“You can ride one of mine.  I always take two when on a long journey,” replied the guide.

Chunky’s first act after reaching camp, was to provide himself with a shirt.  After donning it, he announced that he had an appetite and wanted to know when they were going to have supper.

“Why, you had supper hours ago,” scoffed Ned.  “Want another one already?”

“That wasn’t supper, that was four o’clock tea.  Indian fighters must have real food.”

“Stop teasing.  We’ll give the ’ittle baby his milk,” returned Ned.

That night, Kris Kringle remained on guard himself.  He would not trust the guardianship of the camp to any of the boys, for he fully expected that they would receive a visit from one or more of the Indians, though he did not tell the others so.  But nothing occurred to disturb the camp, and the boys, despite their trying experiences, slept soundly, awakening in the morning fresh and active, ready and anxious for any further adventures.

The party set out shortly after sunrise, and traveled all day across the uneven plains, across short mountain ranges, through deep gorges and rugged foothills.

Crossing an open space the guide espied a bottle glistening in the sunlight.

“There’s a bottle,” pointed the guide.  “Want it?”

Stacy glanced at it indifferently;

“What do I want of a bottle?”

“Then I’ll take it,” decided the guide, dismounting and stowing the abandoned piece of glass in his saddle bags.

“Bottles are good for only two things.”

“And what are they, Master Stacy?” questioned the Professor.

“To keep things in and to shoot at,” replied the fat boy wisely.

Everybody laughed at that.

“I guess that embodies everything you can say about bottles,” smiled the Professor.  “Your logic, at times, young man, is unassailable.”

Chunky nodded.  He had a faint idea of what Professor Zepplin meant.

Late that afternoon the travelers came upon a shack in the foothills, where an old rancher, a hermit, lived when not tending his little flock of sheep, most of which, Kris Kringle said, the old man had stolen from droves that came up over the trail going north.

He was an interesting old character, this hermit, and the boys decided that they would like to make camp and have him take supper with them.  This the Professor and the guide readily agreed to, for everyone was hot and dusty and the bronchos were nervous and ill-natured.

The boys found the old rancher talkative enough on all subjects save himself.  When Chunky asked him where he came from, and what for, the old man’s face flushed angrily.

At the first opportunity the guide took the fat boy aside for some fatherly advice.

“In this country it isn’t good policy to be too curious about a man’s family affairs.  He’s likely to resent it in a way you won’t like.  Most fellows out here have reasons for being out of the world, beyond what’s apparent on the surface.”