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diff --git a/19816.txt b/19816.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db33325 --- /dev/null +++ b/19816.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6425 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's, by Laura Lee Hope + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's + +Author: Laura Lee Hope + +Release Date: November 14, 2006 [EBook #19816] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, J.P.W. Fraser, Emmy +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + +SIX LITTLE BUNKERS +AT COWBOY JACK'S + +BY +LAURA LEE HOPE + + AUTHOR OF "SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S," + "SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S" "THE BOBBSEY + TWINS SERIES," "THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES," "THE + OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES," ETC. + +_ILLUSTRATED_ + + NEW YORK + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS + +Made in the United States of America + + + + +BOOKS + +By LAURA LEE HOPE + +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. + + * * * * * + +=THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES= + + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S + + * * * * * + +=THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES= + + THE BOBBSEY TWINS + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE + THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY + THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND + THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP + + * * * * * + +=THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES= + + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH + + * * * * * + +=THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES= + +(Eleven titles) + +=GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK= + + Copyright, 1921, by + GROSSET & DUNLAP + + * * * * * + +Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's + +[Illustration: BLACK BEAR CAME TOWARD THE CHILDREN. + +_Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's._ _Frontispiece_--(_Page 160_)] + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. "A THUNDER STROKE" 1 + + II. VERY EXCITING NEWS 9 + + III. THE SILVER LINING 18 + + IV. WHAT WAS STUCK IN THE MUD? 31 + + V. GOOD-BYE TO GRAND VIEW 39 + + VI. THE COAL STRIKE 48 + + VII. THE SOUP JUGGLER 57 + + VIII. AN ALARM AND A HOLD-UP 68 + + IX. THE BIG ROCK THAT FELL DOWN 78 + + X. WHERE ARE THE TWINS? 87 + + XI. THE MAN WITH THE EARRINGS 97 + + XII. CAVALLO AT LAST 104 + + XIII. A SURPRISE COMING 114 + + XIV. AN INDIAN RAID 126 + + XV. A PROFOUND MYSTERY 138 + + XVI. MUN BUN TAKES A NAP 145 + + XVII. IN CHIEF BLACK BEAR'S WIGWAM 157 + + XVIII. THE NEW PONIES 167 + + XIX. RUSS BUNKER GUESSES RIGHT 177 + + XX. PINKY GOES HOME 185 + + XXI. THE LAME COYOTE 195 + + XXII. A PICNIC 207 + + XXIII. MOVING PICTURE MAGIC 215 + + XXIV. MUN BUN IN TROUBLE 226 + + XXV. SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT EXPECTED 235 + + + + +SIX LITTLE BUNKERS +AT COWBOY JACK'S + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"A THUNDER STROKE" + + +"Whew!" said Russ Bunker, looking out into the driving rain. + +"Whew!" repeated Rose, standing beside him. + +"Whew!" said Vi, and "Whew!" echoed Laddie, while Margy added "Whew!" + +"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun last of all, standing on tiptoe to see over the +high windowsill. Mun Bun could not quite say the letter "h"; that is why +he said "W'ew!" + +Such a September rain the six little Bunkers had never seen before, for +the very good reason that they had never before been at the seashore +during what Daddy Bunker and Captain Ben called "the September equinox." + +"That is an awful funny word, anyway," Rose Bunker said. + +"What's funny?" Violet asked. + +"Can I make a riddle out of it?" added Laddie. + +"It is a riddle," replied Rose, quite confidently. "For 'equinox' is +just a rain and wind storm." + +"That isn't a riddle," said Laddie promptly. "That's the answer to a +riddle." + +And perhaps it was, even if Rose had the equinox and the equinoctial +storms a little mixed in her mind. At any rate, this was a most +surprising storm to all the little Bunkers--the wind blew so hard, the +rain came in such big gusts, flattening the white-capped waves