Chet almost fell out of his saddle from laughing at the performance; and Poke looked as disgusted as a mustang can look. That calf plunging along the trail just ahead of Poke’s nose disgruntled the spirited horse.
Chet led the march, the maverick came next, and Dig brought up an active rear. “What won’t be led must be driven,” quoth Dig, now quite himself again. “All aboard for Grub Stake again, Chet, my boy.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed his chum, rather exasperated. “When do you think we’ll ever get there at this rate?”
They made fair time, however, considering the obstacles during a part of the afternoon. Chet galloped away off the trail at sight of a small herd of deer, and managed to get near enough to shoot a young doe. He cut its throat, and let it bleed well, and then flung it over the saddle and cantered back to the trail.
Dig was rather disappointed because he had not had any of the fun of stalking the deer. Chet pointed out the fact that Dig had the maverick, saying:
“There is compensation in everything, my boy. You have that pet to play with; I don’t own any maverick. You don’t hear me kicking—”
“Oh, go on!” growled Dig.
There was one good thing about Digby Fordham: he never really held rancour; and he could take a joke as well as give one. Of course he knew that he had caught a Tartar in the yearling; but he would not give him up.
Before the afternoon was gone Stone Fence had learned that it was better to walk more or less sedately along the trail than to be poked with a sharp pole. Their pace was not rapid; but they got through the pass between the hills after a time.
It was just before they left the pass and as the wider plain beyond broke upon their view that Dig spied a grey animal sitting on a rock ahead of them, and some distance off the trail.