"Why can't we get lost?" snapped Ned turning on the fat boy.
"Because we don't know where we are anyway."
"Horse sense," laughed Tad.
"Fat-boy drivel," jeered Ned.
"Come, come, young men. You are not making much headway."
Stacy dragged his pack by the rope, over to his pony, instead of carrying the bundle as he should have done, Professor Zepplin observing the boy with disapproving gaze.
"Is that the way you have been taught to pack your pony, sir?"
"No. I've never been taught. What I know I've had to pick up. Nobody ever tries to teach me anything."
Scolding, joking, having all manner of sport with one another, the Pony Rider Boys finally completed their tasks. The ponies were loaded, the pack pony was piled high so that its head and legs were about the only parts of its anatomy visible, and the boys climbed into their saddles, Tad first having given the trail map a brief scrutiny.
They started off up the canyon. For a little way the trail appeared to be no trail at all. The ponies threshed through the bushes, the sharp limbs smiting the riders in the faces, making disagreeable traveling. But the young men were used to this sort of thing. They did not appear to mind it at all.