which +they could see, both from Captain Ben's bungalow and from this old house +to which they had come to play. And now, as all six peered out of the +attic window of the old house, there was an unexpected flash of +lightning, followed by a grumble of thunder. + +"Oh! just like a bad, bad dog," gasped Vi, not a little frightened by +the noise. "I--I am afraid of thunder." + +"I'm not," declared Laddie, her twin. + +But perhaps, because he was a boy, he thought he must claim more courage +than he really felt. At any rate, he winced a little, too, and drew +back from the window. + +"Maybe we'd better go back to Captain Ben's house--and mother," +suggested Margy in a wee small voice. + +"W'ew!" lisped Mun Bun, the littlest Bunker, once more, but quite as +bravely as before. Like Laddie (whose name really was Fillmore), Mun Bun +wished to claim all the courage a boy should show. + +"I guess we can't go back while it rains like this," said Russ, the +oldest of the six. + +"And Captain Ben thought it would maybe clear up and not rain any more, +so we came," announced Rose. "Oh! There goes another thunder stroke." + +The rumble of thunder seemed nearer. + +"I guess," Russ said soberly, "that Norah or Jerry Simms would call this +the clearing-up shower." + +"But Norah and Jerry Simms aren't here," Vi reminded him. "Are they?" + +"That doesn't make any difference. It can be the clearing-up shower of +this equinox, just the same." + +"Can it?" asked Vi. + +She was always asking questions, and she asked so many that it was quite +impossible to answer them all, so, for the most part, nobody tried to +answer her. And this was one of the times when nobody answered Vi. + +"We'd better keep on playing," Rose said, very sensibly. "Then we won't +bother 'bout the thunder strokes." + +"It is lightning," objected Russ. "I don't mind the thunder. Thunder is +only a noise." + +"I don't care," said Rose, "it's the thunder that scares you---- Oh! +Hear it?" + +"Does the thunder hit you?" asked Vi. + +"Why, nothing is going to hit us," Russ replied bravely, realizing that +he must soothe any fears felt by his younger brothers and sisters. Russ +was nine, and Daddy Bunker and mother expected him to set a good example +to Rose and Laddie and Violet and Margy and Munroe Ford Bunker, who, +when he was very little, had named himself "Mun Bun." + +"Just the same," whispered Rose in a very small voice, and in Russ's +ear, "I wish we hadn't come over from Captain Ben's bungalow this +morning when it looked like the rain had all stopped." + +"Pooh!" said Russ, still bravely, "it thunders over there just as it +does here, Rose Bunker." + +Of course that was so, and Rose knew it. But nothing seemed quite so bad +when daddy and mother were close at hand. + +"Let's play again," she said, with a little sigh. + +"What'll we play?" asked Violet. "Haven't we played everything there +is?" + +"I s'pose we have--some time or other," Rose admitted. + +"No, we haven't," interposed Russ, who was of an inventive mind. "There +are always new plays to make up." + +"Just like making up riddles," agreed Laddie. "I guess I could make up a +riddle about this old storm--if only the thunder wouldn't make so much +noise. I can't think riddles when it thunders." + +The thunder seemed to shake the house. The rain dashed against the +windows harder than ever. And there were places in the roof of this +attic where the water began to trickle through and drop upon the floor. + +"Oh!" cried Mun Bun, on whose head a drop fell. "It's leaking! I don't +like a leaky house. Let's go home, Rose." + +"Do you want to go home to Pineville, Mun Bun?" shouted Russ, for he +could not make his voice heard by the others just then without shouting. + +"Well, no. But I'd rather be at that other house where mother is--and +daddy," proclaimed the smallest boy when the noise of the thunder had +again passed. + +"I tell you," said Russ soberly, "we'd better go downstairs and play +something till the thunder stops." + +"What shall we play?" asked Vi again. + +"I'll build an automobile and take you all to ride," said the oldest boy +confidently. + +"Oh, Russ! You can't!" gasped Rose. + +"A real automobile like the one that we rode down here in from +Pineville?" asked Laddie, opening his eyes very wide. + +"Well, no--not just like that," admitted Russ. "But we'll have some fun +with it