All was now ready for the start. Woo Smith, with a final look backward, started ahead singing blithely. Hippy whistled “Boots and Saddles.” The Overland ponies knew the signal, but of course the pack-horses did not, though they soon would learn that it was the command to get under way. When a short distance from camp, the pack animals straggled off and sought their own trails near the one that was followed by the riders, Hippy now and then shouting to Woo to keep them up, for the Idler was lagging behind, though she had started out in the lead of the pack-horses. Woo Smith’s “Hi-lee, hi-lo!” sung in the Oriental’s shrill, knife-edge voice kept time for the plodding ponies, that were now climbing up a steep grade. The Overland party were well started on their way to the high places of this wild, rugged country, where genuine adventure awaited them.
CHAPTER XI
PONIES GET A BAD FRIGHT
Up and up traveled the Overland party, the ponies here and there being obliged to zigzag back and forth, picking their way like mountain goats.
The members of the party were keenly interested in watching the pack-horses to see how they acted under these trying circumstances, and, to their satisfaction, found that the animals were thoroughly familiar with their work. The saddle horses of the Overlanders, they had seen in action before, and knew what they could do. Now and then the white mare would poise with all four feet bunched as if she were about to make a leap into space, then slowly one foot would reach out for a footing. Having found it, the other fore foot would follow, then the hind feet, Kitty all the time groaning dismally and wheezing like a leaky valve on a locomotive.
Ordinarily, horses on a trail make an effort to keep within sight of each other, but in this instance Idler, the brown mare, did not appear to care whether she were within or out of sight of her companions. Hippy, when they made the noon luncheon camp, searched his kit for an article that he had brought along, thinking it might prove useful. He did not let the others see what it was, but secreted it on his person. This article was a pea-shooter, and he had the peas to use in it, too.
When the party moved on after luncheon, Hippy dropped behind to better observe the pack-horses. Idler loafed, as usual. Hippy tried the pea-shooter on her, and the brown mare jumped at a critical point. All four feet went out from under her, and she landed on her back, greatly to the detriment of her pack, and, had it not been that the pack was very strong, the outfit she carried would have been ruined.
“Oh, the clumsy beast!” groaned Grace Harlowe.
“What ails the silly creature?” cried Emma.
“She has thrown a fit,” Stacy informed her.
Hippy, whose scheme had exceeded his expectations, sprang from his saddle and ran to the fallen horse, which, by this time, had rolled over on her side. One foot further and Idler would have slipped down along the rocks a hundred feet or more.