Tad was wet and hungry, and now that he was able to get a look at himself, he discovered that his belt was about the only whole thing left of his equipment. Scarcely a vestige of his trousers remained; his shirt hung in ribbons, his hat was lost and his leggins had been stripped off clean.

Tad laughed heartily as he surveyed himself.

"Well, I am a sight! I guess I shall need a whole new harness before I drive cattle much more."

All he could do now was to wait for the sun to rise. Then, he might be able to determine something about his position.

But the sun was a long time in making its appearance that day.

CHAPTER XI

THE VIGIL ON THE PLAINS

"I wish I had a drink of water," said Tad after some hours had pa.s.sed.

Instead of drifting away, the fog had become more dense. He could see only part of the herd now. However, as they showed no disposition to run, Tad felt no concern in that direction. He was obliged to ride around the herd more frequently than would otherwise have been the case, in order to keep the straying ones well rounded in.

The hours pa.s.sed slowly, and with their pa.s.sing Tad's appet.i.te grew. He sat on his pony, enviously watching the cattle filling their stomachs with the wet gra.s.s.

"I almost wish I were a steer," declared Tad. "I could at least satisfy my hunger."

Then the lad once more took up his weary round.

Off to the eastward, all was still excitement. The herd had broken up into many parts during the stampede and the cowmen were having a hard time in rounding up the scattered bunches.

A few of them had succeeded in working some of the animals back to the bedding ground of the previous night, where the animals were left in charge of one man.

With the coming of the morning and the fog, which blanketed everything, their work became doubly difficult. The storm had wiped out almost all traces of the trail made by the different herds in their escape, until even an Indian would have been perplexed in an effort to follow them.

"Who is missing?" asked Stallings, riding into camp after a fruitless search for his cattle.

"Tad Butler, for one," answered Walter Perkins.

"Let's see. He was on guard with Big-foot Sanders," mused the foreman.

"Big-foot has not shown up, so the young man probably is with him. No need to worry about them. Big-foot knows this country like a book. You can't lose him. Then there's Curley Adams and Lumpy Bates to come in yet. I can see us eating our Thanksgiving dinner on the trail if this thing keeps up much longer."

Yet, despite these discouragements, the foreman kept his temper and his head.

"Is there nothing we can do toward finding the boy?" asked Professor Zepplin anxiously.

"Does it look like it?" answered Stallings, motioning toward the fog that lay over them like a dull, gray, cheerless blanket.

Late in the afternoon Curley and Lumpy came straggling into camp with the remnants of the herd, with which they had raced out hours before. An hour afterwards, Big-foot Sanders drove in with a bunch of two hundred more.

"Where's the Pinto?" asked Stallings as Big-foot rode up to the trail wagon and reported.

"The Pinto? Why, I haven't seen the kid since the bunch started on the rampage last night. I thought he was with me on the other end of the herd. Hasn't he come in yet?"

"No."

"Then the kid's lost. All the cows back?"

"I don't know. I'll look over the herd and make an estimate. You come along with me."

Together the foreman and the big cowman rode out to the grazing ground, where they circled the great herd, glancing critically over them as they rode.

"What do you think?" asked Big-foot as they completed the circuit of the herd.

"I should say we were close to five hundred head short," decided the foreman. "How does it look to you?"

"I reckon you're about right. Suffering cats, but that was a run! Never saw a bunch scatter so in my life."

"Couldn't be helped. The night was so dark you couldn't tell whether you had a hundred or a thousand with you. Did you strike any cross trails while you were coming in!"

"Nary a one--not in the direction I came from. If I'd kept on last night, at the rate I was going, I'd have rounded up in Wyoming some time to-day I reckon. Sorry the Pinto's strayed away. He'll have a time of it finding his way back. Reckon we won't see the kid again this trip,"

decided Big-foot.

"We've got to," answered the foreman sharply. "We don't move from this bed till he's been picked up, even if it takes all summer."

"You--you don't reckon he's with that other bunch, do you?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. The boy has pluck and I have an idea that if he got in with a lot of cows he'd stick to them till the pony went down under him."

"More'n likely that's what happened. I'll tell you what we had better do----"

"Get all the boys together who are not needed on guard," interrupted Stallings. "Let them circle out to the west and southwest and shoot.

Have each man fire a shot every five minutes by the watch as they move out. That will keep them in touch with each other, and will act as a guide to the kid if he happens to be within hearing."

"How far shall we go?"

"Half an hour out. It's not safe to leave the herd any longer unless the fog clears away. As soon as that goes we'll organize a regular search. I want those cows, and I want to find the boy."

The men quickly mounted their ponies and disappeared in the fog, following the orders given by the foreman. After a time those in camp could faintly hear the distant cracks of the cowpunchers' pistols as they fired their signals into the air.

In the meantime Tad Butler was keeping his lonely vigil on the fogbound plains many miles away.

The fog was still hovering over the herd as the afternoon waned, and the lad's body was dripping wet from it. Occasionally he brushed a hand across his face, wiping away the moisture.

Darkness settled down earlier than usual that night. Yet, to the boy's great relief, the fog lifted shortly afterwards and the stars came out brightly.

With the skill of an old cowman Tad had bedded down the herd and began to ride slowly about them, whistling vigorously. His face ached from the constant puckering of his lips, and his wounds gave him considerable pain. Yet he lost none of his cheerfulness.

At times Tad found himself drooping in his saddle as his sleepiness overcame him. But he fought the temptation to doze by talking to himself and bringing the quirt sharply against his legs.

"Tad Butler, don't you dare to go to sleep!" he warned himself. "It's the first real duty you have had to perform, so you're not going to make a mess of it. My, but I'm hungry!"