and we won't bother about the thunder." + +Rose looked a bit doubtful over that statement. But she knew it was her +duty to help the younger children forget their fears. She started down +the steep stairs behind Russ. Laddie and Margy came next, while Vi was +helping short-legged little Mun Bun to reach the stairway. + +And it was just then that the very awful "thunder stroke" came. It +seemed to burst right over the roof, and the flash of lightning that +came with it almost blinded the children. There was even a smell of +sulphur--just like matches. Only it was a bigger smell than any sulphur +match could make. + +The children's cries were drowned by the crash outside. The lightning +had struck a big old tree that overhung the house. The tree trunk was +splintered right down from the top, and before the sound of the thunder +died away the broken-off part of that tree fell right across the roof. + +How the old house shook! Such a ripping and tearing of shingles as there +was! Rose could not stifle her shriek. She and Margy and Laddie came +tumbling down the rest of the stairs behind Russ. + +"Where's Vi and Mun Bun?" demanded the oldest of the six little Bunkers, +staring up the dust-filled stairway. + +"Oh! Oh! Help me up!" shrieked Vi from the attic. + +"Help me!" cried Mun Bun, very much frightened too. "Somebody is holding +me down." + +"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Rose, wringing her hands and looking at +Russ. "That old roof has fallen in and Vi and Mun Bun are caught under +it!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +VERY EXCITING NEWS + + +The old house was still groaning and shaking under the impact of the +lightning-smitten tree. It seemed, indeed, as though the whole roof was +broken in and that gradually the house must be flattened down into the +cellar. Dust and bits of broken wood and plaster were showering down the +open stairway. + +Although the house might be falling, Russ felt he had to go up those +stairs to the aid of the shrieking Vi and Mun Bun. They were both caught +under some of the fallen rubbish, and it was Russ Bunker's duty, if +nothing more, to aid the younger children. + +Russ did not often shirk his duty. Being the oldest of the six Bunker +children, he felt his responsibility more than other boys of his age +might have done. Anyway, when the others needed help, Russ's first +thought was to aid. He was that kind of boy, as all the readers of this +series of stories know very well. + +Almost always Russ Bunker was not far from a set of carpenter's tools, +of which he was very proud, or from other means of "making things." His +brothers and sisters thought him quite wonderful when it came to +planning new means of amusement and building such things as play +automobiles and boats and steam-car trains. It was quite impossible for +Russ now, however, to think up any invention that would help his small +sister and brother out of their trouble in the attic of the old house. +He was quite helpless. + +Nine-year-old Russ Bunker was an inventive, cheerful lad, almost always +with a merry whistle on his lips, and quite faithful to the trust his +parents imposed in him regarding the well-being of his younger brothers +and sisters. + +With Rose, who was a year younger than Russ, the boy really took much of +the care in the daytime of the other little Bunkers. The older ones +really had to do this--or else there would have been no fun for any of +them. You see, if the older children in a family will not care for the +younger, and cheerfully look after them, there can never be so much +freedom and fun to enjoy as these six little Bunkers had. + +Rose was a particularly helpful little girl, and, being eight years old +now, she could assist Mother Bunker a good deal; and she took pride in +so doing. That she was afraid of "thunder strokes" must not be counted +against her. Ordinarily she made the best of everything and was of a +sunny nature. + +The twins, Violet and Fillmore, came next in the group of little +Bunkers. These two had their own individual natures and could never be +overlooked for long in any party. Violet was much given to asking +questions, and she asked so many and steadily that scarcely anybody +troubled to answer her. Her twin, called Laddie by all, had early made +up his mind that the greatest fun in the world was asking and answering +riddles. + +Margy's real name was Margaret, and, as we have seen, Mun Bun had named +himself (just for ordinary purposes) when he was very small. Not that he +was very large now, but he could make a tremendous amount of noise when +he was--or thought he was--hurt, as he was doing on this very occasion +when he and Vi were caught by the crushing-in of the house roof. + +After we got acquainted with the Bunker family at home in Pineville, +Pennsylvania, they all started on a most wonderful vacation which took +them first to the children's mother's mother's house. So, you see, +_that_ story is called "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's." + +From that lovely place in Maine the six little Bunkers went to their +Aunt Jo's, then to Cousin Tom's, afterward to Grandpa Ford's, then to +Uncle Fred's. They had no more than arrived home at Pineville after +their fifth series of adventures, than Captain Ben, a distant relative +of Mother Bunker's, and recently in the war, came along and took the +whole Bunker family down with him to his bungalow at the seashore, the +name of that sixth story of the series being "Six Little Bunkers at +Captain Ben's." + +And the six certainly had had a fine time at Grand View, as the seashore +place was called, until this very September day when an equinoctial +storm had been blowing for twenty-four hours or more and the +lightning-struck tree had fallen upon the roof of the old house in +which the six little Bunkers were playing. + +But now none of the little Bunkers thought it so much fun--no, indeed! +At the rate Vi and Mun Bun were screaming, the accident which held them +prisoners in the attic of the old house seemed to threaten dire +destruction. + +Russ Bunker, when he had recovered his own breath, charged up the +dust-filled stairway and reached the attic in a few bounds. But the +floor boards were broken at the head of the stairs, and almost the first +thing that happened to him when he got up there into the dust and the +darkness--yes, and into the rain that drove through the holes in the +roof!--was that his head, with an awful "tunk!" came in contact with a +broken roof beam. + +Russ staggered back, clutching wildly at anything he could lay his hands +on, and all but tumbled backwards down the stairs again. + +But in clutching for something to break his fall Russ grabbed Vi's curls +with one hand. He could not see her in the dark, but he knew those curls +very well. And he was bound to recognize Vi when the little girl +stammered: + +"What's happened? Did the house fall on my legs, Russ? _Must_ you pull +my hair off to get me out?" + +Mun Bun was bawling all by himself, but near by. He seemed to be quite +as immovable as Vi. And perhaps Russ would have been unable to get out +either of the unfortunates by himself. + +Just then there came a shout of encouragement from outside, and the +rapid pounding of feet. The door below burst open and Daddy Bunker's +welcome voice cried out: + +"Here I am, children! Here I am--and Captain Ben, too! Where are you +all?" + +In the dusky kitchen it was easy enough to count the three little +Bunkers who remained there. But Daddy Bunker was heartily concerned over +the absent ones. + +"Where are Russ and Vi and Mun Bun?" cried Daddy Bunker. + +"They're upstairs--under that old thunder stroke," gasped Margy. "But I +guess they're not all dead-ed yet." + +"I guess not!" exclaimed Captain Ben, who was a very vigorous young man, +being both a soldier and a sailor. "They are all very much alive." + +That was proved by the concerted yells of the three in the attic. Both +men hurried to mount the stairs. The dust had settled to some degree by +this time, and they could see the struggling forms. Russ had almost got +Vi loose, and he had not pulled out her hair in doing so. + +Daddy Bunker saw that Mun Bun was only caught by his clothing. Captain +Ben took Vi from Russ and Daddy Bunker released Mun Bun. Then they all +came hurriedly down the stairs. + +Mun Bun was still weeping wildly. Laddie looked at him in amazement. + +"Why--why," he said, "you're a riddle, Mun Bun." + +"I'm not!" sobbed the littlest Bunker. + +"Yes, you are," said Laddie. "This is the riddle: Why is Mun Bun like a +sprinkling cart?" + +"That is too easy!" laughed Captain Ben, setting Vi down on the floor. +"It's because Mun Bun scatters water so easily