and strode off toward the corral, where
+the ponies were being roped preparatory to being taken over to the
+Miller herd.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Butler!"
+
+Tad wheeled sharply. Ruth Brayton was hurrying toward him.
+
+The lad lifted his hat courteously and awaited the young woman's
+approach.
+
+"Yes, Miss Brayton."
+
+"Tell me again who your foreman is."
+
+"Bob Stallings."
+
+"Stallings--Stallings. Where have I heard that name before?" mused the
+girl, staring at Tad with vacant eyes.
+
+"Are you sure it isn't Hamilton--Robert Hamilton?"
+
+"Quite sure," smiled the lad.
+
+"Do you know a cowboy or foreman by that name?"
+
+"No, I never heard the name before."
+
+Miss Brayton turned abruptly and hurried away. Tad heard her repeating
+the name of his foreman as she walked swiftly toward the ranch house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BREAKING IN THE BRONCHOS
+
+
+"My, but that was a job," laughed Tad, after they had reached camp
+again, with three wild bronchos in tow. They had staked the new ponies
+down on the plain to think matters over while the cowboys sat down to
+their noon meal.
+
+"They sure are a bad lot," agreed Big-foot Sanders. "Never seen worse
+ones. See that fellow, over there, don't even mind the pinch of that
+hackmore bridle. He's the ugliest brute in the bunch."
+
+"That's the one I'm going to break," decided Tad Butler, his eyes
+glowing as he observed the wild pitching and snorting of the staked
+animal.
+
+The pony was running the length of his rope at full speed, coming to a
+sudden halt when he reached its end, with heels high in the air and head
+doubled up under him on the ground.
+
+It seemed to the lad like unnecessarily harsh treatment, yet he knew
+full well the quality of the temper of these animals of the plains.
+
+"I'm afraid he'll break his neck," objected Tad.
+
+"Let him," snapped the foreman. "There's more where he came from."
+
+"By the way," said Tad, speaking to the Pony Riders. "I have an
+invitation for you fellows. I had forgotten it in the excitement of
+getting the new ponies to camp."
+
+"Where to!" asked Ned Rector indifferently.
+
+"To take dinner at the home of Colonel McClure."
+
+"That will be fine," glowed Walter.
+
+"But the question is, what are we going to wear?" laughed Tad. "We don't
+look very beautiful for a drawing room."
+
+"Drawing room?" inquired Ned Rector, with interest. "Did I hear you say
+drawing room?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Huh! There isn't one within a thousand miles of us."
+
+"You will think differently when you see the one at the ranch house."
+
+"Did--did the colonel say what we were going to have to eat?" asked
+Stacy Brown, in all seriousness.
+
+His question provoked a loud laugh from cowboys and Pony Riders.
+
+"No. Naturally, I didn't ask him. There are some very nice girls at the
+ranch, too."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Ned. "Will wonders never cease? I'll believe
+I am not dreaming when I see all this with my own two eyes."
+
+"Yes, Colonel McClure has two daughters, and besides these, there is a
+niece from the East visiting them. She is considerably older than the
+daughters, but a very beautiful woman." Tad paused thoughtfully for a
+moment. "Professor, I presume you will have no objection to our
+accepting Colonel McClure's invitation? You are invited to join us."
+
+"Not at all, young gentlemen. But perhaps I had better not intrude----"
+
+"Please go," urged Tad.
+
+"Sure. He'll go. You will, won't you, Professor?" demanded Ned.
+
+"Of course, if you really wish me to----" smiled Professor Zepplin
+good-naturedly.
+
+"Of course we do," chorused the boys.
+
+"Very well, I will think it over. I'm afraid, however, that I do not
+look altogether presentable."
+
+"No more do we," answered Walter Perkins. "Tad probably told them we did
+not."
+
+Tad nodded.
+
+"They refused to accept that excuse. So I told them we would come."
+
+The boys were full of anticipation for this promised break in the
+monotony of their living; and, besides, they looked forward keenly to
+meeting the young women about whom their companion had told them.
+
+After the meal had been finished Tad asked when they were to begin
+breaking the new stock.
+
+Stallings looked over the ponies critically.
+
+"I guess we'll let them stay where they are, for an hour or so yet. It
+will help to break their spirit. Still think you can break one of them
+in?"
+
+"I am sure of it," answered Tad Butler confidently.
+
+"You shall have the chance. However, I shall not permit you to saddle
+him. Some of the cowpunchers, who are used to that, had better do it for
+you the first time. Unless one knows these little brutes he is liable to
+be kicked to death."
+
+"I am not afraid."
+
+"No, that is the danger of it. Neither is the pony afraid--that is, not
+until he is blindfolded."
+
+About the middle of the afternoon the foreman announced that they would
+begin the breaking. The cowmen uttered a shout, for the process promised
+them much boisterous fun.
+
+"Is the gopher going to break one of the bronchos?" asked Lumpy Bates.
+
+"No, but the Pinto is," replied Curley Adams.
+
+"He'll want to go home right away if he tries it, I reckon," jeered
+Lumpy.
+
+"Don't you be too sure about that," retorted Curley. "That kid's got the
+stuff in him. I've been watching him right along. None of them lads is
+tenderfeet, unless it's the gopher, and he isn't half as bad as he
+looks."
+
+By this time the foreman had taken hold of the rope that held the most
+violent of the ponies, and was slowly shortening upon it. As he neared
+the pony's head a cowboy began whipping a blanket over its back.
+
+While the animal was plunging and kicking, Stallings gripped him by the
+bridle, after which there was a lively struggle, and in a moment more a
+broad handkerchief had been tied over the pony's eyes.
+
+"What's that for! Is he going to play blind man's buff?" demanded
+Chunky.
+
+"Huh! Get out!" growled Big-foot.
+
+"If he does, you'll be it," jeered Ned Rector.
+
+At last the animal crouched down trembling. He had never passed through
+an experience like that before and could not understand it.
+
+Tad Butler standing near, was observing the operation with keenly
+inquiring eyes.
+
+All at once the little animal leaped clear of the foreman's grip, its
+blinder came off and it launched into a series of wild bucks and grunts.
+The air seemed full of flying hoofs, and for the moment there was a
+lively scattering of cowpunchers and Pony Riders.
+
+Once more, and with great patience, the foreman went all over the
+proceeding again. This time the foreman got one hand on the animal's
+nose and the other in his mane.
+
+All at once something happened. A forty-pound saddle was thrown, not
+dropped, on the back of the unsuspecting pony.
+
+The broncho's back arched like a bow, and the saddle went skyward. Stacy
+Brown happened to be in the way of it as it descended, so that boy and
+saddle went down together in a yelling heap.
+
+The cowpunchers howled with delight as Chunky, covered with dust, wiping
+the sand from his eyes, staggered angrily to his feet.
+
+"Did he kick me?" he demanded.
+
+"With his back, yes," chuckled Shorty Savage.
+
+Again and again the saddle was shot into the air the instant it touched
+the pony's back. It was back in place in no time, however. After a time
+the broncho paused, as if to devise some new method of getting rid of
+the hated thing.
+
+As he did so, Big-foot Sanders cautiously poked a stick under the
+animal, pulling the girth toward him. A moment more and he had slipped
+it through a large buckle, and, with a jerk, made the girth fast.
+
+Again the bucking began, but more violently than before.
+
+The saddle held, though it slipped to one side a little.
+
+"I've got him now," cried Stallings. "The instant he lets up, catch that
+flank girth and make fast."
+
+"Right," answered Big-foot.
+
+It was accomplished almost before the boys realized it.
+
+Walter and his companions set up a shout.
+
+The pony stood panting, head down, legs braced apart. The blinder had
+been torn from his eyes. He was waiting for the next move.
+
+"Are you ready for me now?" asked Tad Butler quietly.
+
+The foreman turned his head, glancing at Tad questioningly.
+
+"Think you can stand it?"
+
+"I can't any more than fall off."
+
+Stallings nodded.
+
+Tad slipped to the pony's side. Cautiously placing his left foot in the
+stirrups, he suddenly flung himself into the saddle.
+
+The next instant Tad Butler was flying through the air over the pony's
+head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+GRIT WINS THE BATTLE
+
+
+The lad appeared to strike the ground head-on. Fortunately, the spot
+where he landed was covered with soft sand.
+
+"Are you hurt?" asked Big-foot, running to the boy and reaching out to
+assist him.
+
+"I guess not," answered Tad, rubbing the sand from his eyes and blinking
+vigorously.
+
+The skin had been scraped from his face in spots where the coarse sand
+had ground its way through. His hair was filled with the dirt of the
+plain, and his clothes were torn.
+
+But Tad Butler, nothing daunted, smiled as he pulled himself to his
+feet.
+
+"You better let that job out. You can't ride that critter!"
+
+"I'll ride him--if he kills me!" answered the boy, his jaws setting
+stubbornly.
