Supper was ready a short time after the arrival of the wagon, and, laughing and joking, the boys gathered about the spread with a keen zest for the good things that had been placed before them. "Do you boys feel like going out on guard to-night?" asked the foreman while they were eating. "I do for one," answered Tad. "And I," chorused the rest of the lads. "I see your recent wetting has not dampened your spirits any," laughed Stallings. "Conditions make a lot of difference in the lives of all of us," announced the Professor. "Now, were these boys at home they'd all catch cold after what they have been through this afternoon. Their clothes, as it is, will not be dry much before sunrise." "And perhaps not even then," added the foreman, with an apprehensive glance at the sky. "What did you say, Mr. Stallings?" "I am thinking that it looks like rain." "What do we do when it rains?" asked Stacy Brown. "Same as any other time, kid," growled Big-foot Sanders. "I know; but what do you do?" persisted Chunky. "Young feller, we usually git wet," snapped Curley Adams, his mouth so full of potatoes that they could scarcely understand him. "He means where do we sleep?" spoke up Tad. "Oh, in the usual place," answered the foreman. "The only difference is that the bed is not quite so hard as at other times." "How's that, Mr. Stallings?" inquired Walter. "Because there's usually a puddle of water under you. I've woke up many a morning on the plains with only my head out of water. I'd a' been drowned if I hadn't had the saddle under my head for a pillow. However, it doesn't matter a great sight. After it has been raining a little while a fellow can't get any wetter, so what's the odds?" "That's what I say," added Ned Rector. Stacy Brown shook his head, disapproval plainly written on his face. "I don't agree with you. I have never been so wet that I couldn't be wetter." "How about when you came out of the river at the end of a cow's tail this afternoon? Think you could have been any more wet?" jeered Ned. "Sure thing. I might have drowned; then I'd been wet on the inside as well as the outside," answered the fat boy, wisely, his reply causing a ripple of merriment all around the party. "I guess the gopher scored that time, eh?" grinned Big-foot. That night Stacy was sent out on the second guard from ten-thirty to one o'clock. They had found him asleep under the chuck wagon, whence he was hauled out, feet first, by one of the returning guards. Tad had turned in early, as he was to be called shortly before one to go out with the third guard and to remain on duty till half-past three. For reasons of his own the foreman had given orders that all the ponies not on actual duty, that night, were to be staked down instead of being hobbled and turned out to graze. Tad heard the order given, and noting the foreman's questioning glances at the heavens, imagined that it had something to do with weather conditions.