out of his eyes." + +They all laughed at that--even Mun Bun himself, only he hiccoughed too. +It did not take much to make the children laugh when the danger was +over. + +"Why did the old thunder stroke have to do that?" asked Vi. "Why did it +pin me down across my legs?" + +Daddy Bunker hurried them all out of the old house. He was afraid it +might fall altogether. + +"And then where should we be?" he asked. "I couldn't go away out West to +Cowboy Jack's and leave my little Bunkers under that old house, could +I?" + +At this Russ and Rose immediately began to be excited--only for a reason +very different from the effects of the storm. They looked at each other +quite knowingly. _That_ was what Daddy Bunker and Mother Bunker were +talking about so earnestly the night before! + +"Oh, Daddy!" burst out Rose, clinging to his hand, "are you going so far +away from us all? Aren't you going to take us to Cowboy Jack's?" + +"Why do they call him that?" asked Vi. "Is he part cow and part boy?" + +But Daddy Bunker replied to Rose's question quite seriously: + +"That is a hard matter to decide. It is a long journey, and you know +school will soon begin at Pineville. And you must not miss school." + +"But, Daddy," said Russ, very gravely, "you know you take us 'most +everywhere you go. It--it wouldn't be fair to Cowboy Jack not to take us +to see him, would it?" + +Mr. Bunker laughed very much at this suggestion, and hurried them all +through the rain toward Captain Ben's bungalow. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SILVER LINING + + +One might think that the accident at the old house would have been +excitement enough for the six little Bunkers for one forenoon. But Russ +and Rose, at least, and soon all the other children, were bubbling with +the thought of Daddy Bunker's going West again to look into a big ranch +property to which one of his customers had recently fallen heir. + +To travel, to see new things, to meet wonderfully nice and kind people, +seemed to be the fate of the six little Bunkers. Russ and Rose were sure +that no family of brothers and sisters ever had so much fun traveling +and so many adventures at the places they traveled to as they did. Russ +and Rose were old enough to read about the adventures of other +children--I mean children outside of nursery books--and so far the +older young Bunkers quite preferred their own good times to any they had +ever read about. + +"Why!" Russ had once cried confidently, "we have even more fun than +Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. Of course we do." + +"Yes. And _they_ had goats," admitted Rose thoughtfully. + +The thought of daddy's going away from them, in any case, would have +excited the children. But the opening of their school had been postponed +for several weeks already, and Russ and Rose, at least, thought they saw +the possibility of their father's taking Mother Bunker and all the +children with him to the Southwest. + +"Only," Russ said gravely, "I don't much care for the name of that man. +He sounds like some kind of a foreign man--and you know how those +foreign men were that built the railroad down behind our house in +Pineville." + +"What makes 'em foreign? Their whiskers?" asked Vi, her curiosity at +once aroused. "Do all foreigners have whiskers? What makes whiskers +grow, anyway? Daddy doesn't have whiskers. Why do other folks?" + +"Mother doesn't have whiskers, either," said Margy gravely. + +"Say! Why?" repeated Violet insistently. + +"Daddy shaves every morning. That is why he doesn't have whiskers," said +Rose, trying to pacify the inquisitive Violet. + +"Well, does mother shave, too?" immediately demanded Vi. "I never saw +her brush. But I've played with daddy's. I painted the front steps with +it." + +"And you got punished for it, you know," said Russ, grinning at her. +"But we were not talking about whiskers--nor shaving brushes." + +"Yes we were," said the determined Vi. "I was asking about them." + +"Is that man father is going to see an _awful_ foreigner, Russ?" Rose +wanted to know. + +"I guess not. Father says he's a nice man. He has met him, he says. But +his name--oh, it's awful!" + +"What _is_ his name?" asked Vi instantly. + +If there was a possible chance of crowding in a question, Vi had it on +the tip of her tongue to crowd in. This was an hour after the "thunder +stroke" had caused