Part 3 (1/2)

”Here, here!” admonished the Professor. ”Stop this nonsense. I want to go to sleep. I don't mind you young gentlemen enjoying yourselves, but midnight is rather late for such pranks, it strikes me. Into your blankets, every one of you.”

It was doubtful that the boys even heard his voice. If they did, they failed entirely to catch the meaning of his words, so absorbed were they in the mad scramble of Ned Rector and Stacy Brown.

”Roll, Chunky, roll!” urged Walter, jumping up and down in his bare feet.

”Good thing he's fat. If he weren't so round he could never do it,”

mocked Tad. ”I'll bet he was a fast creeper when he was a baby.”

The ponies, disturbed by the noise and excitement, had scrambled to their feet and were moving about restlessly in the bushes where they were tethered.

”Master Stacy, you will get up at once!” commanded the Professor sternly.

”I can't,” wailed the fat boy.

”Then I'll help you,” decided the Professor firmly, striding toward the spot where he had last heard the lad's voice.

”Look out for the river!” warned Tad, as the thought of what was below the boy suddenly occurred to him.

”Help, help! I'm rolling in,” cried Stacy.

”There he goes, down the bank! Grab him!” shouted Walter.

”Where?” demanded Ned, not fully grasping the import of the warning.

”There, there! Don't you see him? Right in front of you. He's going to fall into the river!”

Stacy had forgotten that they were encamped on the east sh.o.r.e of the fork and that the broad stream was flowing rapidly along just below him. The banks at that point were high and precipitous, the water almost icy cold, being fresh from the clear mountain streams a few miles above. In spots it was deep and treacherous.

Frantically grasping at weeds and slender sprouts, as he rolled down the almost perpendicular bluff, Stacy yelled l.u.s.tily for help. From the soft, sandy soil the weeds came away in his hands, without in the slightest degree checking his progress.

Tad realized the danger perhaps more fully than did the others. In the darkness the lad might slip into one of the treacherous river pockets and drown before they could reach him.

Grasping his rope which lay beside his cot. Tad sprang to the top of the bluff, swinging the loop of his lariat above his head as he ran.

He could faintly make out the figure of his companion rolling down the steep bank.

”Hold up your hand so I can drop the rope over you,” shouted Tad, at the same time making a skillful cast.

His aim was true. The rawhide reached the mark. Chunky, however, feeling it slap him smartly on the cheek, brushed the rope aside in his excitement, not realizing what it was that had struck him.

”Grab it!” roared Tad, observing that he had failed to rope the lad.

With a mighty splash, Stacy Brown plunged into the stream broadside on.

”He's in! I heard him strike!” cried Walter.

With a warning cry to the others to bring lights, Tad, without an instant's hesitation, leaped over the bluff and went shooting down it in a sitting posture.