been spread on the ground, with a slicker for a table cloth.

Three cowboys fell to with a will, gulping down their breakfast in a
hurry that they might ride out and relieve the fourth guard on the herd.

"You boys don't have to swallow your food whole," smiled the foreman,
observing that the Pony Riders seemed to think they were expected to
hurry through their meal as well. "Those fellows have to go out. Take
your time. The fourth guard has to eat yet, so there is plenty of time.
How did you all sleep?"

"Fine," chorused the boys.

"And you, Mr. Professor?"

"Surprisingly well. It is astonishing with how little a man can get
along when he has to."

"Who is the wrangler this morning?" asked the foreman, glancing about at
his men.

"I am," spoke up Shorty Savage promptly.

"Wrangler? What's a wrangler?" demanded Stacy, delaying the progress of
a large slice of bacon, which hung suspended from the fork half-way
between plate and mouth.

"A wrangler's a wrangler," answered Big-foot stolidly.

"He's a fellow who's all the time making trouble, isn't he?" asked Stacy
innocently.

"Oh, no, this kind of a wrangler isn't," laughed the foreman. "The
trouble is usually made _for_ him, and it's served up hot off the
spider. The horse wrangler is the fellow who goes out and rounds up the
ponies. Sometimes he does it in the middle of the night when the thunder
and lightning are smashing about him like all possessed, and the cattle
are on the rampage. He's a trouble-curer, not a troublemaker, except for
himself."

"I guess there are some words that aren't in the dictionary," laughed
Tad.

"I think you will find them all there, Master Tad, if you will consult
the big book," said the Professor.

The meal was soon finished, Pong having stood rubbing his palms, a happy
smile on his face, during the time they were eating.

"A very fine breakfast, sir," announced the Professor, looking up at the
Chinaman.

"He knows what would happen to him if he didn't serve good meals,"
smiled Stallings.

"What do you mean?" asked Ned Rector.

"Pong, tell the young gentlemen what would become of you if you were to
serve bad meals to this outfit of cowpunchers."

The Chinaman showed two rows of white teeth in his expansive grin.

"Allee same likee this," he explained.

"How?" asked Tad.

Pong, going through the motions of drawing a gun from his belt, and
puffing out his cheeks, uttered an explosive "pouf!"

"Oh, you mean the