"You better ask the Rangers. They'll tell you about that," answered the fat boy with a grin. "There's the sack in which I fetched the animals back to camp."
"What, did you catch any?" demanded the professor.
"Oh, I got some game, all right. I'm the champion hunter, I am. Say, I wish I could cook like you," said Chunky gazing admiringly at Tad, who was confidently making some biscuit for breakfast. "I never could cook unless I had everything all down in writing before me. How do you do it?"
"Oh, he cooks by ear," scoffed Ned. "That's why there's so many discords in our digestive apparatus."
The Pony Rider Boys groaned dismally.
CHAPTER XIII
AN INQUISITIVE VISITOR
Breakfast the plans for the day were discussed. The professor was for remaining in camp, hoping that the Rangers might return later in the day. Tad did not believe this would be the case. He reasoned that the men had been summoned some time during the night to go on a hike, and that they might not return at all; therefore the Pony Rider Boys would be losing time, whereas they might be exploring the Guadalupe range, which stretched away for a hundred miles.
"Still, I can't understand this mysterious departure of our friends, the Rangers," persisted Professor Zepplin.
"Perhaps it was the bugs," suggested Stacy wisely.