+
+Tad hitched his belt tighter before making any move to approach the
+pony, which Stallings was now holding by main force. While doing so, the
+lad watched the animal's buckings observantly.
+
+"What--what happened?" demanded Stallings.
+
+"Foot slipped out of the stirrup."
+
+"Think you can make it?"
+
+"I'll try it, if you have the time to spare."
+
+"It takes time to break a bronch. Don't you worry about that. I don't
+want you to be breaking your neck, however."
+
+"My advice is that you keep off that animal," declared Professor
+Zepplin. "You cannot manage him; that is plain."
+
+"Please do not say that, Professor. I must ride him now. You wouldn't
+have me be a coward, would you?"
+
+Stallings, realizing the boy's position, nodded slightly to the
+Professor.
+
+"Very well, if Mr. Stallings thinks it is safe," agreed Professor
+Zepplin reluctantly.
+
+Tad's face lighted up with a satisfied smile.
+
+"Whoa, boy," he soothed, patting the animal gently on the neck.
+
+The pony's back arched and its heels shot up into the air again. Once
+more Tad petted him.
+
+"No use," said the foreman. "The iron hand is the only thing that will
+break this cayuse. Don't know enough to know when he's well off. Got
+your spurs on?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then drive them in when you get well seated."
+
+Tad shook his head.
+
+"I do not think that will be necessary. Guess he'll go fast enough
+without urging him with the rowels," answered the boy, backing away to
+wait until the pony had bounced itself into a position where another
+effort to mount him would be possible.
+
+"Will you please coil up the stake rope and fasten it to the horn, Mr.
+Stallings?" asked Tad. "I don't want to get tangled up with that thing."
+
+"Yes, if you are sure you can stick on him."
+
+"Leave that to me. I know his tricks now."
+
+Cautiously the rope was coiled and made fast to the saddle horn.
+
+"I'm coming," said Tad in a quiet, tense voice.
+
+"Ready," answered the foreman, with equal quietness.
+
+The lad darted forward, running on his toes, his eyes fixed on the
+saddle.
+
+Tad gave no heed to the pony. It was that heavy bobbing saddle that he
+must safely make before the pony itself would enter into his
+considerations.
+
+Lightly touching the saddle, he bounded into it, at the same time
+shoving both feet forward. Fortunately his shoes slipped into the big,
+boxed stirrups, and the rein which lay over the pommel ready for him was
+quickly gathered up.
+
+Stallings leaped from the animal's head and the cowpunchers made a quick
+sprint to remove themselves from the danger zone.
+
+They were none too soon.
+
+The broncho at last realized that his head was free. His sides, however,
+were being gripped by a muscular pair of legs, and his head was suddenly
+jerked up by a sharp tug at the rein.
+
+"Y-e-e-e-o-w!" greeted the cowboys in their long-drawn, piercing cry.
+
+"Yip!" answered Tad, though more to the pony than in answer to them.
+
+Down went the pony's head between his forward legs, his hind hoofs
+beating a tattoo in the air.
+
+The feet came down as suddenly as they had gone up. Instantly the little
+animal began a series of stiff-legged leaps into the air, his curving
+back making it a very uncomfortable place to sit on.
+
+Tad's head was jerked back and forth until it seemed as though his neck
+would be broken.
+
+"Look out for the side jump!" warned the foreman.
+
+It came almost instantly, and with a quickness that nearly unhorsed the
+plucky lad.
+
+As it was, the swift leap to the right threw Tad half way over on the
+beast's left side. Fortunately, the lad gripped the pommel with his
+right hand as he felt himself going, and little by little he pulled
+himself once more to an upright posture.
+
+All at once the animal took a leap into the air, coming down headed in
+the opposite direction.
+
+Tad's head swam. He no longer heard the shouts of encouragement from the
+cowpunchers. He was clinging desperately to his insecure seat, with legs
+pressed tightly against the pony's sides. As yet he had not seen fit to
+use the rowels.
+
+There came a pause which was almost as disconcerting as had been the
+previous rapid movements.
+
+"He's going to throw himself! Don't get caught under him!" bellowed
+Big-foot.
+
+Tad was thankful for the suggestion, for he was not looking for that
+move at the moment.
+
+The pony struck the ground on its left side with a bump that made the
+animal grunt. Tad, however, forewarned, had freed his left foot from the
+stirrup and was standing easily over his fallen mount, eyes fixed on the
+beast's ears, ready to resume his position at the first sign of a quiver
+of those ears.
+
+Like a flash the animal was on its feet again, but with Tad riding in
+the saddle, a satisfied smile on his face. Once more the awful,
+nerve-racking bucking began. It did not seem as if a human being could
+survive that series of violent antics, and least of all a mere boy.
+
+All at once the animal came up on its hind legs.
+
+Tad knew instinctively what it meant. He did not need the warning cry of
+the cowpunchers to tell him what the pony was about to do. Over went the
+broncho on its back, rolling to its side quickly.
+
+Tad was on the ground beside it, standing in a half-crouching position,
+with one foot on the saddle horn.
+
+He had jerked the broncho's head clear of the ground with a strong tug
+on the reins, making the animal helpless to rise until the lad was ready
+for him to do so.
+
+The cowboys uttered a yell of triumph.
+
+"Great! Great!" approved Bob Stallings.
+
+"Tenderfoot, eh?" jeered Big-foot Sanders. "Hooray for the Pinto!"
+
+Tad's companions gave a shrill cheer.
+
+"Wait. He ain't out of the woods yet," growled Lumpy Bates.
+
+"Think you could do it better, hey?" snapped Curley Adams. "Why, that
+cayuse would shake the blooming neck off you if you were in that saddle.
+I never did see such a whirlwind."
+
+"Got springs in his feet, I reckon," grinned Big-foot.
+
+"Don't let his head down till you're ready for the get-away," cautioned
+the foreman.
+
+Tad suddenly allowed the head to touch the ground, after the pony had
+lain pinned at his feet, breathing hard for a full minute.
+
+Boy and mount were in the air in a twinkling. As they went up, Ted
+brought down his quirt with all his strength. It was time the ugly
+animal was taught that its enemy could strike a blow for himself.
+
+With a quick pause, as if in surprise, the beast shot its head back to
+fasten its teeth in the leg of the rider. Tad had jerked his leg away as
+he saw the movement, with the result that only part of his leggin came
+away between the teeth of the savage animal.
+
+Crack!
+
+Down came the quirt again.
+
+The broncho's head straightened out before him with amazing quickness.
+He was beginning to fear as well as hate the human being who so
+persistently sat his back and tortured him.
+
+The pony sprang into the air.
+
+"They're off!" shouted the cowboys.
+
+With amazing quickness the animal lunged ahead, paused suddenly, then
+shot across the plain in a series of leaps and twists.
+
+Tad shook out the rein, at the same time giving a gentle pressure to the
+rowels of his spurs.
+
+Maddened almost beyond endurance, the pony started at a furious pace,
+not pausing until more than a mile had been covered. When he did bring
+up it was with disconcerting suddenness.
+
+"Whoa, boy!" soothed Tad, patting the little animal on the neck. Again
+the wide-open mouth reached for the lad's left leg. But this time Tad
+pressed in the spurs on the right side. The pony tried to bite that way,
+whereat its rider spurred it on the left side.
+
+This was continued until, at least, in sheer desperation, the animal
+started again to run. He found that he was not interfered with in this
+effort. However, when he sought to unseat his rider by brushing against
+the trunk of a large tree, he again felt the sting of the quirt on his
+flank.
+
+Gradually Tad now began to work the animal around. After a time he
+succeeded in doing this, and was soon headed for camp. They bore down,
+at great speed, to where the cowboys were swinging their hats and
+setting up a shout that carried far over the plain.
+
+Tad's face was flushed with pride. Yet he did not allow himself for an
+instant to forget his work. The lad's whole attention was centered on
+the pony under him. He was determined to make a grand finish that, while
+exhibiting his horsemanship, would at the same time give the pony a
+lesson not soon to be forgotten.
+
+"You've got him!" cried Ned Rector as Tad approached, now at a gallop,
+the animal's ears lying back angrily.
+
+"Don't be too sure," answered Big-foot. "See them ears? That means more
+trouble."
+
+It came almost before the words were out of the cowpuncher's mouth.
+
+The broncho stiffened, its hoofs ploughing little trails in the soft
+dirt of the plain as it skidded to a stop. The jolt might have unhorsed
+Tad Butler had he not been expecting it from some indications that he
+read in the animal's actions.
+
+Suddenly settling back on its haunches, the broncho rolled over on its
+side. Tad, with a grin, stepped off a few paces, taking with him,
+however, the coil of rope, one end of which was still fastened around
+the beast's neck.
+
+With a snort and a bound, realizing that it was free at last, the little
+animal leaped to its feet and darted away.
