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.