"When you get to be half as good a man on cows as your friend the Pinto, here, you'll be a full grown man," added Big-foot. "The Pinto rounded up a bunch of stray cows to-night as well as I could do it myself, and he didn't go about it with a brass band either." The foreman nodded, with an approving glance at Tad. Tad's eyes were sparkling from the experiences of the evening, as well as from the praise bestowed upon him by the big cowpuncher. "The pony did most of it," admitted the lad. "I just gave him his head, and that's all there was to it." "More than most tenderfeet would have done," growled Big-foot. Walter had gone out with the second guard, and the others had gathered around the camp-fire for their nightly story-telling. "Now, I don't want you fellows sitting up all night," objected the foreman. "None of you will be fit for duty to-morrow. We've got a hard drive before us, and every man must be fit as a fiddle. You can enjoy yourselves sleeping just as well as sitting up." "Humph!" grunted Curley Adams. "I'll give it as a horseback opinion that the only way to enjoy such a night as this, is to sit up until you fall asleep with your boots on. That's the way I'm going to do it, to-night." The cowboy did this very thing, but within an hour he found himself alone, the others having turned in one by one. "Where are your beds?" asked Stacy after the foreman had urged the boys to get to sleep. "Beds?" grunted Big-foot. "Anywhere--everywhere. Our beds, on the plains, are wherever we happen to pull our boots off." "You will find your stuff rolled up under the chuck wagon, boys," said Stallings. "I had Pong get out the blankets for you, seeing that you have only your slickers with you." The lads found that a pair of blankets had been assigned to each of them, with an ordinary wagon sheet doubled for a tarpaulin. These they spread out on the ground, using boots wrapped in coats for pillows. Stacy Brown proved the only grumbler in the lot, declaring that he could not sleep a wink on such a bed as that. In floundering about, making up his bunk, the lad had fallen over two cowboys and stepped full on the face of a third. Instantly there was a chorus of yells and snarls from the disturbed cowpunchers, accompanied by dire threats as to what they would do to the gopher did he ever disturb their rest in that way again. This effectually quieted the boy for the night, and the camp settled down to silence and to sleep. The horses of the outfit, save those that were on night duty and two or three others that had developed a habit of straying, had been turned loose early in the evening, for animals on the trail are seldom staked down. For these, a rope had been strung from a rear wheel of the wagon and another from the end of the tongue, back to a stake driven in the ground, thus forming a triangular corral. Besides holding the untrustworthy horses, it afforded a temporary corral for catching a change of mounts.