such damage to the old house, and Vi was quite her +inquisitive little self again. + +"His name----" said Russ. + +Then he stopped and began to search his pockets. The others waited, but +Violet was not content to wait in silence. + +"What's the matter, Russ? Do you itch?" + +"No, I don't itch," said the boy, with some irritation. + +"Well, you act so," said Vi. "What are you doing then, if you're not +itching?" + +"She means scratching!" exclaimed Rose, but she stared at Russ, too, in +some curiosity. + +"Oh! I know!" cried Laddie. "It's a riddle." + +"What's a riddle?" asked his twin sister eagerly. + +"What Russ is doing," said the little boy. "I know that riddle, but I +can't just think how it goes. Let's see: 'I went out to the woodpile and +got it; when I got into the house I couldn't find it. What was it?'" and +Laddie clapped his hands delightedly to think that he had asked a real +riddle. + +"Oh, I know! I know!" shouted Margy eagerly. + +"You do?" asked Laddie. "What is it, then?" + +"My Black Dinah dolly that I lost somewhere and we never could find." + +"That isn't the whole of that riddle, Laddie," said Russ. "You ought to +say: 'And I had it in my hand all the time.' Then you ask 'What was +it?'" + +"Well, then," said Laddie, rather disappointed to think he had made a +mistake in the riddle after all. "What _was_ it, Russ?" + +"It was a splinter," said Russ, now drawing a scrap of paper from one +pocket. "And here it is----" + +"Not the splinter?" gasped Rose. + +"No. It was this piece of paper I was hunting for. I wasn't scratching, +either. Here it is. This is that foreign man's name." + +"What man's name?" asked Vi, who by this time had forgotten what the +main subject of the discussion was. + +"Cowboy Jack's name!" cried Rose. + +"Has he got more names than that?" asked Vi. "Isn't Cowboy Jack enough +name for him?" + +"His name," said Russ, reading what he had scribbled down on the paper, +"is 'Mr. John Scarbontiskil.' That's foreign." + +"Oh!" gasped Rose. "I shouldn't think Daddy Bunker would want to go to +see a man with a name like that." + +"I don't suppose," said Russ, "that he can help his name being that." + +"Couldn't he make his own name--and make it a better one?" demanded Vi. +"You know, Mun Bun made his name for himself." + +"I could not pronounce that name at all," said Rose to Russ. "I guess, +after all, maybe we'd better not go to that place." + +"What place?" + +"Where daddy is going. To that--that Cowboy Jack's place." + +"Why not?" asked Russ, almost as promptly as Vi might have asked it had +she heard Rose's speech. + +"Because," said Rose, who was a thoughtful girl, "of course they don't +call him Cowboy Jack to his face, and I should never be able to say +Scar--Scar--Scar--whatever it is to him. Never!" + +"Nonsense! You can learn to say anything if you try," declared Russ +loftily. + +"No," sighed Rose, who knew her limitations, "_I_ can't. I can't even +learn to say Con-stan-stan-stan-ple--You know!" + +"Con-stan-ti-no-ple!" exclaimed Russ with emphasis. + +"Yes. That's it," Rose said. "But, anyway, I can't say it." + +"I'd like to know why not?" demanded her brother scornfully. + +"'Cause I get lost in the middle of it," declared Rose, shaking her +head. "It's too long, Russ." + +"Well, 'Mr. John Scarbontiskil' _is_ long," admitted Russ. "But if you +practise from now, right on----" + +"But what is the use of practising if we are not going there with +daddy?" + +"But maybe we'll go," said Russ hopefully. + +"We have got to go to school. I don't mind," sighed Rose. "Only I do so +love to travel about with daddy and mother." + +"You can practise saying it on the chance of our going," her brother +advised. + +But Rose did not really think there was much use in doing that. She said +so. She was not of so hopeful a disposition as Russ. He believed that +"something would turn up" so that the six little Bunkers would be taken +with daddy and mother to the far Southwest. Grandma Bell often spoke of +a "silver lining" to every cloud, and Russ was hoping to see the silver +lining to this cloud of Daddy Bunker's going away. + +At any rate, the fact that Mr. Bunker had to go to Cowboy Jack's (we'll +not call him Mr. Scarbontiskil, either, for it _is_ too hard a name) was +quite established that very afternoon. Daddy received another letter +from his Pineville client, and