And little Cal was too small to be of any use, but he didn't know that, and some one had given him the end of a lariat to hold, and he clutched it, and looked as anxious and important as any one.
All went well with Cal Smith and Whitey until they got to about the middle of the creek, and then, zowie! the full force of the current hit them, and they went down the stream as though they were a couple of feathers.

But the little range ponies were just as game as Cal Smith, and they kept fighting that stream as though they were humans, and kept edging over and edging over until they finally got a footing and scrambled out on the other bank, a full quarter of a mile below the ford.

So Zumbro Creek had beat them a whole half-mile down stream, on that trip across.
"So long, son," said Cal Smith.

"You've only got about twelve miles to go to reach the T Up and Down, and you'd better stay there a couple of days before you start back, to give this creek a chance to learn how to behave itself." Then Cal Smith rode back a half-mile up the stream to make the return trip, and Whitey watched, and the flight of steps of Smith boys watched.
And when Cal landed safely, and Whitey waved at them all from a distance, as he rode away, he felt, as I think you will feel, that it was no wonder Western men had the reputation of being big-hearted, when a man like Cal Smith would take all that trouble for a boy he never had seen before.
The T Up and Down was a rather small ranch, boasting not over a thousand head of cattle, but its manager, Dan Brayton, proved to be a very large man.

That is, he was large around, for he was not tall.