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.