"Is breakfast ready?" asked the boy, tightening his belt and jamming his sombrero down over his head.
"Breakfast?" jeered Lumpy. "You're lucky to be alive in this outfit, let alone filling yourself with grub. Get out!"
Stacy ruefully, and still half asleep, made a wide circle around the sleeping cowmen that he might not make the mistake of again stepping on any of them.
Lumpy watched him with disapproving eyes.
The lad caught the pony that stood moping in the corral, not appearing to be aware that his rider was preparing him for the range, Chunky all the time muttering to himself.
Leading the pony out, the boy gathered up the reins on the right side of the animal and prepared to mount.
Lumpy Bates came running toward him, not daring to call out for fear of waking the camp. The cowman was swinging his arms and seeking to attract the lad's attention. Chunky, however, was too sleepy to see anything so small as a cowman swinging his arms a rod away.
Placing his right foot in the stirrup, the boy prepared to swing up into the saddle.
"Hi, there!" hissed Lumpy, filled with indignation that anyone should attempt to mount a pony from the right side.
His warning came too late. Stacy Brown's left leg swung over the saddle. No sooner had the pony felt the leather over him than he raised his back straight up, his head going down almost to the ground.