CHAPTER II. 



Old Jim Leatherman's Load The Storm Some Experi- 

 ences with Snakes About Antelope Useless Tails and 

 Queer Horns Fight with a Rattlesnake How Dyche 

 bcarud the Tramps out of Camp. 



>T was a jolly quartette that rode in old Jim 

 Leatherman's wagon over the prairies of 

 western Kansas, on a hot July after- 

 noon, from Buffalo, a little shipping sta- 

 tion of the Union Pacific Railroad. A casual ob- 

 server would have taken the party for a lot of school- 

 boys out on a frolic, and he would not have been far 

 wrong. The two older boys were the jolliest of all. 

 The younger boys were not quite so demonstrative, 

 yet they, too, were full of animal life and were in- 

 spired by the invigorating air of the plains. 



The old boys called each other Mudge and Snow, 

 while the younger ones were known as Dyche and 

 Dick. At home Mudge and Snow were staid college 

 professors, and Dyche and Dick were students in the 

 institution. While in college circles decorum was 

 duly observed, here on the prairies all four called each 

 other by the most convenient names, and while they 

 are removed from the college atmosphere these 

 names may be sufficient. 



Old Jim Leatherman found his strange load in- 

 comprehensible. Mudge would suddenly break off 