+
+Tad moved swiftly to the right, so as not to get a tug on the rope over
+the back of the pony.
+
+The coil was running out over his hands like a thing of life. Grasping
+the end firmly, the lad shook out the rest of the rope, leaning back
+until it was almost taut.
+
+By this time the animal was running almost at right angles to him.
+
+Tad gave the rope a quick rolling motion just as it was being drawn
+taut. The result was as surprising as it was sudden. The animal's four
+feet were snipped from under it neatly, sending the broncho to earth
+with a disheartening bump.
+
+[Illustration: Tad Gave the Rope a Quick, Rolling Motion.]
+
+Without giving it a chance to rise, Tad sprang upon it, and, when the
+pony rose, Tad Butler was sitting proudly in the saddle.
+
+The little beast's head went down. Its proud spirit had been broken by a
+boy who knew the ways of the stubborn animal.
+
+A great shout of approval went up from cowpunchers and Pony Riders. They
+had never seen a breaking done more skillfully.
+
+Tad's gloved hand patted the neck of the subdued animal affectionately.
+
+"I'm sorry I had to be rough with you, old boy, but you shall have a
+lump of sugar. We're going to be great friends, now, I know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DINNER AT THE OX BOW
+
+
+"Welcome to the Ox Bow, young gentlemen," greeted Colonel McClure.
+
+The rancher and his wife were waiting at the lower end of the lawn as
+the Pony Rider Boys, accompanied by Professor Zepplin, rode up on the
+following afternoon.
+
+The lads wore their regulation plainsman's clothes, but for this
+occasion coats had been put on and hair combed, each desiring to look
+his best, as they were to meet the young ladies of the ranch.
+
+"We owe you an apology, sir, for appearing in this condition," announced
+the Professor.
+
+"Master Butler and myself have already settled that question," answered
+the rancher. "As Henry Ward Beecher once said, 'Clothes don't make the
+man, but when he is made he looks very well dressed up.' I must say,
+however, that these young men are about as likely a lot of lads as I
+have ever seen."
+
+Clear-eyed, their faces tanned almost to a copper color, figures erect
+and shoulders well back, the Pony Rider Boys were indeed wholesome to
+look upon. Perhaps Sadie and Margaret McClure were not blind to this,
+for they blushed very prettily, the boys thought, upon being presented
+to their guests. Ruth Brayton was in a sunny mood, laughing gayly as she
+chatted with the boys.
+
+Tad glanced at her inquiringly. She was not the same girl that he had
+met the day before. There was a difference in the eyes, too. Tad could
+not understand the change. It perplexed him.
+
+Colonel McClure took the Professor off to his study, the boys being left
+with Mrs. McClure and the young ladies to wander through the grounds and
+chat. Each of the young women was an accomplished horsewoman, and
+therefore evinced a keen interest in the experiences of the boys since
+they had been in saddle.
+
+"I had so often wanted to take a trip through the Rockies on horseback,"
+announced Miss Margaret.
+
+"I am afraid you would find it rather rough going," said Ned Rector.
+
+"No worse than the plains," replied Walter. "We have had more hardships
+in Texas during the short time we have been here than we ever
+experienced in the mountains."
+
+"Yes; but you were driving cattle," objected Mrs. McClure. "There
+probably is no harder work in the world. We, down here, know something
+about that."
+
+"I--I killed a bobcat up in the mountains," Stacy Brown informed them,
+with enthusiasm.
+
+"Indeed," smiled Mrs. McClure indulgently.
+
+"He did. And I fell off a mountain," laughed Walter Perkins. "You see we
+have had quite a series of experiences."
+
+"Indeed you have. How long do you expect to remain with the herd? Are
+you going through with them?"
+
+"I believe not," answered Tad Butler. "I think we shall be leaving very
+soon now. We have a lot of traveling to do yet, as it has been planned
+that we shall see a good deal of the country before it is time to return
+to school this fall."
+
+"And you are to remain out in the open--in the saddle all summer?" asked
+Miss Brayton, her eyes sparkling almost enviously.
+
+"Yes; I believe so."
+
+"I should love it."
+
+"We are getting to love it ourselves. It will be hard to have to sleep
+indoors again."
+
+Shortly afterwards all were summoned in to supper. Stacy Brown's eyes
+sparkled with anticipation as he surveyed the table resplendent with
+silver and cut glass--loaded, too, with good things to eat.
+
+Ned Rector observed the look in his companion's eyes.
+
+"Now, don't forget that we are not eating off the tail board of the
+chuck wagon, Chunky," he whispered in passing. "Be as near human as you
+can and satisfy your appetite."
+
+Chunky's face flushed.
+
+"Take your advice to yourself," he muttered.
+
+Colonel McClure proved an entertaining host, and the boys were led on to
+talk about themselves during most of the meal. Especially were their
+hosts interested in the story of the discovery of the Lost Claim, which
+the boys had found on their trip in the Rockies.
+
+"I have wanted to ask you about the old church between here and camp,
+Mr. McClure," said Tad at the first opportunity.
+
+"Very interesting old ruin, sir," answered the host. "Built by the
+Mexicans more than a hundred years ago."
+
+"Yes, so I understand."
+
+"Is it true that there's spooks in that place?" interrupted Stacy.
+
+Everybody laughed. Tad glanced sharply at Ruth Brayton. He noticed a
+curious flush on her face, and the strained look that he had observed in
+her eyes on the previous day was again there. Almost the instant he
+caught it it was gone.
+
+"I'm afraid you have been misinformed, Master Stacy," answered Colonel
+McClure.
+
+"How about the trouble that the cattle men experience when near the
+place?" spoke up Ned Rector. "The cowmen are sure there is something in
+the story."
+
+"Nothing at all--nothing at all. Just a mere coincidence. We live here
+and we have no more than the usual run of ill luck with our stock."
+
+"Stampedes?" asked Tad.
+
+"Seldom anything of that sort. You see our stock is held by wire fences.
+If they want to stampede we let them--let them run until they are tired
+of it."
+
+"I should like to explore the old church," said Tad, again referring to
+the subject uppermost in his mind.
+
+"Nothing to hinder. Ruth, why can't you and the girls take the young men
+over there to-morrow if the day is fine? You know the place and its
+history. I am sure they would enjoy having you do so."
+
+"We should be delighted," answered Ned Rector promptly.
+
+"We might make it a picnic," suggested Margaret McClure.
+
+"And have things to eat?" asked Stacy, evincing a keen interest in the
+proposal.
+
+"Of course," smiled Mrs. McClure. "A picnic would not be a picnic
+without a spread on the ground. I will send some of the servants over to
+serve the picnic lunch."
+
+"Thank you," smiled Tad gratefully. "It will be a happy afternoon for
+all of us if Miss Brayton can find the time to take us."
+
+"Of course Ruth will go," nodded Mrs. McClure.
+
+"Yes," answered the young woman. "What time shall we arrange to start,
+auntie?"
+
+"Say eleven o'clock, if that will suit the young men."
+
+"Perfectly," answered Tad.
+
+"You might first take a gallop to the Springs. That will give you all an
+appetite."
+
+"Where are the Springs?" asked Ned.
+
+"About seven miles to the eastward of the ranch. A most picturesque
+place," answered Colonel McClure. "Professor, while the young people are
+enjoying themselves, suppose you ride over here and spend the afternoon
+with me? We can ride about the ranch if it would please you."
+
+"I should be delighted."
+
+"I was going to suggest, too, that it might be a pleasant relief for all
+of you to accept the hospitality of the Ox Bow ranch and remain here
+while you are in the vicinity. We have room to spare and would be glad
+to have you."
+
+"I am afraid the young men would prefer to remain in camp, thank you.
+They will get enough of sleeping in beds upon their return home,
+discourteous as the statement may seem," answered Professor Zepplin.
+
+"Not at all--not at all. I understand you perfectly. I shall not press
+the point. But spend all the time you can with us. The place is yours.
+Make yourselves at home."
+
+"No; Mr. Stallings would not like it if we were to remain away over
+night. You see, he expects us to do our share of night guard duty,"
+explained Tad. "We are earning our keep as it were."
+
+The boys laughed.
+
+"That is, some of us are," corrected Ned, with a sly glance at Stacy,
+who was eating industriously. "Others are eating for their keep."
+
+The Pony Rider Boys caught the hidden meaning in his words, but they
+tried not to let their hosts observe that it was a joke at the expense
+of one of them.
+
+"Stallings," murmured Miss Brayton, her eyes staring vacantly at Tad
+Butler.
+
+Tad flushed at the memory of what he had heard on his first visit to the
+ranch.
+
+Miss Brayton excused herself rather abruptly and left the room. They did
+not see her again that evening.
+
+"My niece has been ailing of late," explained Mrs. McClure.
+
+"Perhaps she had better not try to accompany us to-morrow, then,"
+suggested Tad.
