Stacy, grasping desperately as he went down, had caught the tail of a swimming steer. He had been quickly drawn to the surface, and out through an opening between the treading animals, appeared the fat boy's head.
Chunky was not swimming. He was allowing the steer to do that for him, clinging to its tail with all his strength. The lad's eyes were blinded for the moment by the water that was in them. He did not release his hold of the tail when they had reached the shore, but hung on desperately while the steer, dragging him along through the mire, scrambled up the bank.
There was no telling how long Stacy might have hung to the animal's tail, had not Stallings grabbed him by the collar as he rose over the crest of the bank. Stallings shook him until the water-soaked clothes sent out a miniature rain storm and the boy had coughed himself back to his normal condition.
"Well, you are a nice sort of cowboy," laughed the foreman. "When you are unable to do anything else to interest your friends, you try to drown yourself. Go, shake yourself!"
Stacy rubbed the water from his eyes.
"I—I fell in, didn't I?" he grinned.
After having ferried the trail wagon over, everybody was ready for supper. No one seemed to mind the wetting he had gotten. Professor Zepplin made a joke of his own bedraggled condition, and the boys gave slight heed to theirs.
The cattle were quickly bedded down and guards placed around them almost immediately, for the clouds were threatening. Stallings' watchful eyes told him that a bad night was before them. How bad, perhaps he did not even dream.
Supper was ready a short time after the arrival of the wagon, and, laughing and joking, the boys gathered about the spread with a keen zest for the good things that had been placed before them.
"Do you boys feel like going out on guard to-night?" asked the foreman while they were eating.