"Breakfast. He"s just found out it"s breakfast time," jeered Ned.
"Can"t have no breakfast," growled Old Hicks. "Breakfast is et."
"Excepting what"s on the ground," added Mary Johnson. "What"s he yelling about?"
"Something"s gone twisted," decided Champ Blake. "Think so, Noisy?"
"Uh-hu," agreed the silent one. All eyes were fixed on Chunky. He was gesticulating wildly and pointing back to the hills from which he had just come.
"I believe they are after us, and in broad daylight, too," snapped Mr. Simms. "Get your ponies. Be quick! Ride fast. Don"t let them get near the sheep."
Thus admonished, the sheepmen sprang for their saddles. The boys followed suit at once, leaving only the Professor and Old Hicks to look after the camp.
A bunch of sheep had trotted to a water hole hard by the camp, a faithful shepherd dog following along after them to see that they returned to the main flock as soon as they should have satisfied their thirst. The sheep were now between Chunky and the camp. So intent was he on attracting the attention of the men that he failed to observe the small flock in his path.
Neither did the sheepmen notice it. If Old Hicks did, he did not care what happened either to the sheep or to the boy to whom he had taken such a violent dislike.
"Wow! Wow! Wow!" screamed the boy in a shrill, high-pitched voice.
"What"s the matter?"
"Where are they?"
"How many of "em?"
These and other questions were hurled at Chunky as he dashed straight toward the camp.
He pointed back to the foothills.
"They"re there, he says," shouted the foreman. "Come on. Spread out so as to cover the herd. Don"t you let a man get through our lines."
Their ponies were stretched out with noses reaching for some unseen object, as it seemed. They swept past the lad within hailing distance, riding hard, while he continued to reach for home.
Stacy had turned to look back at the racing sheepmen, when his pony drove biting and striking right into the flock crowded about the water hole, for the ponies liked the sheep no more than did the cook.
The broncho went down like a flash, hopelessly entangled with the bleating, frightened animals. But Stacy did not stop. That is, he did not do so at once. The lad had shot neatly over the broncho"s head, describing a nice curve in the air as he soared.
Pock!
His head landed with a m.u.f.fled sound.
"Ouch! Help!"
A loud, angry bleat followed his exclamation. The lad"s head had been driven with great violence against the soft, unresisting side of a Merino ram.
The Merino went down under the blow. But his soft fleece had saved the boy from serious injury, if not from a broken neck.
"I fell off," cried Stacy, struggling to his feet, running his fingers over his body, as if to determine whether or not he had been hurt. "I--I didn"t see them. Th--they got in my way."
Whether he had or not was not now the question, at least so far as the Merino was concerned.
The ram was angry. He resented being bunted over in any such manner.
The animal, scrambling to his feet, uttered a bleat, at the same time viciously throwing up his head, landing lightly, for him, on Chunky"s leg.
"Stop kicking me! I say you stop that you----"
He did not finish what he had started to say. The Merino, finding the mark a satisfactory one, had backed quickly off. With head well down, eyes on the boy who had been the cause of his downfall, he charged with a rush.
Just at the instant when he delivered the blow, the tough, horned head was raised ever so little.
"Ye-o-ow!" shrieked the boy as he felt himself suddenly lifted from his feet and once more propelled through the air head first. It seemed in that brief interval of sailing through s.p.a.ce as if every particular bone in his body had been jarred loose from its fastenings. Chunky felt as if he were all falling apart while making his brief second flight.
He was headed straight for the muddy water hole, and the ram was charging him a second time. The lad did not know this, however.
Just at the edge of the water hole the Merino caught him again, neatly flipping him in the air and landing the boy on his back, with a mighty splash, right in the middle of the pool.
Yet the force of the ram"s charge had been so great that he was unable to stop when he discovered the water at his feet. In endeavoring to do so, his strong little feet ploughed into the soft turf. The Merino did a pretty half somersault and he too landed in the mud pool on his back.
Unfortunately, he struck in the identical spot that Chunky had, and for a moment there was such a threshing about, such a commotion there as two monsters of the deep might have made in a battle to the death.
Old Hicks was hammering a dishpan on a wheel of the chuck wagon, regardless of the damage he was inflicting on the pan, and screaming with delight.
Professor Zepplin as soon as he could recover his wits, rushed to the rescue and from the flying legs and horns managed to extract Stacy Brown and drag him up to the dry ground.
The lad was a spectacle. Mud was plastered over him from head to foot, while the muddy water was dripping from hair, mouth, ears, eyes and nose.
"I--I fell in, didn"t I?" he gasped. "Wh--who kicked me?"
"Who kicked him?" jeered Old Hicks. "Oh, help, help!" he cried, rolling with laughter.
Stacy began to sputter in an uncertain voice.
Professor Zepplin shook him roundly.
"Why didn"t you get out of it? The water wasn"t over my head, you Chunk," roared Old Hicks.
Chunky eyed him sadly.
"It was the way I went in," he said, breathing hard as he wrung the water from his trousers by twisting them in his hand.
At that the irrepressible Hicks went off into another paroxysm of mirth.
CHAPTER XV
ROPED BY A COWBOY