+
+"Oh, yes, I wish her to. It will do her good--it will take her mind from
+herself."
+
+Tad Butler noted the last half of the sentence particularly. For him it
+held a deeper meaning than it did for his companions.
+
+"I wonder if she knows Mr. Stallings," mused Tad. "I'm going to find
+out. No, I won't. It's none of my business. Still, it will do no harm to
+ask him, or to mention the name to him. That surely would not be wrong."
+
+Under the charm of the evening his mind soon drifted into other
+channels. After supper games were brought out and a happy evening
+followed.
+
+Ten o'clock came, and Professor Zepplin, glancing at his watch, was
+about to propose a return to camp, when one of Colonel McClure's cowboys
+appeared in the doorway, hat in hand.
+
+"Beg pardon; may I speak with you a moment?" asked the man.
+
+"Certainly," replied the colonel, with the same gracious manner, Tad
+observed, that he used toward his guests. "Excuse me a moment."
+
+After a little their host returned, but rather hurriedly, it seemed, and
+Tad's keen eyes noticed that he seemed disturbed.
+
+Mr. McClure caught the lad's inquiring gaze fixed upon him. He nodded.
+
+"Is anything wrong?" asked the rancher's wife.
+
+"Yes; I am afraid there is," he answered quietly.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I am not sure. Perhaps I should not alarm you young gentlemen, but I
+think you should know."
+
+"At the camp, you mean?" asked Tad.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's that?" demanded Professor Zepplin sharply. "Something wrong at
+the camp?"
+
+"My men think so. They say they hear shooting off in that direction, and
+want to know if they shall ride out."
+
+"You think it is a--a----" began Tad.
+
+"A stampede? Yes; I should not be surprised."
+
+"We must go," announced the lad, rising promptly.
+
+"Why go?" asked Margaret.
+
+"We may be needed."
+
+"But my men have started already," replied the rancher. "They surely
+will be help enough."
+
+"Mr. Stallings will expect us. We may be able to be of some assistance."
+
+"Well, if you must. Yes; you are right. Business is business, even when
+one is out on a pleasure trip. It's a good sign in a young man. Tell
+your foreman that he may call upon us to any extent."
+
+"Thank you, I will," replied Tad.
+
+Bidding their hosts a hasty good night, and promising to be on hand at
+the appointed hour on the following day if the condition of the herd
+permitted, the Pony Rider Boys ran for their ponies. In a few moments
+they were racing toward camp. They, too, were now able to hear the
+short, spiteful bark of the six-shooters.
+
+It was a significant sound. They had heard it too many times before not
+to understand it. In their minds they could see the hardy cowboys riding
+in front of the unreasoning animals, shooting into the ground in front
+of them, seeking to check the rush.
+
+"What do you think about this business?" asked Tad Butler, drawing up
+beside Ned Rector.
+
+"I think there is more in this spook story than Colonel McClure knows
+of, or, at least, will admit."
+
+"So do I," answered Tad.
+
+"We'll know when we hear how it happened."
+
+Tad remembered, at that moment, the hasty departure of Ruth Brayton.
+
+"I wonder--I wonder," muttered the boy to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A CALL FOR HELP
+
+
+"I told you so."
+
+"You have told me so many things, Big-foot, that I can't remember them
+all," laughed Tad. "What is it this time?"
+
+"Trouble."
+
+"Oh, you mean the stampede last night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell me about it. You know I was not here when it started."
+
+After a hard night's work, in which the Pony Rider Boys had toiled
+heroically, the cattle once more had been rounded up and Big-foot and
+Tad Butler were riding into camp for breakfast. It was the first
+opportunity they had found to talk over the incident.
+
+"Not much to tell. It happened so quick----"
+
+"What time?" interrupted Tad.
+
+"'Bout half-past nine, I reckon."
+
+"Half-past nine," muttered the lad thoughtfully. "Yes; go on."
+
+"We were sitting by the camp fire, and Curley Adams was telling about
+the time he was mixed up with the rustlers on the Colorado."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, them ponies came down on us a-whooping."
+
+"The ponies? Did they get away, too?" asked the lad in surprise.
+
+"Did they? You ought to have seen the varmints. Nearly run over us when
+they smashed through the camp. One jumped clean over the fire."
+
+"Yes, I understand; but did you have any idea why the cattle stampeded?"
+
+"Sure. The ponies put them on the run."
+
+"The ponies started it?"
+
+"Yes. No telling how it happened. The cows come a-running after the
+ponies had broke through them, and the whole outfit piled over the
+camp."
+
+"Do any damage?"
+
+"I reckon. Knocked over the chuck wagon, and near killed the heathen
+Chinee. The men on guard roped the runaway ponies, and, by the time you
+got on the job, we had just about got straightened around ready to go
+after the cows."
+
+"I suppose you lay it to----"
+
+"Adobe church," answered the cowman conclusively.
+
+"I am going over there to-day, Big-foot. I am going to try to find out
+if there is anything in all this. Candidly, I don't believe it. Even
+Colonel McClure says it's all foolishness. That is, I do not believe it
+is anything that cannot be explained."
+
+The foreman was looking worried that morning. It had been a succession
+of disasters ever since they had neared the locality. This time it had
+been the ponies which were hobbled some little distance from the herd,
+but which had become so frightened at what they saw that they bolted,
+hobbles and all.
+
+"I want those cows from the McClure ranch brought over to-day,"
+Stallings directed. "At least, bring over half of them. Get them over
+right after breakfast. If we are going to have any more disturbances
+let's try to have them in the daytime."
+
+"Do you need us?" asked Tad.
+
+"No. Go on and enjoy yourselves. You all have earned a holiday."
+
+The lads were in their saddles early. Professor Zepplin went with them,
+intending to spend the day at the ranch as arranged on the previous
+evening.
+
+The young ladies of the household were waiting, dressed in short skirts
+and wearing broad-brimmed straw hats. To the boys they were most
+attractive. Their fresh young faces lighted with anticipation of the
+day's pleasure as, assisted by the Pony Riders, they swung into their
+saddles. It fell to Tad Butler to ride beside Miss Brayton.
+
+"We had a stampede at the camp last night," he told her after they had
+headed off to the east for the Springs, which was to be their first
+objective point.
+
+"Yes; so uncle told me. I'm sorry. Did you lose any stock?"
+
+"I believe not, unless it was some of the new ponies. I did not think to
+ask."
+
+"At what time did the trouble occur?" she asked absently.
+
+"I think it was shortly after you left us at dinner, last night,"
+answered Tad, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It was, perhaps, half an hour
+after that when your uncle told us."
+
+Miss Brayton flushed painfully, and quickly changed the subject. Tad
+noticed her confusion and marveled at it.
+
+Arriving at the Springs, which proved to be a group of rocks rising out
+of the plain, and from which several springs of pure sparkling water
+bubbled, all dismounted and drank of the refreshing fluid. After a few
+moments spent in chatting, they remounted their ponies and set off for
+the adobe church, the real object of the day's journey.
+
+Reaching the historic place, they tethered their ponies among the
+mesquite bushes in the rear of it, after which all entered through a
+crumbling doorway. The interior, they found, was in an excellent state
+of preservation.
+
+Many surprising little alcoves and odd, cell-like rooms were distributed
+all through the church. It was dark and cool in there. Chunky shivered,
+and said he didn't wonder people said there were spooks there.
+
+"Is there any cellar beneath the church?" asked Tad.
+
+"It has been said that there were once underground passages," answered
+Miss Brayton. "No one in our time has ever discovered them."
+
+"That sounds interesting. I think I should like to find the way into
+them."
+
+"So should I," added Stacy Brown.
+
+"Look out that you don't fall in," cautioned Ned. "Remember that's your
+failing."
+
+"Not much chance of that," laughed Margaret. "These stone floors are too
+thick for anyone to fall through."
+
+"Does anyone ever come here?" asked Tad.
+
+"Not that I know of," answered Miss Brayton.
+
+"But I saw a path when I came in. Somebody has been hitching a pony out
+there in the bushes, too," said the boy.
+
+"Perhaps some of the cowmen may come in here out of the heat, now and
+then," replied the young woman carelessly.
+
+"Why Ruth, you could not induce one of papa's men to enter the door of
+the old place. You know they are half scared to death of it," said
+Margaret.
+
+Chunky's eyes were growing large.
+
+"Wow!" he said. "Let's go out doors and eat."
+
+"The lunch has not yet arrived. It will be here soon," Miss Brayton
+informed him. "We will spread it in the main room here, if you have no
+objections. It will be cool and pleasant; and, besides, there are no
+flies in here."
+
+"For goodness' sake, forget your appetite," growled Ned in Stacy's ear.
+
+"Can't a fellow talk about his appetite without being found fault with?"
+Chunky sulkily retorted.
+
+"Not the kind of an appetite you have. It's a positive disgrace to the
+outfit."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Chunky, walking away.
