"Sounds shivery."
"I don't know why it should. It is night, that is the only difference. I am getting used to being out in the night and not knowing where I am," laughed Tad.
Tucking the lunches that had been wrapped for them into their pockets, the two boys walked over to the place where their ponies were tethered. The animals had been left bridled and saddled, the saddle girths having been loosened. These the boys tightened and prepared to mount when Tad happened to think of something.
"Hold my pony, Ned. I want to get something from the tent."
Tad returned a moment later with his lariat, which he coiled carefully and hung to the saddle horn, Ned Rector observing him with an amused smile.
"If you can't shoot them you're going to rope them, eh?"
"A rope is always a good thing to have with you. You don't think so, but it is. Never know what minute you are going to need it badly."
"It wouldn't do me any good, no matter how much I needed it," smiled
Ned. "I couldn't lasso the side of a barn."
"You do very well. If you will practise every day you will be able to handle it as well as the average cowboy in less than a week. Come along."
As they left the camp, Luke Larue met them to conduct the boys to the places where they were to spend the last half of the night.