Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/57

Rh At that she heard the girls giggling behind her and turned to face a great, droop-headed, long-eared roan mule, with hip bones that you could hang your hat on—a most forlorn looking bundle of bones that had evidently never recovered the climatic change from the river bottoms of Missouri to the uplands of Montana. Tom Cameron held the mule with a trace-chain around his neck and he offered the end of the chain to Heavy with a perfectly serious face.

"I believe you'd better saddle this chap, Jennie," said Tom. "You see how he's built—the framework is great. I know he can hold you up all right. Just look at how he's built."

"Looks like the steel framework of a skyscraper," declared Heavy, solemnly. "Don't you suppose I might fall in between the ribs if I climbed up on that thing? I thought you were a better friend to me than that, Tom Cameron. You'd deliberately let me risk my life by being tangled up in that moth-eaten bag o' bones if it collapsed under me. No! I'll risk one of these rabbits. I'll have less distance to fall if I roll

But the little cow ponies were tougher than the stout girl supposed. Ike weighed in the neighborhood of a hundred and eighty pounds—solid bone and muscle—and the cayuse that he bestrode when at work was no bigger than Ruth's Freckles. They hoisted Heavy into the saddle, and Tom