+
+The lad wandered off by himself, and the rest forgot all about him in
+their investigation of the old church. Miss Brayton told them as much of
+its history as she knew.
+
+"Some of the former priests are said to have been buried somewhere in
+the edifice," she said.
+
+"I don't see any signs of it," said Tad.
+
+"No. No one ever has in our time. And it has even been hinted that
+treasure has been buried here, too, or secreted in some of the
+mysterious recesses of the church."
+
+"Where are they" asked Walter. "I am beginning to get curious."
+
+"I am sure I do not know," laughed the young woman. "There is a sort of
+garret, if you can get to it, above the gallery there. Maybe you might
+find something there. I have an idea that it is inhabited by bats."
+
+"I guess we will leave them undisturbed," decided Tad. "I don't like
+bats."
+
+"There come the servants," announced Miss Brayton. "Now your friend will
+be able to satisfy his appetite."
+
+At her direction the servants brought in the baskets of food. A cloth
+was spread over a stone table that they found at the far end of the
+church in the balcony. What its use had been, in those other days, they
+did not know, but it served their purpose very well now.
+
+"I am afraid we shall have to eat standing," said Miss Sadie. "We have
+no chairs."
+
+"That will suit Chunky," replied Ned Rector. "He always likes to eat
+standing."
+
+"Why?" asked Margaret, glancing up at him inquiringly.
+
+"For some reasons of his own," answered Ned mischievously.
+
+As the good things were spread before them the eyes of the lads lighted
+appreciatively, and all helped themselves gratefully.
+
+It was a jolly party, untouched by the air of mystery that was supposed
+to surround the place.
+
+"Why, where is Master Stacy?" asked Ruth Brayton in surprise, after they
+had been eating a few moments.
+
+"Chunky? That's so, where is he?" demanded Walter, glancing over the
+railing into the auditorium below.
+
+No one seemed to know.
+
+"He's prowling around the place somewhere," said Ned. "But what
+surprises me is that he doesn't scent the food and come running. It's
+not like him to hang back when there is anything good to eat."
+
+"Call him," suggested Margaret.
+
+"I will. O-h-h Chunky!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"I will go after him," said Walter, running lightly to the other end of
+the balcony and down the stone steps.
+
+The lad returned in a few moments, a perplexed frown on his face.
+
+"Find him?" asked Ned.
+
+"No."
+
+"Maybe he's gone back to camp. He's a queer chap."
+
+"I think not. I saw his pony there with the others."
+
+"Oh, well, never mind. He'll get so hungry that he will have to come
+out, wherever he is," decided Tad. "I imagine he is hiding somewhere to
+make us think he has gone away. Hark! What was that?"
+
+A far away call for help echoed faintly through the church.
+
+They looked at each other with growing uneasiness on their faces.
+
+"It's Chunky," breathed Walter.
+
+"Wh--where is he?" stammered Margaret.
+
+"I don't know. Excuse me; I must go," exclaimed Tad. "The boy is in
+trouble again. I knew it--I knew he couldn't keep out of it," he added,
+hurrying away from them.
+
+Ned sprang down the steps after Tad and together they disappeared
+through a rear door in the auditorium.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+LOST IN THE ADOBE CHURCH
+
+
+Those up in the gallery could hear the two boys calling to their
+companion. There was no answer to their hails, and one by one the little
+party left the gallery.
+
+"I tell you he is playing tricks on us," said Ned, after they had
+searched all over the place without finding any trace of Stacy.
+
+"No; I don't agree with you," answered Tad. "Something has happened to
+him."
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Walter.
+
+"Keep on looking. That is all we can do just now."
+
+Once more they began their search, but with no better results than
+before.
+
+"Have you looked outside?" asked Miss Brayton.
+
+"Yes; we looked out. No use in hunting there, for we can see all around
+the place from the side door here," answered Tad. "He has gotten into
+some place that we know nothing about. We've got to find it, that's
+all."
+
+"I would suggest that one of us ride to camp and get some of the men to
+come out and help us," advised Walter.
+
+"I'll ride home, and have father send some of his own men," suggested
+Margaret.
+
+"Yes; that would be best," agreed Miss Brayton.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't," replied Tad. "It would alarm them, and Professor
+Zepplin would be frightened. Ned, suppose you hustle for camp and tell
+Mr. Stallings the fix we are in. We shall need some help, that's sure."
+
+"All right. I'm off."
+
+Big-foot Sanders and Curley Adams responded to the call on the run, the
+foreman being out with the herd at the time.
+
+"I knew it," was Big-foot's first words as he rode up and threw himself
+from his pony where Tad was standing. "Now tell me all about it."
+
+Tad did so, the cowman nodding his head vigorously as Tad told him all
+he knew about Chunky's mysterious disappearance.
+
+"Which way did he go?" asked Curley.
+
+"That we do not know," answered Miss Brayton.
+
+"His cry seemed to come from the back of the church somewhere," spoke up
+Ned.
+
+"We'll go in and look around, then," decided Big-foot, striding into the
+church. "Whew! smells pretty musty in here. What's that up there?"
+
+"That's where we were eating our lunch when we heard Chunky call,"
+Walter informed him.
+
+"How long since you had seen him--was he up there with you?"
+
+"No; he had left us twenty minutes before we began eating lunch,"
+answered Ned.
+
+"Humph!" grunted the cowman, gazing about him in perplexity. "Sure it
+isn't a trick?"
+
+Tad shook his head.
+
+"No. He was in trouble. I knew that from his tone."
+
+"Then he must have fallen in some place," announced Big-foot. "He
+couldn't fall up, so there's no use looking anywhere but on the ground
+floor here," he decided, wisely. "Anybody know of any holes that he
+might drop into?"
+
+"Not that I have seen," answered Ned. "The floor is as solid as stone."
+
+"Well, that beats all. You boys scout around outside, while Curley and I
+are looking things over in here. Besides, I want to be alone and think
+this thing over."
+
+"What do you make of it, Big-foot?" asked Curley Adams, after the others
+had gone outside.
+
+"I ain't making. When it comes to putting my wits against a spook place,
+I'm beyond roping distance. We'll look into these holes in the wall
+around here, first," he said, referring to the niches and cell-like
+rooms that they saw leading off from the auditorium. "You make it your
+business to sound the floor. We may find some kind of trap door."
+
+Curley went about bringing down the heels of his heavy boots on the hard
+floor, but it all sounded solid enough. There was no belief in the mind
+of either that the lad could have disappeared in any of the places they
+had examined--that is, that he could have done so through any ordinary
+accident.
+
+Like most cowboys, both Curley and Big-foot possessed a strong vein of
+superstition in their natures. To them there was something uncanny in
+Stacy Brown's mysterious and sudden disappearance.
+
+"Here's a door, but it's closed," called Curley.
+
+"That's so," agreed Big-foot, hurrying over to him. "The thing is sealed
+up with mortar. Hasn't been used in fifty cats' lives. Wonder what's
+behind it."
+
+"Not the boy; that's certain."
+
+"Nope. He didn't fall through there."
+
+"Find any other doors open or closed?"
+
+"Nary a one."
+
+"Well, that seems to settle this part of the ranch; we've got to look
+somewhere else. What bothers me is that we don't hear him call. If he
+was anywhere near, and had his voice, he'd be yelling for help," decided
+the big cowboy.
+
+"Don't think he's dead, do you?"
+
+"I don't think at all. I don't know," answered Big-foot.
+
+"It's my idea that the gopher isn't in here at all," announced Curley,
+with emphasis.
+
+His companion eyed him thoughtfully.
+
+"You're almost human at times, Curley. I reckon you've said the only
+true words that's been spoke by us this afternoon. We look for the
+gopher and don't find him. You say he ain't here, and he isn't. Great
+head! But that don't find him. The question is, where is he?"
+
+"We'll have to look outside," answered Curley.
+
+"Right you are. Come on."
+
+But their search outside was as fruitless as had been their quest within
+the old adobe church. Not a trace of Stacy Brown did they find.
+
+"Ned, I think you had better take the young ladies home," said Tad
+finally.
+
+"Want me to tell Professor Zepplin?"
+
+"Not right away. You can tell him on the way out here. He will not have
+quite so long to worry, but I think he should know about it. The matter
+is serious. Where did you say Mr. Stallings was, Big-foot?"
+
+"Out with the new herd. The cattle are pretty restless."
+
+"Walt, you go in and tell the foreman the difficulty we are in. I'll
+wait here and go on with the search. If he can get away I wish he would
+come."
+
+"I'll tell him," answered Walter, hurrying away.
+
+"I am sorry we have spoiled your afternoon, Miss Brayton," said Tad.
+"It's too bad. But I'm afraid something serious has happened to our
+friend."
+
+"Shall we see you again, Mr. Butler?"
