But finally, no matter how interesting the company, sleep will come to healthy boys, and just before that time came, and could not be put off any longer, they happened to be talking about dreams. Abe said that if you would tie a rope around your neck, and tie it to a beam, just before you went to sleep, you would sure dream of a hanging. And, of course, Whitey had to try it. He tied the rope around his neck, he tied the other end around a beam, and he went to sleep. There were six boys in that bed, and there was a whole lot of crowding, and Whitey was sleeping on the outside. And he didn't have to dream about any hanging, because he came so near the real thing. I don't have to tell you how it happened. Bill Jordan's letter came mighty near not being delivered. However, all ended happily, and save for rubbing that part of his anatomy where he wore a collar after he was grown up, Whitey was all right. CHAPTER XI THE T UP AND DOWN The next day Cal Smith said that a joke was all very well, but twenty-five miles was far enough to carry it, and he staked Whitey to a horse to make the rest of the trip with, Whitey to return the horse on his way back. When they reached Zumbro Creek it hadn't gone down a bit, except to go down stream, and it was doing that like the dickens. It certainly was a very bad-tempered-looking creek, but Cal Smith wasn't afraid of it. He had brought along all his sons, and a couple of ranch hands, and instructed them to stand by with ropes, while he took Whitey about a quarter of a mile up the creek, and the two of them plunged in. Cal Smith was not going to let any kid try to swim a horse across that creek by himself. It was quite a sight to see all those Smith boys standing in a line on the bank. With the biggest one, Abe, at one end, and the smallest one, Cal, at the other, and the rest of them standing according to their sizes, they looked like a flight of steps. And little Cal was too small to be of any use, but he didn't know that, and some one had given him the end of a lariat to hold, and he clutched it, and looked as anxious and important as any one. All went well with Cal Smith and Whitey until they got to about the middle of the creek, and then, zowie! the full force of the current hit them, and they went down the stream as though they were a couple of feathers. But the little range ponies were just as game as Cal Smith, and they kept fighting that stream as though they were humans, and kept edging over and edging over until they finally got a footing and scrambled out on the other bank, a full quarter of a mile below the ford. So Zumbro Creek had beat them a whole half-mile down stream, on that trip across. "So long, son," said Cal Smith. "You've only got about twelve miles to go to reach the T Up and Down, and you'd better stay there a couple of days before you start back, to give this creek a chance to learn how to behave itself."