“You fellows are too funny!  I don’t care what you think.  I’m going to have something to eat.  Where’s the biscuit?”

“Packed.”

“Then we’ll unpack them again.  I guess I’ve got as much right to the grub of this outfit as the next one.”

With that Stacy helped himself to such of the food as he was able to find.  In order to get what he wanted he was obliged to undo three of the large packs.  Once undone no one would help him lash them together again, so grumbling and growling, the fat boy tugged with the ropes until he had taken a secure hitch about each of the three packages.  They made him tie the three before they would allow him to eat the biscuit and cold bacon that he had got out.

While Stacy was munching his cold lunch the others were lashing the packs to the lazy ponies and preparing to start again, every one being anxious to reach the mountains before night fell.  But the fat boy was surly as well as sleepy.  He felt aggrieved.  That his companions should sit down to a meal, leaving him asleep on his pony, filled Stacy with resentment and a deep-rooted determination to be even with them.  He was already planning how he could repay his companions in their own coin.

“Better not try it,” suggested Tad carelessly as he passed the fat boy on his way to get his pony.

“Try what?”

“To get even,” answered Tad laughingly.

“How do you know that I was thinking of such a thing?”

“Perhaps I read your mind.”

“Humph!  You better learn to read your own before you go prying into mine.  I’ll show you what I’m going to do.”

“Cinch up,” interrupted the voice of Professor Zepplin.  “We have no time to waste.”

Still grumbling, Stacy climbed into the saddle.  He promptly fell off, having forgotten to cinch the saddle girth.  Now the pony woke up and began to kick as the saddle slipped under its belly.  Stacy moved more quickly than he had at any other time during the day.  Over and over he rolled in a cloud of dust in his efforts to get out of the danger zone, while the pony kicked and squealed, the boys shouting with laughter.

“Whoa!” roared the fat boy, sitting up after he had reached a place where he considered it safe to do so.  “Whoa!  Catch him, somebody.”

“Catch him yourself,” retorted Ned.

Tad’s rope wriggled through the air.  It caught one of the flying hind feet of the pony.  Then the little animal plowed the dirt with its nose, while Walter sprang forward, sitting down on the angry animal’s head.

“Now get that saddle off,” commanded Tad.  “Come, Chunky!  Do you think we are going to wait here all day for you?”

The fat boy reluctantly obeyed the command of Tad Butler.  After some further trouble, Stacy’s pony was properly saddled, but still stubborn and ready for further trouble.  The lad got on this time without falling off, and with much laughter and joking, the party started off toward the blue haze in the distance, the dark ridge that marked the Guadalupes.