+
+"Of course. I don't know when the herd will start on. We certainly shall
+not do so until we have found Stacy. Anyway, we will ride over some time
+to-morrow and bid you all good-bye."
+
+Assisting the young women into their saddles, Tad bade their friends
+good afternoon and turned sadly back to the church, while Ned Rector
+rode back to the Ox Bow ranch with the young women.
+
+"Well, what do you think?" demanded the lad, as he faced the big cowboy.
+
+"I don't think. My thinker's all twisted out of shape," answered
+Big-foot. "I can't tell you what to do. Wait till the boss gets here."
+
+"I guess that will be best," replied Tad. "We have done all we know how
+to do."
+
+The two men and the boy wandered about the church aimlessly, saying
+little, but thinking a great deal, impatiently awaiting the arrival of
+Bob Stallings, to whom they now looked to show them the way out of their
+difficulty.
+
+The foreman arrived, in the course of half an hour, with his pony on a
+sharp run. They had heard him approach, and were outside waiting for
+him.
+
+"Well, this is a nice kettle of fish!" exclaimed Stallings, leaping to
+the ground, tossing his reins to Curley Adams. "Tell me about it."
+
+Once more Tad Butler related all the facts in his possession regarding
+Stacy Brown's mysterious disappearance.
+
+"Big-foot thinks it's spooks," added Tad.
+
+"That's all bosh," exploded the foreman. "It's getting late in the
+afternoon, and I've no time to waste. I'll find him for you. What ails
+you, Big-foot? Getting weak in the knees?"
+
+"Not as I knows of. This funny business is kinder getting on my nerves,
+though."
+
+"Humph!" grunted the foreman, starting for the church in long strides.
+"Nerves in a cowboy! Humph!"
+
+They watched the tall figure of Stallings charging through the adobe
+house, peering here and there, asking questions in short, snappy
+sentences, going down on his knees in search of footprints. Finally he
+rose from his task with a puzzled look in his eyes.
+
+"Tell me that story again," he demanded.
+
+Tad did so.
+
+The foreman went outside and surveyed the building from all sides.
+
+"There's some secret room or passage in there somewhere. The gopher has
+stumbled into it. We are going to discover the mystery of the church of
+San Miguel before we have done here--that is, we are if we're lucky," he
+added.
+
+Bob Stallings' words were prophetic, though he did not know it. The
+discovery was to be one that would give the big foreman the surprise of
+his life, and that would affect all his after life as well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+SOLVING THE MYSTERY
+
+
+"We can't do much of anything more until daylight," announced the
+foreman finally. "You see, it's getting dark now."
+
+"You--you are going to leave him here?" asked Tad hesitatingly.
+
+"That's all we can do, so far as I see. But we'll put one of the men on
+guard to watch the place. To-morrow morning we'll take it upon ourselves
+to tear down that door that's sealed up. It may lead into the place
+where the boy fell in. Yes; we'll bring down the whole miserable shack
+if necessary."
+
+"You--you think he is here, then?"
+
+"Of course. Where else could he be? He walked away and disappeared right
+before your eyes. He could not get away if he had gone outside. So where
+is he? In the church, of course."
+
+"Then I will remain here and watch the place," decided Tad firmly.
+
+Stallings glanced at him hesitatingly.
+
+"All right. I guess you have got the nerve to do it. I can't say as much
+for the rest of the bunch. You come along with me, now, and get your
+supper. After that you may return if you want to. Big-foot, you and
+Curley stay here until the Pinto gets back. Better keep busy. You may
+stumble upon something before you know it."
+
+The two cowboys did not appear to be any too well pleased with the task
+assigned to them, but they obeyed orders without protest.
+
+The evening had grown quite dark by the time the cowmen had finished
+their supper. All had been discussing the strange disappearance of Stacy
+Brown. It did not seem to surprise them. They had expected trouble when
+they reached the vicinity of the adobe church. They had had little else
+during the time they had been in the camp.
+
+"Send Curley and Big-foot in," directed the foreman after Tad had
+announced his readiness to return to the church.
+
+"We'll all go," spoke up Ned Rector.
+
+"It's not at all necessary," answered Tad.
+
+"No; I have decided to let Big-foot go back after he has eaten. He can
+remain with you until ten-thirty, when he takes his trick on guard. Then
+the rest of you may go out if you wish. It isn't fair to leave the Pinto
+there alone all night. If I change my plans I'll send out Master Ned or
+Walter. Run along now, Tad."
+
+The lad mounted his pony and galloped slowly out for his long vigil. He
+was greatly disturbed over the loss of Chunky. Yet he could not bring
+himself to believe that great harm had come to the boy.
+
+"Anything new?" he called as he rode up.
+
+"Nary a thing. Plenty of funny noises inside the shack. Kinder gives a
+fellow the creeps; that's all."
+
+"You are to come back and remain with me until your watch, I believe,
+Big-foot."
+
+"Nice job you've cut out for me," answered the cowman.
+
+"I had nothing to do with it. It's the foreman's order," answered Tad.
+
+"Better bring a lantern with you. We may need it before the night is
+over."
+
+"All right," answered Big-foot, swinging into his saddle. After the
+cowmen had left, Tad walked out a little way from the church and sat
+down in the sand. He was within easy hearing of the place in case anyone
+should call out.
+
+It was a lonely spot. Tad had not sat there long before the noises that
+the cowmen had spoken of began again.
+
+The lad listened intently for a moment.
+
+"Bats," he said. "I can hear them flying about me. I hope none of them
+hit me in the face. I've heard they do that sometimes."
+
+The pony, which had been staked down well out on the plain, was now
+moving about restlessly.
+
+"I wonder if the noises are getting on the broncho's nerves, too?
+There's nothing here to be afraid of. I'm not afraid," declared Tad
+firmly, rising and pacing back and forth.
+
+He was relieved, just the same, when the big cowman rode back, an hour
+later, and took up the vigil with him. The two talked in subdued tones
+as they walked back and forth, the lad expressing the opinion that they
+would find Stacy unharmed when they once discovered the mysterious place
+into which he had unwittingly stumbled.
+
+"You see, those walls are so thick that we couldn't hear him even if he
+did call out. He may even have gotten in where they buried those monks
+we've heard about. I hope not, though."
+
+"He wouldn't know it," said Big-foot.
+
+"No, probably not in the darkness. Did you bring that lantern?"
+
+"Pshaw! I forgot it. Mebby I'd better go back and get it."
+
+"No; never mind, Big-foot. The moon will be up after a time. Then we
+shall not need it. You are going in for the ten-thirty trick, are you
+not?"
+
+"That's what the boss said," replied Big-foot.
+
+The right section of the herd was now bedded within a short distance of
+the church. They could hear the singing of the cowboys as they circled
+slowly around the sleeping cattle.
+
+"Guess we are not going to have any more trouble with them," said Tad,
+nodding toward the herd.
+
+"Don't be too sure. I feel it coming. I have a feeling that trouble
+ain't more'n a million miles away at this very minute."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk that way. You'll get me feeling creepy, first
+thing you know. I've got to stay here all night," said Tad.
+
+Big-foot laughed. They passed the time as best they could until the hour
+for the departure of the cowboy arrived. Then Tad was left alone once
+more. He circled about the church, listening. Once he thought he heard
+the hoof-beats of a pony. But the sound died away instantly, and he
+believed he must have been wrong.
+
+After half an hour Big-foot returned. The foreman had decided, so long
+as the cattle were quiet, to have him remain with Tad. If the cowboy
+should be needed in a hurry the foreman was to fire a shot in the air as
+a signal.
+
+Tad was intensely pleased at this arrangement. After chatting a while
+they lay down on the ground, speaking only occasionally, and then in low
+tones. The mystery of the night seemed to have awed them into silent
+thought. They had lain there for some time, when Tad suddenly rose on
+one elbow.
+
+"Did you hear that?" he whispered.
+
+"Yes," breathed the cowman.
+
+"What--what do you think it was?"
+
+"Sounded as if some one had jumped to the ground. We'd better crawl up
+there. It was by the church. I told you it was coming."
+
+"Do you suppose it was Chunky?"
+
+"No. He'd be afraid of the dark. You'd hear him yelling for help."
+
+Tad had his doubts of that; but, just the same, he, too, felt that the
+noise they had heard had not been made by Stacy Brown. A silence of
+several minutes followed. The two had crawled only a few feet toward the
+church, when, with one common impulse, they flattened themselves on the
+ground and listened.
+
+Now they could distinctly hear some one cautiously moving about in front
+of the church. It seemed to Tad as if the mysterious intruder were
+standing on the broad stone flagging at the top of the steps leading
+into the adobe church.
+
+Tad slowly rose to his feet.
+
+"Who's there?" he cried in a voice that trembled a little.
+
+A sudden commotion followed the question, and the listeners distinctly
+caught the sound of footsteps on the flagging.
+
+A flash lighted the scene momentarily.
