Presently she heard answering shots from the direction of the camp, and in a few minutes several horsemen came tearing over the top of a distant hill, to disappear into a valley and come into sight again on a nearer hill. Soon, with a shout that fairly split the air, six of the boys, led by Ben and Kit, threw themselves from their saddles in front of her.
"What's the matter?" they yelled in unison.
"Throw that steer off Ted," she commanded.
Then they saw what the matter was, and altogether they hoisted the steer, and Ted was freed of the terrible weight.
He was scarcely breathing, for the wind had been completely knocked out of him. Ben laid him flat on his back, and, straddling him, with his knees on the ground, began to work Ted's arms with an upward, backward, and outward motion, as if he was restoring the breath to a half-drowned person. Soon a flush came into Ted's face, and he gave a gasp, and his breath came in short, painful inhalations. As Ben continued the exercise, his breathing became regular, and he opened his eyes with surprise, to see so many of his friends about him, and particularly big Ben straddling him and apparently holding him down. He thought at first that Ben was responsible for his prostrate condition, or that he had struck him.
"What are you doing?" Ted said angrily. "Let me up, dog-gone you."
But when he saw the dead steer on the ground beside him he remembered what had happened, and sat up and laughed with the others.
It did not take him long to recover after this.
"I'm going to try to find out what caused this beast to go mad," said Ted. "There's certainly something wrong about it."
"How are you going to find that out?" asked Ben.