The Pony Rider Boys in Texas Part 14

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 sh.o.r.eward 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 sh.o.r.e, 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."