"Well, old feller, I guess you want your saddle off, huh?" he quavered, and slapped the horse upon the shoulder . He lifted the stirrup--it was a little stock saddle, with everything just like a big saddle except the size; Daddy Chip had had it made for the Kid in Cheyenne, last Christmas--and began to undo the latigo, whistling self-consciously and finding that his lips kept trying to come unpuckered all the time, and trying to tremble just the way they did when he cried. He had no intention of crying.
"Gee! I always wanted to camp out and watch the stars," he told Silver stoutly. "Honest to gran'ma, I think this is just--simply--GREAT! I bet them nester kids would be scared.
Hunh!"
That helped a lot. The Kid could whistle better after that.
He pulled of the saddle, laid it down on its side so that the skirts would not bend out of shape--oh, he had been well-taught, with the whole Happy Family for his worshipful tutors!--and untied the rope from beside the fork. "I'll have to anchor you to a tree, old-timer," he told the horse briskly. "I'd sure hate to be set afoot in this man's country!" And a minute later--"Oh, funder! I never brought you any sugar!"
Would you believe it, that small child of the Flying U picketed his horse where the grass was best, and the knots he tied were the knots his dad would have tied in his place. He unrolled his blanket and carried it to the sheltered little nook under the ledge, and dragged the bag of doughnuts and the jelly and honey and bread after it. He had heard about thievish animals that will carry off bacon and flour and such. He knew that he ought to hang his grub in a tree, but he could not reach up as far as the fox who might try to help himself, so that was out of the question.
The Kid ate a doughnut while he studied the matter out for himself. "If a coyote or a skink came pestering around ME, I'd frow rocks at him," he said. So when he had finished the doughnut he collected a pile of rocks. He ate another doughnut, went over and laid himself down on his stomach the way the boys did, and drank from the little creek. It was just a chance that he had not come upon water tainted with alkali--but fate is kind sometimes.
So the Kid, trying very, very hard to act just like his Daddy Chip and the boys, flopped the blanket vigorously this way and that in an effort to get it straightened, flopped himself on his knees and folded the blanket round and round him until he looked like a large, gray cocoon, and cuddled himself under the ledge with his head on the bag of doughnuts and his wide eyes fixed upon the first pale stars and his mind clinging sturdily to his mission and to this first real, man-sized adventure that had come into his small life.
It was very big and very empty--that canyon. He lifted his yellow head and looked to see if Silver were there, and was comforted at the sight of his vague bulk close by, and by the steady KR-UP, KR-UP of bitten grasses.
"I'm a rell ole cowpuncher, all right," he told himself bravely; but he had to blink his eyelashes pretty fast when he said it. A "rell ole cowpuncher" wouldn't cry! He was afraid Doctor Dell would be AWFULLY s'prised, though . . .
An unexpected sob broke loose, and another. He wasn't afraid--but . . . Silver, cropping steadily at the grass which must be his only supper, turned and came slowly toward the Kid in his search for sweeter grass-tufts. The Kid choked off the third sob and sat up ashamed. He tugged at the bag and made believe to Silver that his sole trouble was with his pillow.
"By cripes, that damn' jelly glass digs right into my ear," he complained aloud, to help along the deception. "You go back, old-timer--I'm all right. I'm a--rell--ole cowpuncher; ain't I, old-timer? We're makin' a dry-camp, just like--Happy Jack. I'm a rell--ole--" The Kid went to sleep before he finished saying it. There is nothing like the open air to make one sleep from dusk till dawn. The rell ole cowpuncher forgot his little white bed in the corner of the big bedroom.
He forgot that Doctor Dell would be awfully s'prised, and that Daddy Chip would maybe be cross--Daddy Chip was cross, sometimes. The rell ole cowpuncher lay with his yellow curls pillowed on the bag of doughnuts and the gray blanket wrapped tightly around him, and slept soundly; and his lips were curved in the half smile that came often to his sleeping place and made him look ever so much like his Daddy Chip.