[CHAPTER XIV.—THE ZUNI SNAKE CATCHER.]
Whatever the other boys may have thought about it, knowing that Billie could not have gone a great while without food, they understood his weakness too well to make any remark.
Fortunately they had something along with them; for as cowboys Donald and Adrian had long ago learned to always look ahead, since no one could tell when he would need food when abroad on the range. And so they quickly thrust into Billie’s eager hands quite a quantity of stuff.
He ate like a hungry wolf, while his chums sat there in their saddles, and waited patiently for him to take the first savage edge off his appetite. Billie was mumbling to himself meanwhile, just as a starving boy might when food has come into his possession. In imagination he had been pretty far gone; but it was all right now; and soon Billie was feeling himself again.
“Thought I could make way with a cartload of grub,” he said, “judging from the way my empty stomach kept griping me; but seems like I’m stalled already. P’raps it wasn’t quite so bad as
I believed; but excuse me from ever going through such a terrible experience again. Just thinking you’re starving to death is mighty near as bad as the real thing!”
“You’re right, Billie; and more than one man has just died from the effects of imagination, believe me,” said Adrian.
“But ain’t you going to tell us all that happened to you since you lost touch with us yesterday?” demanded Donald, showing how anxious he and Adrian must be to know what their lost chum had been doing all this while; and how he had been able to keep steadily on, headed into the north.
“Yes, when we found Jupiter grazing along the border of the desert this morning,” Adrian went on to say, “we thought at first you must be in camp, and we looked everywhere but couldn’t see hide nor hair of you. Then Donald here noticed that while the pony had his saddle and bridle on, you’d roped him; and from that we guessed he must have broken away when you had him staked out, for your pin was at the end of the lariat. Then we were in a stew, because we knew what it meant to be left on foot out on the desert.”
“What made the pony break away, Billie?” asked Donald, suspiciously.