“Didn’t I tell ye it weren’t nateral ter fly? Didn’t I say ’tweren’t never intended?”
Straight-backed Pete Sanderson, standing with his hand on the bridle of his broncho, glared severely at the group of boys. Little Willie Sloan sat on the turf, while Cranny had taken a place close beside him.
“’Tweren’t never intended,” repeated Sanderson, in decided tones; “an’ I reckon ye’ll believe me now. It’s a positive wonder none o’ you younkers didn’t git killed in that stampede. Sure ye ain’t hurt none?”
“I was pretty near jolted into a jelly,” grumbled Willie, who, after a half hour’s rest, was beginning to recover his composure. “An’ say—perhaps I didn’t have a hard time holding on to that old codger’s tusks!”
“You did wonders,” said Cranny, heartily. “Bet you were scared stiff, eh?”
“Who wouldn’t have been? Whew! It was simply awful. Seemed as if there was about a million of the brutes behind me. Guess Somers has gone back to the farmhouse in his old bird-plane. I thought the thing was going to get smashed to bits.”
“Bob hovered overhead until he saw we were all safe,” said Dick. “Wasn’t it bully, the way he helped mill the longhorns? What made him come down in such an all-fired rush, Willie?”
“Somers couldn’t fly a kite,” growled Mr. Beaumont’s ward, non-committally. “It was all Mr. Clifton’s fault. Goodness gracious—it’s gone!”
“Gone?—What’s gone?” demanded Cranny.
“Oh, if that isn’t the awfulest—meanest luck!” Willie clapped his hand frantically to each of his pockets in turn, then jumped to his feet and looked hastily on the ground. “Sure as you look like a simpering idiot, Cran Beaumont, it’s gone!”