"If a coyote or a skink came pestering around ME, I'd frow rocks at him," he said.

So when he had finished the doughnut he collected a pile of rocks.
He ate another doughnut, went over and laid himself down on his stomach the way the boys did, and drank from the little creek.

It was just a chance that he had not come upon water tainted with alkali--but fate is kind sometimes.
So the Kid, trying very, very hard to act just like his Daddy Chip and the boys, flopped the blanket vigorously this way and that in an effort to get it straightened, flopped himself on his knees and folded the blanket round and round him until he looked like a large, gray cocoon, and cuddled himself under the ledge with his head on the bag of doughnuts and his wide eyes fixed upon the first pale stars and his mind clinging sturdily to his mission and to this first real, man-sized adventure that had come into his small life.
It was very big and very empty--that canyon.

He lifted his yellow head and looked to see if Silver were there, and was comforted at the sight of his vague bulk close by, and by the steady KR-UP, KR-UP of bitten grasses.
"I'm a rell ole cowpuncher, all right," he told himself bravely; but he had to blink his eyelashes pretty fast when he said it.

A "rell ole cowpuncher" wouldn't cry! He was afraid Doctor Dell would be AWFULLY s'prised, though...
An unexpected sob broke loose, and another.