+
+Big-foot had fired a shot toward the church. A slight scream followed
+almost instantly.
+
+"I winged it!" shouted the cowman, lifting his weapon for another shot.
+
+Tad struck the gun up. The lad was excited now.
+
+"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't do that again. Do you want to kill
+somebody?"
+
+With that Tad ran, his feet fairly flying over the ground, in the
+direction of the church steps. In the flash of the gun he had caught a
+glimpse of a figure standing there. The sight thrilled him through and
+through.
+
+As the plucky lad reached the steps some one started to run down them.
+Tripping, the unknown plunged headlong to the ground.
+
+The boy was beside the figure in an instant.
+
+"Big-foot!" he shouted.
+
+The cowman came tearing up to him.
+
+"What is it?" he bellowed in his excitement.
+
+"It's a woman, Big-foot! It's a woman! Oh, I hope you did not hit her!"
+
+"It's no woman; it's a spook. I know it's a spook!" fairly shouted the
+cowboy.
+
+"I tell you it's a woman!" cried Tad.
+
+He was down on his knees by her side now, raising her head.
+
+"Get help--_quick_!"
+
+Sanders took the shortest way of doing this. He, too, was alarmed now.
+Raising his gun above his head, he pulled the trigger three times in
+quick succession. As many sharp flashes leaped into the air, and as many
+quick reports followed.
+
+"Sure she ain't a spirit?" demanded the cowman, peering down
+suspiciously, fearfully. He could make out the form on the ground but
+dimly.
+
+"Don't be foolish. Run out there and meet them. I hear the ponies
+coming. Don't let any of them use their guns, in the excitement, or some
+one may get hurt," warned Tad Butler, with rare judgment.
+
+Big-foot hurried out into the open. In the meantime Tad stroked the face
+and head of the woman. She was unconscious, but her flesh seemed warm to
+his touch.
+
+"I wonder what it means," the perplexed boy asked himself. Tad could
+feel his own pulses beating against his temples. It seemed to him as if
+all the blood in his body were hurling itself against them.
+
+Cowboys on their ponies came thundering up from different directions. In
+the lead was Bob Stallings, the foreman of the outfit.
+
+"You idiots!" he shouted. "Do you want to stampede the herd again? What
+do you mean?"
+
+"I've winged a spook!" yelled Big-foot Sanders. "She's over there by the
+steps now. The kid's got her."
+
+"Spook--nonsense!" snapped the foreman, leaping from his pony and
+rushing to the spot indicated by Big-foot.
+
+"What----" chorused the cowboys.
+
+"Is it the boy--have they found him?"
+
+"If you all don't insist on talking at once, mebby we can find out what
+the row's about," snarled Curley Adams.
+
+The foreman stopped suddenly as he observed Tad sitting at the foot of
+the church steps. He saw, too, another form there, but it was so dimly
+outlined in the deep shadows that he was unable to make it out.
+
+"What does this mean?" he demanded sternly.
+
+"I don't know. It's a woman. I'm afraid Big-foot's bullet hit her. We
+must have a light."
+
+"Bring matches!" roared the foreman.
+
+No one had any.
+
+"Rustle for the camp, and fetch a lantern--and be quick about it! I've
+had enough of this fooling. What was she doing--how did it happen?"
+
+Tad explained as clearly as he could how they had been disturbed by the
+strange noises, resulting finally in a shot from Big-foot's gun.
+
+"The idiot! It'll be a sorry day for him if he's done any damage,"
+growled the foreman. He stooped over and ran his hand over the
+unconscious woman's face. Then he applied his ear to the region of the
+heart.
+
+"Huh!" he snapped, rising.
+
+"Find anything!" asked Tad in a half whisper.
+
+"She's alive. Heart weak, but I don't think she's seriously hurt. I
+don't understand it at all."
+
+"No more do I. I'm getting dizzy over all this rapid-fire business,"
+added the lad. "There they come with a light."
+
+Stallings strode to the cowman who had brought the lantern. Jerking it
+from the man's hand the foreman ran back.
+
+"We'll straighten her up against the steps, and try to find out how
+badly she is hurt," he said, placing the lantern on the ground.
+
+Tad had partially raised her, when he let the girl drop with a sudden,
+startled exclamation.
+
+"What is it?" demanded Stallings incisively.
+
+"It's Miss Ruth!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Miss Ruth----"
+
+By the dim lantern light the foreman saw her face outlined against the
+dark background of green. His eyes were fixed upon her, and Bob
+Stallings seemed scarcely to breathe.
+
+"Ruth Brayton!" he gasped.
+
+"Yes," answered Tad in a low voice, not fully comprehending the meaning
+of the scene that was being enacted before him.
+
+"Ruth Brayton," repeated Stallings, slowly passing a hand across his
+forehead. "Ruth!" he cried, throwing himself to his knees beside her.
+
+"I tell ye I winged a spook," insisted Big-foot Sanders to a companion
+as they came up.
+
+Tad raised a warning hand for silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+"Get back to that herd!" commanded the foreman sharply. "All of you!
+Tad, you stay with me. The girl has fallen and struck her head on the
+flagging. I don't think she is seriously hurt."
+
+Not understanding the meaning of it all, the cowmen drew back and
+slouched to their ponies. Most of them were off duty at the time, so
+they took their way back to camp to be ready for whatever emergency
+might arise.
+
+Not a man of them spoke until they had staked their ponies and seated
+themselves around the camp-fire. Such a silence was unusual among the
+cowboys. Ned and Walter, who had followed them in, were standing aside,
+equally silent and thoughtful.
+
+Shorty Savage was the first to speak.
+
+"What's it all about? That's what I'd like to know," he asked.
+
+"You won't find out from me," answered Curley.
+
+"Big-foot thinks he winged a spook," said a voice.
+
+"Allee samee," chuckled Pong, who had been taking in the scene with
+mouth and eyes agape.
+
+Big-foot fixed him with a baneful eye.
+
+"I said I'd forget you were the cook some day," said he. "I'm forgetting
+it, now, faster'n a broncho can run!"
+
+Pong's pigtail bobbed up and down like the streaming neckkerchief of a
+cowboy in saddle as he dived for the protection of the trail wagon.
+
+"I reckon he can understand king's English when he wants to," laughed
+Shorty. "Now how about that spook, Big-foot?"
+
+Sanders stood up, hitched his trousers and tightened his belt a notch.
+
+"Reckon we've all gone plumb daffy, fellows. I'm the champeen dummy of
+the bunch."
+
+The cowpunchers laughed heartily.
+
+"But was she a spook?" persisted Shorty.
+
+"She were not. She were a woman--a friend of the boss."
+
+Shorty whistled.
+
+"Lucky for me I missed her. I was rattled, or I'd never taken that
+shot."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Curley.
+
+"One of the young women from the Ox Bow. It gets me what she was doing
+in that spook place alone at night. I----"
+
+"W-o-w!"
+
+The exclamation was uttered by a familiar voice, at the sound of which
+the cowmen sprang to their feet.
+
+"It's the gopher!" they cried.
+
+"Chunky!" shouted Ned and Walter, running forward with a yell.
+
+"I fell in," wailed the fat boy.
+
+At sight of him the cowboys yelled with merriment. Chunky's clothes were
+torn. He was covered with dirt from head to foot, and his face was so
+grimy as to be scarcely recognizable.
+
+Big-foot was staring at him in amazement. Striding forward, he grasped
+the lad roughly by the shoulder, jerking him into the full light of the
+camp-fire.
+
+"Where you been, gopher?" he demanded sternly.
+
+"I fell in," stammered the boy.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Some kind of a well. It was in the bushes just outside the back door. I
+went there to hide. I fell down to the bottom and went to sleep."
+
+"Just like him. Have anything to eat down there?" jeered Ned Rector.
+
+"When I woke up it was dark. Then I found another hole--a passage. It
+went both ways. Guess one end went under the church. I followed it the
+other way, and came out near where the steers are bedded down."
+
+"Hold on a minute. Let's get this straight," interrupted Curley. "You
+mean you found an underground passage at the bottom of the old well? Is
+that it?"
+
+Chunky nodded.
+
+"And the opening was near the spring at the point of rocks just above
+the herd?"
+
+"Yes. But I had to dig out through a brush heap."
+
+"Huh! Not such a terrible mystery, after all," sniffed Curley
+contemptuously.
+
+"How came that underground passage there? What's it for?" asked
+Big-foot.
+
+"Probably dug out in Indian times. I'll bet it has saved the scalp of
+more than one old fellow. There's an opening into it from the church
+somewhere, you can depend upon that. I'm thinking, too, that the well
+was a bluff--that it wasn't intended for water at all. We'll smash the
+mystery of the adobe church before we pull out of here to-morrow, see if
+we don't."
+
+"I come mighty near doing for one of them," added Big-foot Sanders
+ruefully.
