Part 17 (1/2)
”Think so? Try to wake your pony up,” advised Tad.
Stacy had already hurried to his own broncho, and now began tugging at the bridle rein, with sundry pokes in the animal's ribs.
”I can't. He's in a trance,” wailed Stacy, considerably startled.
That expression came nearer to describing the condition of the stock than any other words could have done.
”Guide, what do you know about this?” questioned the Professor. ”Has some one been tampering with our animals?”
Juan shrugged his shoulders with an air of indifference.
”No bother bronchs.”
”Then will you please tell us what is the matter with them?”
”Sleepy gra.s.s!”
”Sleepy gra.s.s?” chorused the lads.
”Of course they're asleep all right,” added Ned. ”But whoever heard of sleepy gra.s.s?”
”He means they're sleeping on the gra.s.s,” Stacy informed them.
”Ah! I begin to understand,” nodded the Professor. ”I think I know what the trouble is now. The guide is no doubt right.”
The boys gathered around him, all curiosity.
”Tell us about it, Professor. We are very much mystified?” said the Pony Riders.
”A long time ago I remember to have read, somewhere, of a certain gra.s.s in this region that possessed peculiar narcotic properties--”
”What's narcotic?” interrupted Stacy.
”Something that makes you go to sleep when you can't,” explained Tad Butler, rather ambiguously.
”When eaten by horses or cattle it is said to put them into deep sleep. The Rockefeller Inst.i.tute, I believe, is already making an a.n.a.lytical test of the gra.s.s.”
”Please talk so I can understand it,” begged Stacy.
”Yes; those words make my head ache,” scowled Ned. ”Even the guide is making up faces in his effort to understand.”
”He does understand. He understands only too well. For many years this gra.s.s has been known. Cows turned out for the day would fail to return at night--”
”To be milked,” interjected Stacy.
”And an investigation would disclose them sleeping in some region, where the sleepy gra.s.s grew
And the fat boy hummed:
”Down where the sleepy gra.s.s is growing.”