He didn't know how long he slept but he felt first rate when he woke up, only hungrier than ever. Over in the pasture stood a cow with her back to him, looking at something and growing real excited about it.

"I wonder what ails the critter," said Skinny to himself. "She looks mad about something, snorting and shaking her head that way."

Just then he heard a girl's voice singing. She sang real loud, like boys whistle sometimes to keep up their courage, when they are half scared.

Then in a few minutes she came in sight, walking across the pasture and keeping one eye on the cow.

Skinny hadn't seen her before because the cow had stood in the way.

"Jerusalem!" said he. "Here's luck. She's got a fire-red sunbonnet and cows don't like red sunbonnets a little bit."

On came the girl, singing louder than ever, trying to edge off away from the cow but not daring to run.

Skinny could see that the cow was getting madder all the time. He knew that something was going to happen at last, and he began to uncoil his rope.

"Run, you little fool," said he. "Run."

He meant the girl and not the cow. He said it under his breath so she wouldn't hear, for he didn't want to lose the chance to do the rescue act and have something to tell us boys about afterward.

The girl was scared. Any one with half an eye could have seen that. The cow hadn't quite made up its mind what to do, and Skinny was beginning to be afraid that the girl would get across without giving him a chance to get in his work. Then what did she do but take off her sunbonnet and swing it around by one string, just to let the cow know that she wasn't afraid of any animal that walked on four legs.

She hadn't seen Skinny yet, on account of his being back of the cow. The cow didn't know he was there, either, until about four seconds afterward. It knew then, all right.

Maybe the cow wasn't mad when she saw that red sunbonnet whirling around in the air. She tore up the sod with her horns, gave a big snort, and started, head down.

Say, it was Skinny's busy day about that time. Before the cow could get fairly going he had crawled under the fence and run up behind, whirling his la.s.so around his head. Then he gave a yell like a wild Indian and threw it.

I think the yell scared the girl worse than the cow did. Anyhow, between the cow and the Indian she was scared stiff; just stood there paralyzed. And she didn't do any more singing.

If that la.s.so had caught there would have been a paralyzed cow all right. Skinny threw it in great shape. It went straight for her horns, but when he yelled she lifted her head suddenly. The loop struck against one of the horns, instead of going over it, and then fell off to the ground.

"Gee!" groaned Skinny. "Missed!"

There wasn't time to say anything more, and he knew that he would have to get mighty busy or there wouldn't be any rescuing done.

When something happens that way and you have to do something first and think about it afterward, the mind seems to work like chain lightning.

There was only one thing to do and it didn't take Skinny long to do that. He dropped the rope, grabbed hold of the cow's tail with both hands, and dug his feet into the ground.

"Run!" he yelled. "Run for the fence! I've got her."

When Bill heard about it he said that it seemed to him as if the cow had Skinny. Anyhow, she was surprised some and she was mad. She will think twice next time before she does any chasing, when anybody from Raven Patrol is around, I guess.

Skinny had a good hold and she couldn't get away. First she stopped running and tried to get at whatever it was back of her, with her horns, chasing herself around in a circle.

Skinny hung on like a good fellow. He had to. If he had let go once it would have been all up with him. She never touched him. Every time the cow stopped, there was a hundred pounds of boy hanging to the end of her tail.

It was like playing crack the whip, he told us afterward, "and being the littlest fellow on the tail end."

Then for a few moments it was hard to tell which was the cow and which was Skinny, for she started on a run for the other side of the pasture, Skinny sliding and b.u.mping behind, and both of them scared half to death. Skinny was so excited he couldn't think to let go of the tail.

Hank said that he would have given a quarter if he could have taken a picture of it with his camera.

All this didn't take so long as it does to tell about it. The girl had reached the fence, crawled under, and was yelling for help.

Just then it seemed to Skinny as if the tail had come off in his hands, for he went tumbling along, heels over head, until he struck with a jar that almost loosened his teeth.

What really happened was that he stumbled on a stone and his hands were jerked loose. In another minute the cow was out of sight in a hollow.

Skinny scrambled to his feet and went back after the rope, trying not to limp because he could see the girl looking at him through the fence.

He felt pretty chesty to think that he had rescued a maiden, only he didn't know what to do with her, now that he had saved her.

She spoke first, as he stood there sort of brushing his clothes off.

"Are you hurt, boy?"

"What, me?" said Skinny. "Me hurt? Say, didn't you see the critter run when I got after her?"

"I should say I did, only I was scared. Wasn't you scared?"

"I don't scare worth a cent," he told her. "I ain't afraid of any cow a-livin'. You don't suppose I'd 'a' chased her all over the pasture, if I'd been scared, do you?"

"N-no, but----"

"Say, if my la.s.so hadn't slipped, there would have been something doing.

It's lucky for you that I got hold of her tail. That's the way to do it.

When you twist a cow's tail, it scares 'em."

It's just as Hank says, you never can tell what a girl will do. That girl tried to say something; then choked up and went off into a fit of laughing that made the tears roll down her cheeks and left her so weak that she had to hang on to the fence.

Skinny grinned a little to be polite, but he didn't like it very well.

"Oh," said she, as soon as she could speak, "it was too--too funny for anything to see you sailing along behind the cow."

"It wouldn't have been so funny if the cow had been running toward you, instead of away from you. You would have laughed out of the other side of your mouth, I guess."

She saw that he was mad about it.

"You mustn't mind my laughing," said she, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth. "I can't help it. It's a disease."

"A disease?"

"Yes, it's high strikes. When folks have them they can't stop laughing.

They laugh when they ought to cry, maybe."

"Sounds like a ball game," said Skinny.

"It's something like that," she told him. "Maybe that isn't it exactly but it's something. I'm better now."

"Oh, well, if it's something that ails you, I suppose it's all right.