The lad was pale and shivering. They laid him down on the bank. But Tad quickly pulled himself to his feet.
"I must look after Pong," he said.
"You let the heathen alone," growled Big-foot Sanders. "Us tenderfeet'll look after him. That's what we are, a bunch of rank tenderfeet. You're the only seasoned, all around, dyed-in-the-wool, genuwine cowpuncher in the whole outfit. That's the truth."
Tad smiled as he hurried to where the foreman was working over the unconscious cook.
"Is he dead?" asked the lad, apprehensively.
"Dead? Huh!" grunted Curley Adams. "Heathen Chinese don't die as easy as that."
After a few minutes the cook went off into a paroxysm of choking and coughing. Then he opened his eyes.
Chunky Brown was standing near, blinking down wisely into the yellow face of Pong.
"You fell in, didn't you?" he asked solemnly.
"Allee samee," grinned the yellow man, weakly.