CHAPTER X

"BOOTS AND SADDLES"

"Stop that noise!" shouted Tom Gray.

Emma uttered a frightened cry and springing up, started to run.

"Come back! We are all right," commanded Miss Briggs.

"Oh, what is it? Hippy, my darlin', are you all right?" wailed Nora.

"Snakes! Snakes! Oh, wow!" howled Stacy Brown.

All hands had turned out in a hurry, and Woo Smith was dancing about chattering and fondling his head at the base of his queue.

"Snakes! Where?" cried Emma.

"It crawled right over my face," declared Stacy. "I grabbed it and hurled it from me, and think I must have flung it against a tree and killed it. Uncle Hip, go see if you can find it."

"You poor fish!" chortled Hippy Wingate.

"You--you must be a good thrower, for there isn't a tree near where you slept," declared Emma.

"That's so, there isn't," admitted Chunky. "Well, anyhow, it must have been a stone that I threw the snake against."

"What you did do, young man, was to fall on me with your full weight," rebuked Hippy. "Oh, why did I ever ask you to come with us?"

"That's what I have been wondering," agreed Emma.

"Please, please quiet down, good people," begged Grace laughingly. "Suppose we find out what actually did occur. Does anyone know?"

"Yes. I know. A great big snake crawled over me," averred Stacy.

"With all due respect to you, Stacy Brown, I don't believe it," differed Elfreda.

"He ate too much and had the nightmare," suggested Miss Dean.

"It wasn't a mare. I tell you it was a snake," insisted Stacy. "I guess I know what I am talking about, and don't you try to make me believe anything different. I won't! I know what I believe, and I believe what I know, and that's the end of it."

"Well, sir, what is the matter with you?" demanded Tom, facing the excited Chinaman.

"Mr. Smith has the willyjiggs, too," answered Emma.

Woo chattered and caressed his head.

"Me savvy somebody pull queue. Me savvy head almost come off. Ouch!"

"Just a moment. Just a moment," begged Grace. "You say someone pulled your queue?"

"Les."

"This demands further investigation," spoke up Hippy. "The question now before this tribunal is, who pulled the Chinaman's queue. Emma Dean, did you pull Honorable Smith's queue?"

"I did not," retorted, Emma indignantly.

"All right, all right; don't get all heated up about it. I take it that none of the other ladies tried to scalp our guide. How about you, Stacy?"

Stacy declared that he didn't know anything about it, and cared less, and Tom Gray said the idea that he had done such a thing was preposterous.

"We will leave it to Smith," announced Hippy. "Woo, did Mr. Brown try to pull your halter off?"

"Les, les. Me savvy him pull queue. Him neally pull head off. Woof!"

"I begin to understand. Ladies and gentlemen, the mystery is solved. The Honorable Woo Smith's queue got on Stacy's face and Stacy thought it was a snake. You see how easy it is to be carried away by one's imagination. Stacy, if you raise further disturbance in this outfit I shall require you to roost by yourself. I, for one, at least, need my rest."

"If Woo will get out I'll keep quiet," answered Stacy.

"Don't wolly till to-mollow," advised the Oriental, pawing about like an animal, in search of a suitable place on which to lie down and sleep.

No further disturbance occurred that night, though Stacy refused to turn in until he had seen Woo lie down at some distance from him, and at daybreak the Overlanders were aroused by the "Hi-lee, hi-lo!" of the guide, who was out gathering wood for the breakfast fire.

"Come, folks. Wash and get busy," urged Hippy. "Who is the wrangler this morning?"

"It is Stacy's turn, I believe," replied Tom Gray.

"I don't want to wrangle. I'm too sleepy and too cold," protested the boy.

"That makes no difference. There is to be no shirking in this outfit," answered Uncle Hippy.

The wrangler is the man who goes out in the morning to round up the horses. Following the custom in the mountains, the Overlanders had turned out all but two of the ponies, permitting the stock to graze where it pleased through the night. The pack animals had been hobbled. It now became Stacy Brown's duty to find the animals, and drive the herd into camp.

"I don't hear the cow bells. The animals must have gotten away quite a distance," suggested Emma mischievously.

Stacy took all the time he could in getting ready, and, as a result, by the time he was ready to start, breakfast was nearly ready to be served.

"Don't I eat first?" he questioned anxiously.

"Certainly not. Wranglers always go out for the horses before breakfast," reminded Emma.

Chunky threw himself into the saddle and galloped away at a reckless pace, but his was a long chase, for the ponies had wandered some distance from camp. They were lying down in a glade and did not move or make a sound when the boy rode past them.

Stacy had followed their trail out, but, suddenly discovering that he had lost it, he turned about and went back to pick it up. This time he discovered the animals.