+
+"Got anything to eat?" interrupted Stacy Brown.
+
+"For goodness' sake, boys, take your fat friend over to the chuck wagon
+and fill him up. He's like a Mexican steer--he'll bed down safer when
+he's full of supper."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime, another scene was being enacted off at the Ox Bow
+ranch--a scene that was to add still another chapter to the romance of
+the trail.
+
+Tad Butler was sitting alone in the darkness on the steps of the McClure
+mansion. The boy, chin in hands, was lost in thought. Stallings had
+carried Ruth Brayton in his arms all the way to the ranch where she had
+soon revived.
+
+After leaving her, the foreman and Colonel McClure had locked themselves
+in the library, where they remained in consultation for more than an
+hour.
+
+"How is Miss Ruth?" asked the boy eagerly, when Stallings finally came
+out.
+
+"Better than in many months," answered the foreman. There was a new note
+in his voice.
+
+"I'm so glad," breathed Tad.
+
+"Old man," began Stallings, slapping Tad on the shoulder, "come along
+with me. We'll lead our ponies back to camp and talk. I presume you are
+aching to know what all this mystery means?" laughed the foreman.
+
+"Naturally, I am a bit curious," admitted Tad.
+
+"It means, Pinto, that not only have you rendered a great service to Mr.
+Miller and his herd, but you have done other things as well."
+
+"I've mixed things up pretty well, I guess."
+
+"No. You have solved a riddle, and made me the happiest man in the Lone
+Star State. Miss Brayton and I have known each other almost since
+childhood. When I was in Yale----"
+
+"You a college man!" exclaimed Tad in surprise.
+
+"Yes. We were engaged. My people were quite wealthy; but, in a panic,
+some years ago, father lost everything, dying soon after. Miss Brayton's
+family then refused their consent to our marriage. I determined to seek
+my fortune in the growing West. My full name is Robert Stallings
+Hamilton, though I never had used the middle name until I adopted it
+when I became a cowboy. But to return to Miss Brayton. Ruth was taken to
+Europe, and then sent to her uncle here. Her trouble preyed on her mind
+to such an extent that she grew 'queer.' She had heard that I was a
+cattle man, somewhere in the West. Strangely enough, when in her moods,
+she developed a strong antipathy to herds of cattle. Whenever a herd was
+near, Ruth would slip from the house and steal away to them in the
+night, A stampede usually followed. It's a wonder she wasn't shot.
+Whether or not she caused these intentionally, Ruth does not know----"
+
+"And that is the mystery?" asked Tad.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is the strangest story I ever heard," said the boy quietly.
+
+"What I was about to say, is that the herd will go on without me.
+Colonel McClure is sending his own foreman through with it instead. Ruth
+and I are to be married at once, and we shall go to my little ranch in
+Montana."
+
+In view of the fact that Stallings was severing his connection with the
+herd, Professor Zepplin decided to do likewise.
+
+Next morning, at sunrise, Bob Stallings, with Miss Ruth, by his side,
+both radiantly happy, rode out to the camp. The Pony Rider Boys had
+packed their kits and loaded their belongings on their ponies.
+Regretfully they bade good-bye to the cowmen.
+
+Tad's parting with Big-foot was most trying. In the short time they had
+been together, a strong affection had grown up between the two. The
+plainsman had been quick to perceive Tad's manly qualities, and the boy,
+in his turn, had been won by the big, generous nature of the man. They
+parted, each vowing that they must see each other again.
+
+As the great herd moved slowly northward, three cheers were proposed for
+Bob Stallings and Miss Brayton. This the cowboys gave with a will,
+adding a tiger for the Pony Rider Boys.
+
+The trail wagon, pulling out at the same time, held a grinning Chinaman,
+huddled in the rear.
+
+"Good-bye, Pong!" shouted the lads.
+
+"Allee samee," chuckled the cook, shaking hands with himself
+enthusiastically.
+
+And here for a time we will take leave of the Pony Rider Boys, whose
+further exciting experiences will be chronicled in the next volume,
+entitled: "The Pony Rider Boys in Montana; Or, the Mystery of
+the Old Custer Trail." This will be a story of adventure, full of
+absorbing interest and thrilling incidents. The reader will then go over
+the same trails that General Custer rode in the wilder days.
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
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+
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+The keynote of these books is manliness. The stories are wonderfully
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+plots are ingenious, the action swift, and the moral tone wholly
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+the glory of right living.
+
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+
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+Great Fog.
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+
+By Victor G. Durham
+
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+These splendid books for boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine
+torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, who, by
+degrees, become most expert in this most wonderful and awe-inspiring
+field of modern naval practice. The books are written by an expert and
+possess, in addition to the author's surpassing knack of story-telling,
+a great educational value for all young readers.
+
+The Submarine Boys on Duty; Or, Life on a Diving Torpedo Boat.
+
+The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip; Or, "Making Good" as Young Experts.
+
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+
+The Submarine Boys and the Spies; Or, Dodging the Sharks of the Deep.
+
+The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise; Or, The Young Kings of the Deep.
+
+The Submarine Boys for the Flag; Or, Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam.
+
+
+
+
+PONY RIDER BOYS SERIES
+
+By Frank Gee Patchin
+
+
+These tales may be aptly described as those of a new Cooper. As the
+earlier novelist depicted the first days of the advancing frontier, so
+does Mr. Patchin deal charmingly and realistically with what is left of
+the strenuous outdoor West of the twentieth century. In every sense they
+belong to the best class of books for boys.
+
+The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies; Or, The Secret of the Lost Claim.
+
+The Pony Rider Boys in Texas; Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains.
+
+The Pony Rider Boys in Montana; Or, The Mystery of the Old Custer Trail.
+
+The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks; Or, The Secret of Ruby Mountain.
+
+The Pony Rider Boys on the Alkali; Or, Finding a Key to the Desert Maze.
+
+The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico; Or, The End of the Silver Trail.
+
+
+
+
+High School Boys Series
+
+By H. Irving Hancock
+
+
+In this series of bright, crisp books a new note has been struck.
+
+Boys of every age under sixty will be interested in these fascinating
+volumes.
+
+The High School Freshmen; Or, Dick & Co's First Year Pranks and Sports.
+
+The High School Pitcher; Or, Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond.
+
+The High School Left End; Or, Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football
+Gridiron.
+
+The High School Captain of the Team; Or, Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic
+Vanguard.
+
+
+
+
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+
+By H. Irving Hancock
+
+
+This series of stories, based on the actual doings of grammar school
+boys comes near to the heart of the average American boy.
+
+The Grammar School Boys of Gridley; Or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving.
+
+The Grammar School Boys Snowbound; Or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports.
+
+The Grammar School Boys in the Woods; Or, Dick & Co. Trail Fun and
+Knowledge.
+
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+Fame Secure.
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+
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+
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+cadetship. Their doings will prove an inspiration to all American boys.
+
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+Gray.
+
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+Soldier's Life.
+
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+Honor.
+
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+Shoulder Straps.
+
+
+
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+
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+
+
+The Spirit of the new Navy is delightfully and truthfully depicted in
+these volumes.
+
+Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis; Or, Two Plebe Midshipmen at the
+U. S. Naval Academy.
+
+Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis; Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval
+Academy "Youngsters."
+
+Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis; Or, Leaders of the Second Class
+Midshipmen.
+
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+Big Cruise.
+
+
+
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+
+By H. Irving Hancock
+
+
+These books breathe the life and spirit of the United States Army of
+to-day, and the life, just as it is, is described by a master-pen.
+
+Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks; Or, Two Recruits in the United States
+Army.
+
+Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty; Or, Winning Corporal's Chevrons.
+
+Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants; Or, Handling Their First Real Commands.
+
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+
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+
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+These stories throb with the life of young Americans on today's huge
+drab Dreadnaughts.
+
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+
+The Battleship Boys' First Step Upward; Or, Winning Their Grades as Petty
+Officers.
+
+The Battleship Boys in Foreign Service; Or, Earning New Ratings in
+European Seas.
+
+
+
+
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+
+By EDGAR B. P. DARLINGTON
+
+
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+big and little shows travel. His books breathe forth every phase of an
+intensely interesting and exciting life.
+
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+Sawdust Life.
+
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+Tanbark.
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+South.
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+fairly by storm.
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+Oakdale Freshmen Girls.
+
+GRACE HARLOWE'S SOPHOMORE YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL; Or, The Record of the
+Girl Chums in Work and Athletics.
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+GRACE HARLOWE'S JUNIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL; Or, Fast Friends in the
+Sororities.
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+Ways.
+
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+
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+
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+unless it contains these sparkling twentieth-century books, written for
+present-day girls.
+
+THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT; Or, Watching the Summer Parade.
+
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+Trail.
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+THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS ALONG THE HUDSON; Or, Fighting Fire in Sleepy
+Hollow.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN TEXAS***
+
+
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