Every member of the outfit had sprung to his feet.
"Sounds like a stampede," flung back the foreman, making a flying leap for his pony.
The other cowboys were up like a flash and into their saddles, uttering sharp "ki-yis" and driving in the spurs while they laid their quirts mercilessly over the rumps of the ponies.
Tad Butler, Ned Rector and Walter Perkins were not far behind the cowmen in reaching their own ponies and leaping into their saddles.
Not so with Chunky. He only paused in his eating long enough to look his surprise and to direct an inquiring look at the Chinaman, while the others went dashing across the plain toward the herd.
"Allee same likee this," announced Pong, making a succession of violent gestures that Stacy did not understand.
But the boy nodded his head wisely and went on with his eating.
Out where the grazing herd had been peacefully eating its noonday meal all was now excitement and action.
Revolvers were popping, cowboys were yelling and the herd was surging back and forth, bellowing and dashing in and out, a shifting, confused mass of color and noise.
The boys did not know what to make of it.