“Here, here! What’s going on?” shouted Tom, turning in his saddle.
“Stacy has come a cropper. Oh, please do it again, Stacy. It was beautiful,” urged Emma enthusiastically.
“I—I fell off,” wailed the boy, raising a very red face above the top of the rose bush. “I—I transmigrated, didn’t I, Emma?” Stacy grinned sheepishly. “I’ll trim the beast for that.”
“You will not,” laughed Hippy. “The pony was not to blame in the least.”
As a matter of fact, the pony appeared to be even more amazed at the mishap than were the Overlanders themselves. The excitement ended, and the party once more under way, Chunky began to ponder over what had occurred, and the more he pondered the more convinced did he become that someone had played a trick on him. He eyed each member of the party narrowly, finally regarding Uncle Hip with suspicion.
“I wonder if he did it?” muttered the boy.
The trail was growing more difficult and perilous with the moments, and the Riders were making not more than a mile-and-a-half an hour, and at one point it curved so sharply that the riders in the lead, in this instance Tom and Stacy, were directly above Lieutenant Wingate, traveling in the opposite direction.
“Hulloa! What’s Uncle Hip up to now?” wondered Stacy, casting suspicious glances at him. Chunky saw something glisten in the hands of Uncle Hip; then he saw him place the glistening object to his lips and blow. Miss Kitty snorted and jumped, after which she quickened her pace.
“So, that’s the game, is it?” grinned Stacy Brown. “I reckon I know now what made me come a cropper into the rose bush. Uncle Hip used a pea-shooter on my pony. Wait till I get an opportunity! I’ll make a show of him for that.”
Tom had halted at the summit, and, shading his eyes, gazed off over the scene before him.