"For a boy with a black eye, he is particularly cheerful, I should say," laughed Parry. "What's he going to do now!"
"Pick up his sombrero while at a gallop, I guess," replied Tad, shading his eyes and gazing off across the plain. "Yes, there he goes at it."
Stacy, with a graceful dip from his saddle, swooped down on the sombrero, scooping it up with a yell of triumph, then dashing madly across the desert to the westward.
All at once they saw his pony stumble.
"There he goes!" warned the guide. "He will break his neck!"
Down plunged the broncho, his nose scraping the ground, his hind feet beating the air wildly.
Stacy kept right on.
"The pony struck a thin crust on the alkali," explained the guide.
Almost before the words were out of his mouth Stacy Brown hit the desert broadside on. Then, to the amazed watchers, he seemed to disappear before their very eyes.
"He's gone! What does it mean?" cried the boys.