While the picnic was being prepared there arose a series of blood-curdling whoops off to the south where the outfit of the Star C made the air blue with powder smoke. As they came nearer something peculiar was noticed by Helen. It appeared to be a sort of drag drawn by a horse and supported by two long, springy poles, one end of which rested on the ground, and the other fastened to the saddle. While she wondered Bill came up and she turned to him for light.
“What have they got fastened to that horse?” she asked him.
He looked and then smiled: “Why, it is a travois,” he said. “But what under the sun have they got on it? They must be bringing their own grub!”
The travois dragged and bumped over the uneven plain and soon came near enough for its burden to be made out. A man and a dog were strapped to it.
At this point Blake joined Helen and Bill, and as he did so he espied the travois.
“Thunder!” he cried, running forward. “Somebody is hurt! What’s the matter, Silent?” he shouted.
“Matter?” asked Silent, in surprise as the outfit drew near. “There ain’t nothing the matter. Why?”
“What’s that travois doing with you, then?” Blake demanded.
Silent’s face was as grave as that of an owl. “Travois?” he asked. Then his face cleared: “Oh, yes–I near forgot about it,” he added, apologetically. “You see, Humble he shore wanted his dog to come to the picnic, so we reckoned we’d let it come along. Bud and Jim was for slinging it at the end of a rope and dragging it over, but I said no. We ain’t got any ropes to have all frayed out and cut a-dragging dogs to picnics, and I said so, too. So we built the travois and strapped Lightning to it. When Humble saw what we had done he acted real unpolite. He said as how he wasn’t going to have no dog of his’n toted twenty miles in a fool travois. Said that he’d make it stay home first, which was some mean after inviting the dog to come along. He said that he’d go in a travois himself first before he’d let the setter be made a fool of. Well, we simply had to subdue him, and he got so unreasonable that we just had to tie him with his dog. He shore does get awful pig-headed at times.”
“Take off the gag, Jim,” requested Silent, turning to the grinning cow-puncher. “Let him loose now, we’ve arrived.”