By this time the goat was mad all through. He seemed bent now upon doing all the damage he could.
"Stop that! Want to run me down!" shouted Ned, grabbing a tree as the outfit swept by him, the goat uttering a sharp bleat and Chunky a howl of protest.
All at once Billy headed for the kitchen department. Old Hicks saw him coming and with a few quick hops got out of the way.
"Hi there, hang you, where you heading?" he roared.
The tinware had been stacked up on a bench to dry out in the sunlight. Perhaps it was the rays of the sun on the bright tin that attracted Billy"s attention. At any rate he went through it with a bound, amid the crash of rattling tin and splintering wood.
Old Hicks made a swing at the animal with the long stick he had been using to prod the kettle of mutton. He missed and sat down suddenly, his lame leg refusing to bear the strain that had been put upon it.
It was astonishing the endurance the goat showed, for Chunky was no light weight in any sense of the word. Now and then he would just graze the trunk of a tree, bringing a howl from his rider as the latter"s leg was sc.r.a.ped its full length against the bark of the tree.
By this time nearly everyone in camp had laughingly sought places of safety, some in the chuck wagon, others climbing saplings as best they could, for no man knew in what direction Billy might head next.
Old Hicks refused to take the protection that the wagon offered. He stood his ground, stick held firmly in both hands, awaiting a chance to rap the boy or the goat when they next pa.s.sed.
His opportunity came soon. He had been baking pies for the sheepmen"s supper and these he had placed on the tail board of the wagon, which he had removed and laid upon a frame made of sticks stuck into the ground.
Billy finished the pies in one grand charge.
The enraged cook forgot his own danger and boldly striding out into the open began throwing things at the mad goat. It mattered not what he threw. Anything he laid his hands on answered for the purpose--dishpans, small kettles, knives, loaves of bread--all went the same way, some of them reaching Chunky and bringing a howl from him. The goat, however, escaped without being hit once.
Twice more after wrecking the pies, did he charge the kitchen. It was noticed, however, that he avoided the hot stove. Hicks gladly would have lost that for the sake of seeing the goat smash against it and end his career.
After one drive more ferocious than any he had made before, Billy whirled and came back. Old Hicks stood with his back to the kettle, stick held aloft. He was going to get the goat this time, for he saw the animal would pa.s.s close to him if he held his present course.
Billy did so until within a few feet of the cook. Then he changed his direction. He changed it more suddenly than the cook had looked for.
Billy"s head hit Old Hicks a powerful blow. The cook doubled up with a grunt. When he came down he landed fairly in the kettle of hot mutton. Cook and kettle toppled over, the former yelling for help and struggling desperately to extricate himself.
Chunky too had fared badly in the final charge. The shock had thrown him sideways and he crumpled up not far from the kettle and its human occupant.
They fished Old Hicks from the wreck, fuming and raging and threatening to kill the goat and to chase the "heathen kid" out of the camp.
Chunky was limp and breathless when they picked him up. They dragged the lad away from the vicinity of the cook as quickly as possible. Old Hicks" rage at that moment was a thing to avoid. The goat, Billy, galloped away, the least disturbed of the outfit, but it was observed that he prudently remained out on the range with the sheep that night.
"I didn"t fall in that time, did I?" gasped Chunky, after his breath had come back sufficiently to enable him to talk.
"No, but you"re going to do so when the cook gets hold of you,"
warned Ned.
"Hicks? Old Hicks fell into the mutton broth, didn"t he?" chuckled the fat boy.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE VIGIL BY THE FOOTHILLS
Supper was late in the sheep camp that evening. Old Hicks was in a terrible rage and no one dared protest at the delay, for fear he would get no supper at all. The boys were still discussing Stacy Brown"s feat, and every time the subject was referred to all during the evening, it was sure to elicit a roar of laughter.
As night came on, the sky was gradually blotted out by a thin veil of clouds, which seemed to grow more dense as the evening wore on. Chunky had been sent out with Mary Johnson on guard duty, Walter having gone out with the foreman. That left Tad Butler and Ned Rector of the Pony Rider Boys, to take their turn on the late trick.
Tad preferred to sit up rather than to try to sleep for the short time that would intervene before it came his turn to go out.
"Do you think we shall have any trouble tonight?" he asked, looking up as Mr. Simms pa.s.sed his tent.
"You know as much about that as I do, my boy. Perhaps your courage over at the Corners may scare them off, eh? They may think, if we are all such fighters over here, that it will be a good place to keep away from."
Tad laughed good-naturedly.
"Guess I didn"t give them any such fright as that. How is Philip this evening?"
"Sound asleep. It"s doing the boy good. He hasn"t slept like this since his illness last spring."
"I wish he might go on with us and spend the summer out of doors."
"H-m-m-m," mused Mr. Simms. "I am afraid he would be too great a care. No, Tad, the boy is a little too young. Where are you going next?"
"I am not sure."
"Well, let me know when you find out and we will talk it over. Fine night for a raid of any kind, isn"t it?"
"Yes, sir," answered Tad, glancing up at the black clouds.
"Good luck to you to-night. You and your partner must take care of yourselves. Do not take any unnecessary risk. You will have done your part in using your keen young eyes to see that no one gets near the camp."
"I should feel better if I had a gun," laughed the boy.
"Somehow--but no, I guess it is not best."
"Certainly not."
Tad turned up the lantern in his tent and sat down to his book, which he had been reading most of the evening. He was not interrupted again until the camp watchmen came around to turn out the second guard.
Ned was asleep and he tumbled out rubbing his eyes, not sure just what was wanted of him.
"Wake up," laughed Tad. "You are getting to be a regular sleepy head."
"Guess I am. Is--is it time to go out?"
"It is. And it is a dark night, too."
"Whew! I should say it is," replied Ned, with an apprehensive glance out beyond the camp. "How are we ever going to find our way about to-night?"
"I don"t imagine we shall be moving about much after we get on our station. Mr. Larue will place us there."