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Pony Rider Boys on the Blue Ridge

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<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> <h3>AN INTERRUPTED JOURNEY</h3> The yells of the Pony Rider Boys, instead of inducing Chops to stop only caused him to run the faster. Stacy Brown was soon at the tail-end of the procession. Tad was in the lead, Ned Rector close upon his heels, with Walter Perkins a good thirty yards behind Ned. "Stop, you ninny!" shouted Tad. "Come back here." "N-n-nassir," floated back the voice of the guide. Chops had enough. He was more frightened than ever before in his life. He believed that the fat boy had really had the dream, and that trouble was brewing for Billy Veal. "We'll never get him," gasped Rector. "Yes, we shall. Get your rope. We'll have him. We'll chase him all night but we'll land him. Chops! Oh, Chops!" "Save your breath," jeered Ned. "I'm going to. Oh, what I won't do to that guide when I do catch him!" gritted Tad. "Yes, when you do." Butler put on a fresh burst of speed, touching the ground only with his toes, as he ran, leaving Ned still farther behind. "Gracious, I didn't think Tad could sprint like that," gasped Rector. "Wait for me," howled Chunky, now far to the rear. The boys got to laughing so heartily at this that Chops gained several rods on them, but Tad quickly closed up the gap and was soon drawing down on Billy Veal at a killing pace. The guide was a good runner, but he did not have the staying powers possessed by Tad Butler. Tad, no doubt, could have run all night had such a thing been necessary, for he was a strong, healthy boy with not an ounce of extra flesh on his body, and his muscles were of the quality of pliant steel. Tad now drew out to one side and a few minutes later he passed the man they were chasing, though Veal did not know of this. The colored man came tearing along at almost express train speed, when Tad's rope wriggled through the air. The throw was a true one. The loop landed fairly over the head and shoulders of Chops, was drawn taut by the runner himself, and in the next instant Billy Veal stood pivoting on his head on the ground. "Gracious, I hope he hasn't broken his neck," cried Tad. "I—I didn't think he would go down so heavily as that." "Where is he? Where is, the guide?" shouted Ned Rector, coming up with a splendid burst of speed, and not breathing hard at all. "Look out, or you'll step on him," warned Tad. "Where is he?" repeated Ned. "Chops is standing on his head just ahead of you behind those bushes. Get hold of him so I can let up on the rope." With a yell of triumph, Ned threw himself on the colored man, who was too dazed from the shock of his fall to offer much resistance. At this juncture Walter Perkins came in on a trot, followed after an interval of a minute or so by the shouting, puffing fat boy. "You are to blame for this, Chunky," growled Ned, trying to be stern. "It strikes me that you are sitting on Chops yourself. You surely can't blame me for that," retorted Stacy. "Here, you, get up and come back to camp with us," commanded Tad. "Yes, Chops, the gnomes will get you out here," reminded Stacy. "Stop it! You'll have him on the run again," rebuked Tad. Chops looked up, wide-eyed. "Hit jes' lak dat, fer fae'," muttered Billy. "Ah done seen dem myself." "There! What did I tell you?" demanded Chunky triumphantly. "He 'seen dem himself.' Did they have biscuit in their mouths, Chops?" "Yassir, nassir. He ain't say nuffin' 'tall. He jess look lak dat." The guide made big staring eyes, as if peering at something in a world unseen by the rest. "Say, quit that! You'll give me the creeps soon," declared Ned. "Are we going to take him back to camp or must I sit on him all the rest of the night?" "Let him up, Ned," nodded Tad, recoiling his rope. "If you try to run, Billy, I'll rope you again. Do you want me to rope you some more?" "Yassir, nassir." Chops was shivering as he got up and started slowly back towards camp, casting apprehensive glances at every bush he passed. A wild yell from the bushes bordering the trail they were following nearly sent the guide off on another sprint. He surely would have run had not Tad grabbed him by the arm and given him a shaking. "Stacy Brown, if you do that again you will have to answer to the Professor. Fun is fun, but the fun's all played out of this affair. Come along here, Billy." Billy was marched into camp, set down by the fire, and ordered to remain there till told to get up. The Professor tried to assume a stern expression, but the attempt was a failure, finally ending in a chuckle, in which Chunky, who had just arrived, joined with his familiar "haw, haw, haw." "Oh, stop it!" commanded Ned. "You make me think I'm back among the Missouri mules. What are we going to do with this fellow, Professor?" "I'll tell you what to do with him," spoke up Chunky. "Give him a tostie wostie—in other words, a petrified biscuit, and tuck him in his li'l crib where the little gnomes can't tickle his feet, and he'll be all right after he gets to sleep," suggested the fat boy without so much as the suggestion of a smile on his face. "Guide, you must not take the jokes of these young men seriously. They were just fooling," began the Professor. "They? You mean Stacy Brown," interrupted Ned. "I wasn't fooling anyone. He saw them himself. Didn't you see the gnomes sitting on a rock, Chops, and didn't they make faces at you because you were running away?" persisted