Tad was unharmed, save for the unmerciful treatment he had received during his record-breaking journey. Yet, he proposed to take no further chances of losing his horse, if he had the good fortune to find the animal still alive. Tad came up like a rubber ball. With a quick leap, he threw himself fairly on the pony's side. The impact made the little horse grunt, his feet beating a tattoo in the air in his desperate struggles to free himself.
"Whoa!" commanded Tad sharply, sliding forward and sitting on the animal's head, which position he calmly maintained, until the pony, realizing the uselessness of further opposition, lay back conquered.
Yet the boy did not rise immediately. Instead, he patted the pony's neck gently, speaking soothing words and calming it until the animal's quivering muscles relaxed and it lay breathing naturally.
"Good boy, Jimmie," he said, recognizing the pony as Ned's. "Now, after you have rested a bit we'll see what we can do about getting back to camp. If I'm any judge, you and I are not going to have a very easy time of it on the back track, either, Jimmie."
Without a compass, with only a hazy idea of the direction in which they had been traveling, Tad's task indeed was a difficult one.
"I think we'll walk a bit, Jimmie," he confided to the pony, and, taking the little animal by the bridle, began leading it cautiously up the slope, which he ascended by a roundabout course, remembering the jump they had taken on the way down. Tad was not likely to forget that.
The boy's eyes were heavy for want of sleep and his wounds pained him beyoud words. After somewhat more than an hour's journey he pulled up, looking about him.
"I am afraid we two pards are lost, Jimmie."
The pony rubbed its nose against him as if in confirmation of the lad's words.
"And the further we go, the more we shall be lost. Jimmie, the best thing for you and me to do will be to go to bed. Lie down, Jimmie, that's a good boy."