The Pony Rider Boys in Texas; Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains

by Frank Gee Patchin

The Professor motioned to Tad to go on, which the lad did, petting his pony as he reached him, and then pulling himself into the saddle with considerable effort.

"I'm ready for business now," he smiled, waving a hand to the foreman.

"Better look on and let the rest do the work," advised Stallings, mounting his own tough pony and riding into the thick of the cutting out process.

But Tad Butler could no more sit idly by while the exciting work was going on than could the foreman himself. The first steer that was cut out from the main herd, after Stallings went back, found Tad Butler alongside of it, crowding it toward his own herd farther out. And this work he kept up until all the strangers had been separated from the Diamond D stock.

"There, I'm glad that job is done," exclaimed Stallings, whipping off his hat and drawing a sleeve across his perspiring brow.

"Too bad I had to go and upset things so," said Tad.

"Never mind. It's all in a day's work. On a cattle drive if it isn't one thing it's sure to be another. We have been lucky enough not to have a stampede thus far. That isn't saying we won't, however. If you feel like working you can ride up and join the point men. We'll make five or six miles before it is time to bed down the herd."

To Tad's companions was left the task of driving the strange cattle a couple of miles to the west and leaving them there.

The boys could not well lose the main herd; for, no sooner had they started on the trail than a great cloud of dust slowly floated up into the air. Tad, in his position near the head of the line, and well out to one side of it, was free from this annoyance. The longer the lad was in the saddle, the stronger he seemed to feel, and the only trace that was now left of his recent experience among the hoofs of the Mexican steers was a bump on one side of his head almost as large as a hen's egg.

It was near sundown when the foreman, who had ridden on ahead some time before, came back with the information that a broad stream that was not down on his map lay just ahead of them.