“Les, les. Me savvy him pull queue. Him neally pull head off. Woof!”
“I begin to understand. Ladies and gentlemen, the mystery is solved. The Honorable Woo Smith’s queue got on Stacy’s face and Stacy thought it was a snake. You see how easy it is to be carried away by one’s imagination. Stacy, if you raise further disturbance in this outfit I shall require you to roost by yourself. I, for one, at least, need my rest.”
“If Woo will get out I’ll keep quiet,” answered Stacy.
“Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” advised the Oriental, pawing about like an animal, in search of a suitable place on which to lie down and sleep.
No further disturbance occurred that night, though Stacy refused to turn in until he had seen Woo lie down at some distance from him, and at daybreak the Overlanders were aroused by the “Hi-lee, hi-lo!” of the guide, who was out gathering wood for the breakfast fire.
“Come, folks. Wash and get busy,” urged Hippy. “Who is the wrangler this morning?”
“It is Stacy’s turn, I believe,” replied Tom Gray.
“I don’t want to wrangle. I’m too sleepy and too cold,” protested the boy.
“That makes no difference. There is to be no shirking in this outfit,” answered Uncle Hippy.
The wrangler is the man who goes out in the morning to round up the horses. Following the custom in the mountains, the Overlanders had turned out all but two of the ponies, permitting the stock to graze where it pleased through the night. The pack animals had been hobbled. It now became Stacy Brown’s duty to find the animals, and drive the herd into camp.