he at once said to Mother Bunker: + +"That settles it, Amy." Mrs. Bunker's name was Amy. "Golden is +determined that nobody but me shall do the job for him. He offers such a +good commission--plus transportation expenses--that I do not feel that I +can refuse." + +"Oh, Charles," said Mrs. Bunker, "I don't like to have you go so far +away from us. It really is a great way to that town of Cavallo that you +say is the nearest to Cowboy Jack's ranch." + +"I'll take you all home to Pineville first. Then you will not be quite +so far away from me," Daddy Bunker said reflectively. + +So daddy and mother were no more happy at the prospect of his being +separated from the family than were the children themselves. The six +talked about the prospect of daddy's going a good deal. But, of course, +they did not spend all their time bewailing this unexpected separation. +Not at all! There was something happening to the six little Bunkers +almost all the time, and this time was no exception. + +The equinoctial storm seemed to have blown itself out by the next +morning. As soon as the roads were dried up Daddy Bunker said they would +have to leave Captain Ben and start back for Pineville. Meanwhile the +children determined to have all the fun possible in the short time +remaining to them at Grand View. + +Bright and early on this morning appeared Tad Munson. Tad was the +"runaway boy" in a previous story, and all those who have read "Six +Little Bunkers at Captain Ben's" will remember him. He was a very +likable boy, too, and Russ liked Tad particularly. + +"They told me you Bunkers were going home soon, so I asked my father to +let me come over once more to see you," Tad said, by way of greeting. +"There's a lot of things you Bunkers haven't seen about here, I guess. I +know you haven't seen Dripping Rock." + +"What is Dripping Rock?" Vi promptly wanted to know. "What does it +drip?" + +"Not milk, anyway, or molasses," laughed Tad. + +"It drips water, of course," Russ explained. "I have heard of it. You go +up the road past the swamp. I know." + +"That's right," said Tad. "It's not far." + +"I want to go, too, to D'ipping Wock," Mun Bun declared. + +"Of course you do," Rose told him. "And if mother lets us go----" + +Mother did. As long as Tad was along and knew the way, she was sure +nothing would happen to her little Bunkers. At least, nothing worse than +usual. Something was always happening to them, she told daddy, whether +they stayed at home or not. + +"Don't go into the swamp, that is all," said Mother Bunker. + +"Why not?" asked Vi. + +"I know a riddle about a swamp," said Laddie eagerly. "Why is a swamp +like what we eat for breakfast?" + +"Goodness!" cried Rose. "That can't be. I had an egg and two slices of +bacon for breakfast, and that couldn't be anything like a swamp." + +"But you ate something else," cried Laddie delightedly. "You ate mush. +And isn't a swamp just like mush?" + +"Huh! You wouldn't think so if you ever tasted swamp mud," said Tad. + +"But I guess that is a pretty good riddle after all," Russ told the +little boy kindly. "For the mush and the swamp are both soft." + +"And--and mushy," said Margy. "I think that's a very nice riddle, +Laddie. Why do we eat swamps for breakfast?" + +"Goodness! We don't!" exclaimed Rose. "Now, come along. If we are going +to the Dripping Rock, we'd better start." + +It was not far--not even in the opinion of Mun Bun. They took a road +that led right back from the shore, and you really would not have known +the sea was near at all when once you got into that path. For there were +trees on both sides, and for half the way at least there were no open +fields. + +"I hear somebody calling," said Russ suddenly, as he led the way with +Tad. + +"Somebody shouting," said Tad. "I wonder what he wants!" + +"I hear it," cried Rose suddenly. "Is he calling for help?" + +"Hurry up," advised Tad. "I guess somebody wants something, and he wants +it pretty bad." + +"Well," said Russ, increasing his pace, but not so much so as to leave +Mun Bun and Margy very far behind, "if he wants help, of course he wants +it bad. Oh! There's the swamp." + +They came to the opening. There were a few trees here on either side of +the road, which was now made of logs laid down on the soft ground. Grass +grew between the logs. There were pools of water, and other pools of +very black mud with