"Now see if you can keep out of trouble," directed Tad.
"Give the baby his little horn to blow," jeered Rector.
"'Wind,' you mean," corrected Stacy. "They wind down here; they don't blow."
"Well, 'wind,' then, if you like that better," grumbled Ned.
"I do because that is the right way to say it. Your early education was sadly neglected. Did they take you out of school to dig early potatoes before the spring terms closed?" questioned Stacy innocently.
"Are you trying to roil me, Stacy Brown? If you are you might as well save your breath. I am too tickled at your predicament to get angry with you," averred Rector.
Lilly gave the word to move, whereupon the party fell into line again with the same formation as before, Stacy stubbornly insisting on keeping at the rear, the boys flinging back jokes at him. In this manner they went on for some distance, at first slowly, then gradually increasing their speed. Now and then the boys would glance back to grin at the fat boy, who was having considerable difficulty in keeping up. They noticed that he was not sitting with his full weight in the saddle. Instead, he was half standing in his stirrups because it pained him to sit down and take the jolting of the trotting horse.
"Look out for the vines. Keep in the trail," called the guide.
The boys, for the moment, forgot their companion at the rear of the line. They swung around in a curving trail, Lilly slashing and shouting directions at them, Stacy standing a little higher in his stirrups to see what all the shouting was about. Then, all of a sudden, the fat boy was swept from his saddle, kicking, yelling, while the horse lurched forward and started into a long, loping gallop now that it was freed from its burden.
"Hi, look there!" yelled Ned Rector, as Stacy's riderless horse came trotting up to them.