"So! There you are, eh?" he jeered, regarding the horses resentfully. "Thought you would play me a smart trick, did you? I'll be even with you for that."

After much floundering about, the white pack pony, Kitty, finally got up grunting and groaning dismally, then Stacy began removing the hobbles from their legs. Kitty gave him the most trouble, the white mare insisting on grabbing Chunky by the trousers every time he stooped to unfasten the hobbles. This continued until Stacy finally lost his patience, and, getting a switch, he gave Kitty a good sharp touching-up. Finally, having completed his task, he turned their heads towards camp and mounted his own saddle pony.

"Shoo! Go on, you lazy louts! Think I am going to eat cold grub, just out of consideration for you?"

It was shortly after that that the Overlanders in camp heard the tinkle of the bells on two of the pack animals, and when Stacy rode into camp the party was half way through breakfast. Slipping from his saddle, Stacy started at a run for breakfast, flinging a set of hobbles at the cook as he passed.

"Stacy! You are becoming a very violent young man," smiled Grace.

"Becoming?" spoke up Emma Dean. "It is my opinion that he always has been. No one could acquire his manners in so short a time."

"Association sometimes plays strange freaks with one," retorted Stacy. "Say, Uncle Hip. That white mare is a terror. She actually hid so that I should not see her; then, when I finally found her, she tried to eat me up. The brown one is the laziest thing I ever saw. We ought to call her the Idler, she's so lazy."

"Good!" cried Elfreda. "Idler she shall be, with the permission of our Captain, Grace Harlowe."

"How about the other one?" asked Stacy.

"The black?" questioned Tom.

"Yes. He is always stumbling and getting into difficulties," said Chunky.

"We will name him Calamity," said Grace.

"That is what I was going to name the Chinaman," grumbled the fat boy.

"The wrangler always attends to the packing, you know," reminded Elfreda after they had finished breakfast.

"This wrangler doesn't," answered Chunky.

"Of course, in view of the fact that this is our first morning out, and that you are still a little green--" teased Miss Briggs.

"His natural color," interjected Emma.

"I will help you," finished Hippy. "By the way, you need not throw the diamond hitch around the packs this morning. Kitty has a soft pack, and the square hitch will answer very well, provided you make it good and tight."

"Oh, I'll make it tight, all right. I'll lash it so tightly that the old horse won't be able to breathe. I owe her a grudge, anyway," declared Stacy. "Did you folks know that I learned a new hitch at Gardner?"

"Impossible!" exclaimed Emma.

"It is called 'The Lone Packer,'" continued Stacy, unheeding the interruption. "It is even harder to learn to tie than is the diamond hitch. For a load of small articles it is supposed to be the best in use. The particular feature about it is that it pulls the pack away from the animal's sides and prevents chafing."

"Here, here! That isn't the way to throw a square hitch," objected Hippy, hurrying over to Stacy who was laboring with the white mare's pack, Kitty standing with all four feet braced, groaning dismally. "What have you done to her?"

"I? Nothing. She thinks she's smart."

Hippy regarded the pack animal keenly, then, stepping up, he placed his hat on top of her pack. The mare flinched and groaned. It was a test that Hippy had seen practiced on lazy horses in France during the war.

"So that's it, eh?" he chuckled. "She is soldiering, but never mind. We will take all that out of her."

"That is what I told Kitty this morning. I promised her that she should get all that was coming to her. Stand up, you lazy-bones!" commanded Stacy sharply, at the same time giving the mare a slap on the stomach. Kitty instantly retaliated by taking a chunk out of the boy's sleeve, and a wee bit of skin with it.

Stacy howled and jerked away. His face flushed, and he raised a hand to strike back.

"Don't do that!" rebuked Grace. "Never, never strike a horse on the head! It is a sure way to spoil an animal. And never punish a horse when you are in anger. Should an animal need punishing, punish him humanely, but trim him so thoroughly that you never may be called upon to repeat the performance."

"But, she bit me," protested Stacy.

"Forget it!" laughed Grace.

"I should say that the poor beast is already sufficiently punished after biting Stacy Brown," observed Emma meekly.

"Be firm, but gentle," continued Grace. "Kitty is in just the right mood to be spoiled by rough treatment."

Stacy was not over-gentle. He jerked the white mare about, shook his fist in her face and announced in a loud tone what he would do to her did she ever again try to make a meal out of his arm.

In the meantime Hippy, with an interested group of Overland girls observing, was putting the final touches to the packing, making the lead-ropes fast, using a knot that he had learned, by which, in case of trouble, one can reach from his saddle and jerk the pack free by a single pull on a loose end of a rope.

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.