"Ain't dancing? We'll see about that. Come off that nag."
Tad shook his head. At that instant a rope squirmed through the air from a moving pony. Butler threw himself to one side just in time to avoid it. The lad's eyes snapped.
"Guess I'll take a hand in this, too," he growled.
The lad unlimbered his rope in a twinkling and let fly at the cowboy who had just sought to rope him. With unerring aim Tad's lariat caught the left hind foot of the cowman's broncho. Pony and rider went down like a flash.
Instantly there was a loud uproar. The horse-hunters yelled with delight; at least all of them save the cowboy who had bit the dust, and he sprang up, bellowing with rage, as he made for the grinning Tad.
Tom Parry decided that it was time for him to take a hand.
The guide jumped his pony between Tad and the angry cowboy.
"That'll do, Bud! You stop right where you are!" Tom commanded.
"But the miserable coyote roped me."
"You tried to rope him first."