Now Dig kneeled down at the edge of the stream above where the horses were drinking. Stone Fence had dropped down on the grass, chewing a cud, but evidently tired. The run had been a hard one for him.
Poke lifted his head, “blew” softly, and felt the tug of the leash at his saddle. The black’s wicked ears shot backward and he turned his head to mark the place where Stone Fence contentedly chewed his cud.
“Look out, Dig!” cried Chet, who was just raising himself into his own saddle.
But his chum’s head was down for another drink. He did not hear.
The maverick scrambled up with a snort of fright as the black horse whirled upon him. Dig tried to get up just as quickly; but when he put his weight upon a turf at the brink of the stream, the sod broke away and down he plunged, with his right arm into the water to his arm-pit.
“Oh—ouch!” gurgled Dig. “What’s the matter now?”
“Trouble!” called Chet.
But, as Dig claimed afterward, that was no fit warning. He didn’t know whether he was being attacked from behind, before, on either flank, from the sky above, or whether trouble was rising out of the ground.
And it seemed as though it had come from all points when it reached him. Dig was trying to rise when the calf, escaping Poke’s vicious hoofs, collided with his young master. Ker-splash! they were both in the stream!
The calf was scared fully as much as Dig, if not more. Both bawled and splashed about, unable to obtain their footing at first, and had Chet not dismounted and run to the assistance of the pair, one or the other might have remained under water longer than would have been good for him.