Produced by Kent Fielden and Sean Pobuda
The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks
By Frank Gee Patchin
"Boys! B-o-y-s!"
There was no response to the imperative summons.
Professor Zepplin sat up in his cot, listening intently. Somethinghad awakened him suddenly, but just what he was unable to decide.
"Be quiet over there, young men," he admonished, adding in a lowertone, "I'm sure I heard some one moving about."
The camp of the Pony Rider Boys lay wrapped in darkness, the camp-firehaving long since died out. Not a sound disturbed the stillness ofthe night save the soft murmurings of the foliage, stirred in a gentlebreeze that was drifting in from the southwest.
The Professor climbed from his cot, and, without waiting to draw onhis clothes, stepped outside. He stood listening in front of his tentfor several minutes, but heard nothing of a disturbing nature.
"I believe those young rascals are up to some of their pranks—eitherthat, or I have been having bad dreams. While I'm up I might as wellmake sure," he decided, tip-toeing to the tent occupied by Tad Butlerand Walter Perkins.
Both were apparently sleeping soundly, while in an adjoining tent NedRector and Stacy Brown were breathing regularly, sleeping the sleepthat naturally comes after a day in the saddle over the rugged, unevenslopes of the Ozark Mountains.
Professor Zepplin uttered something that sounded not unlike an
Indian's grunt of disgust.
"Dreams!" he decided sharply. "I should not have eaten that pie lastnight. Pie doesn't seem to trouble those boys in the least, but itcertainly has a bad effect on my digestive apparatus."
Having thus delivered himself of his opinion on the value of pie as abedtime food, the scientist trotted back to his tent, his teethchattering and shoulders shrugging, for the mountain air was chill andthe Professor was clad only in his pajamas.
No sooner had he settled himself between his comforting blankets,however, than he suddenly started up again with a mutteredexclamation.
"I knew it! I told you so!"
This time there could be no doubt. He plainly heard a dry twig snapnear by; whether it were under the weight of man or beast, he did notknow.
"There is something out there. It couldn't have been the pie afterall. I'm going to find out what it is before I get back into this bedagain," he decided firmly, slipping quietly from under the covers andpeering out through the half closed flap of his tent.
As before, all was silence, the drowsy, indistinct voices of the nightpassing almost without notice.
But Professor Zepplin instead of waiting where he was, reached for hisrevolver and then strode boldly out into the open space in front ofthe tents, determined to solve the mystery, and, if possible, withoutwaking the boys.
The reader no doubt already has recognized in the four boys sleepingin the little weather-beaten tents the same lads who some time beforehad started off for a vacation in the mountains where they hunted thecougar and the bobcat, the thrilling adventures met with on thatjourney having been related in a former volume entitled, "THE PONYRIDER BOYS IN THE ROCKIES."
They will be remembered, too, as the lads who, in "THE PONY RIDER BOYSIN TEXAS," crossed the plains on a cattle drive, during the course ofwhich Tad Bu