owed cook and boy ashore.

The cowboys, observing that Tad was being hauled in, headed for the
shore. Reaching it, they put spurs to their ponies and came down to the
scene at a smashing gait.

Leaping off, they sprang into the water, picking up Tad and the Chinaman
and staggering ashore with them.

The lad was pale and shivering. They laid him down on the bank. But Tad
quickly pulled himself to his feet.

"I must look after Pong," he said.

"You let the heathen alone," growled Big-foot Sanders. "Us tenderfeet'll
look after him. That's what we are, a bunch of rank tenderfeet. You're
the only seasoned, all around, dyed-in-the-wool, genuwine cowpuncher in
the whole outfit. That's the truth."

Tad smiled as he hurried to where the foreman was working over the
unconscious cook.

"Is he dead?" asked the lad, apprehensively.

"Dead? Huh!" grunted Curley Adams. "Heathen Chinese don't die as easy as
that."

After a few minutes the cook went off into a paroxysm of choking and
coughing. Then he opened his eyes.

Chunky Brown was standing near, blinking down wisely into the yellow
face of Pong.

"You fell in, didn't you?" he asked solemnly.

"Allee samee," grinned the yellow man, weakly.

CHAPTER XVII

MAKING NEW FRIENDS

Professor Zepplin, fully as wet as the others, met the returning outfit.
Everybody was wet. It seemed to have become their normal condition.

"Did you get the wagon over?" asked Tad.

"You bet," replied the foreman. "As soon as we get all the water shook
out of that heathen we'll set him to making coffee for the outfit. It's
too near dark now to do any more work; and, besides, I guess the cattle
are bedded down for the night. I think they're ready for a night's rest
along with ourselves. What happened to that pony?"

"I'm sure I don't know," answered Tad. "That was too bad, wasn't it?"

"Cramps I guess," suggested Big-foot. "They have been known to have 'em
in the water. That water must have had an iceberg in it somewhere up the
state. Never saw such all-fired cold water in my life. Whew!"

"That's one pony more we've got to buy, that's all. But I don't care.
I'd rather lose the whole bunch of them than have anything happen to the
Pinto," announced the foreman.

"Or the cook," added Tad, with a smile.

"Yes; it's a very serious matter for an outfit of this kind to lose its
cook. We could get along without a foreman very well, but not without a
cook."

"Especially when you ha