Lanky kept going on, as if to say:
"Shucks! who's afraid of a lonely lost buffalo? Not me!"
"I don't quite like the way old Boss acts," continued Frank. "See him shake his head and lower his ugly black horns. You've both seen a bull in the pasture do that many a time, boys, when he was getting primed for a charge."
"Yes; and I don't like the looks of it!" asserted Paul emphatically.
"Say, do you think he's got the same objection to my red handkerchief that a tame Jersey bull shows?" and Paul threw up his hand, ready to tear the offending fiery cowboy neck-piece loose, so he might cram it into his pocket.
"It might be that," Frank told him. "Then again, wasn't there something said about the herd of bison having made a meal off that terrible loco weed that grows in places and affects cows and sends 'em off like mad dogs?"
Even Lanky pulled up when Frank said that. His recent experience in the realm of adventure was too fresh for him to forget the humiliation that followed close on its heels; and prudence, as his father had counseled him, began to urge that from now on he go a bit slow.
The ponies seemed to understand intuitively that the buffalo was not the ordinary docile domestic beast, accustomed to the presence of man. They snorted worse than ever, acting as though eager to whirl about and leave that part of the valley as fast as four legs could carry them.
"Whoop! here he comes licketty-split!" yelled Lanky. "I've got a date somewhere else, believe me! I sure haven't lost any buffalo! Tra-la-la! Old Boss, here's giving you the grand bounce! It's not me you want!"
He let his frantic pony turn as on a pivot, and shoot away, with Frank a good second.