the fat boy. Billy nodded weakly, moistening his lips with his tongue and swallowing a lump in his throat. Such a hopeless expression of fright appeared on his face that the boys, unable to contain their mirth longer, uttered shouts of laughter, in which the dignified Professor joined. "You see! I told you so," nodded Stacy. "Young man, I shall have to ask you to cease playing pranks on the guide. We can ill afford to be without a guide in this wilderness of trees and rocks." "A guide?" laughed Tad. "Yes, a guide." "Too bad we haven't one," muttered Stacy. "It is to you I am speaking, Master Stacy. You must not tantalize Billy. Let him alone. Have I your promise that you will do so?" "If I promise I have to, don't I?" questioned the fat boy. "Certainly you do." "Then I guess I won't promise," he replied after a brief reflection. The Professor gave it up with a shrug of his shoulders. He asked the guide if they should tie him up for the night or if he would lie down and behave himself. Billy decided that he would prefer the latter, so they left it that way. Chops was then permitted to return to his duties, getting the camp to rights for the night, but it was observed that he gave a nervous little jump every time he heard an unusual sound. "I'll bet he sees more than a black cat in his sleep tonight," Tad confided to Rector. "I don't care what he sees so long as he doesn't snore. And I give you due notice that if Chunky persists in snoring as he has been doing lately either he or I will have to sleep out in the bushes out of sound of the camp. Why, Tad, I am on the verge of nervous prostration from loss of sleep," declared Ned. "You surely look it, too," replied Tad with a grin. "If Stacy chases Chops out of camp again I am quite positive that it will be Stacy Brown who will sleep in the bushes," resumed Ned in a tone of voice loud enough for Stacy to hear. "Not so that anyone will notice it, he won't," called back the fat boy. The night passed uneventfully. On the morrow, bright and early, the party continued their journey into the heart of the mountains. That day being Saturday, according to their usual practice, the Pony Riders went into camp to remain until Monday morning. This also gave the ponies a much-needed rest. For this weekend stay, the tents were pitched in a deep, sombre canyon, that reminded the boys of Bright Angel Gulch in the Grand Canyon where they had encountered so many exciting experiences. It was near the middle of the forenoon on Sunday when a stranger walked into camp, moving in long, determined strides. In the crook of his right arm he carried a rifle. The boys greeted the newcomer pleasantly, at the same time offering him the hospitality of a cup of coffee. "I don't want no coffee," grunted the stranger, with a reckless disregard for the English language. "I want a heap sight more of you, though." "First, may I ask who you are?" questioned Tad Butler. "I'm not here to answer questions. I reckon you'll have to answer some instead." "Let's have the questions, then," smiled Tad. "But if you won't answer questions why should you expect it of us?" "Because I'm an officer, and I'm here on business." "Business! What business?" blurted Stacy, jumping up. "Are you after Chops?" "Humph! More likely I'm after all of you," rejoined the stranger. "But that depends." "If you are an officer I wish you had happened along a couple of days ago," said Tad. "We had a lot of trouble with an imitation bad man, Smoky Griffin. Know him?" "No. I'm not that kind of an officer." "He's a corporal in the Home Guards," guessed Chunky. "My man," broke in Professor Zepplin, with extreme dignity, "will you be good enough to explain just what your business is?" "Yes. I'm a government officer, and I've come to give you notice to quit, and right smart at that. It's your move, and you'll have to get up and dust out of these parts. If you don't, I'll lock you up in jail, to start with. Then, after you've waited a few months for the court to sit, you'll find that you have worse medicine to take. Is that plain enough?" "I—I don't understand your attitude," stammered Professor Zepplin. "Mebby this will mean something to you," said the newcomer, holding up a furry object. "What is it?" "Looks like the paw of the black cat that I dreamed I saw chasing the three-legged rat through the field of red clover," declared Stacy. Tad motioned to the fat boy to be silent. "It is a deer's foot, isn't it?" he asked. "You've guessed it, young man." The thought came to some of them that perhaps they had a crazy man to deal with. The Professor decided to humor their caller. "Very interesting, very interesting," he nodded. "You shot him, eh?" "I did not." "No? Then I do not understand what particular interest attaches to the foot." "I reckon you would if you wanted to. You've seen it before," grunted the man. "I beg to differ with you. I have not seen a deer foot, let alone the animal belonging to it, in some months. Why do you insist upon this?" "Because one of your party shot the deer. You've got deer inside of you at this particular minute and—" Stacy rubbed his stomach and rolled his eyes. "I wish I had," murmured the fat boy. "Now just what do you want to say to us?" demanded the Professor, considerably irritated. "That you'll have to get off this Ridge right quick or it'll be the worse for you," announced the stranger in a commanding voice. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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