Tad held an arm aloft, and the loop dropped neatly over it. Stallings pulled it and Tad grasped the rope after the loop had tightened about his arm.
The foreman turned his pony about and slowly towed cook and boy ashore.
The cowboys, observing that Tad was being hauled in, headed for the shore. Reaching it, they put spurs to their ponies and came down to the scene at a smashing gait.
Leaping off, they sprang into the water, picking up Tad and the Chinaman and staggering ashore with them.
The lad was pale and shivering. They laid him down on the bank. But Tad quickly pulled himself to his feet.
"You let the heathen alone," growled Big-foot Sanders. "Us tenderfeet'll look after him. That's what we are, a bunch of rank tenderfeet. You're the only seasoned, all around, dyed-in-the-wool, genuwine cowpuncher in the whole outfit. That's the truth."
Tad smiled as he hurried to where the foreman was working over the unconscious cook.
"Is he dead?" asked the lad, apprehensively.
"Dead? Huh!" grunted Curley Adams. "Heathen Chinese don't die as easy as that."
After a few minutes the cook went off into a paroxysm of choking and coughing. Then he opened his eyes.
Chunky Brown was standing near, blinking down wisely into the yellow face of Pong.
"You fell in, didn't you?" he asked solemnly.
"Allee samee," grinned the yellow man, weakly.
Professor Zepplin, fully as wet as the others, met the returning outfit. Everybody was wet. It seemed to have become their normal condition.
"You bet," replied the foreman. "As soon as we get all the water shook out of that heathen we'll set him to making coffee for the outfit. It's too near dark now to do any more work; and, besides, I guess the cattle are bedded down for the night. I think they're ready for a night's rest along with ourselves. What happened to that pony?"
"I'm sure I don't know," answered Tad. "That was too bad, wasn't it?"
"Cramps I guess," suggested Big-foot. "They have been known to have 'em in the water. That water must have had an iceberg in it somewhere up the state. Never saw such all-fired cold water in my life. Whew!"
"That's one pony more we've got to buy, that's all. But I don't care. I'd rather lose the whole bunch of them than have anything happen to the Pinto," announced the foreman.