only tufts of tall grass growing between them. + +"Oh!" cried Rose, who had very bright eyes, "I see him!" + +"Who do you see?" demanded Tad, who was turning around and trying to +look all ways at once. + +"There! Can't you see him?" demanded Rose, with growing excitement. "Oh, +the poor thing!" + +Just then an unmistakable "bla-a-at!" startled the other children--even +Tad Munson. He brought his gaze down from the trees into the branches of +which he had been staring. + +"Bla-a-at!" was the repeated cry, which at first the children had +thought had been "Help!" + +"And sure enough," Russ said confidently, "he is saying 'help!' just as +near as he can say it." + +"The poor thing!" sighed Rose again. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHAT WAS STUCK IN THE MUD + + +Russ began to whistle a tune, as he often did when he was puzzled. It +was not that he was puzzled about the thing he saw--and which Rose had +seen first--but at once Russ felt that he must discover a way to get the +blatting object out of the mud. + +"What do you know about that!" cried Tad Munson. "That's John Winsome's +red calf. See! He's sunk clear to his backbone in the mud." + +"Oh, dear me!" cried Rose. "The poor thing!" + +She had said that twice before, but everybody was so excited that none +of them noticed that Rose was repeating herself. In fact, both Vi and +Margy said the very same thing, and in chorus: + +"Oh, the poor thing!" + +"Is that a red calf, Tad Munson?" asked Laddie. "For if it is, it's a +riddle. Its head and its neck and its tail are all splattered with mud." + +"It was a red calf when it went into the swamp, all right," said Tad +with confidence. "I know that calf, all right. And John Winsome told me +only this morning that he had lost it." + +"Who put it in that horrid swamp?" Vi demanded. + +"I guess it just wandered in," said Tad. + +"And it is sinking down right now," Russ tried. "See it?" + +Indeed the poor calf--a well grown animal--was in a very serious plight. +It was eight or ten feet from the edge of the road where the logs were. +And the calf had evidently struggled a good deal and was now quite +exhausted. It turned its head to look at the children and blatted again. + +"Oh, dear!" said Margy, almost in tears, "it is asking us to help it +just as plain as it can." + +"I'm going to run and tell John Winsome--right now I am!" shouted Tad, +and he turned around and ran back along the road they had come just as +fast as he could run. + +But Russ stayed where he was. His lips were still puckered in a whistle +and he was thinking hard. + +"What can we do for the poor calf, Russ?" asked Rose. + +She seemed to think that her brother would think up some way of helping +the mired creature. No knowing how long Tad would be in finding the +owner, and it looked as though the calf was sinking all the time. + +Russ Bunker had quite an inventive mind. The other children were +helpless in this emergency, but he began to see how he could help the +calf stuck in the muddy swamp. He ran to the roadside fence, which was a +good deal broken down just at the edge of the open swamp lands. The +fence rails were so old and dry that Russ could pull them, one at a +time, away from the posts. He dragged the first one to the spot where +the calf was blatting so pitifully. Although these cedar rails had been +split out of logs many years before, they were still very strong. + +"Come on, Rose! You can help drag these rails too," cried Russ, quite +excited by the thought that he might be able to save the calf before Tad +Munson brought help. + +"Oh! what are you going to do? Are you going to burn that poor calf like +the Indians used to burn folks?" asked Vi, who remembered something she +had heard at Uncle Fred's ranch. "You going to burn the calf at the +stake?" + +This was a horrifying thought, but even Laddie, who was very +tender-hearted, was too much excited to think of this. He said to his +twin sister: + +"How silly, Vi! You couldn't burn those old rails on that wet place. The +fire would go right out." + +"Russ won't burn it, or let it drown either," Margy said, with much +confidence in their older brother. + +Meanwhile Russ and Rose were pulling off fence-rails and dragging them +to the edge of the swamp. Then, while Rose brought more, Russ began to +lay the rails on the quivering mire, side by side but about a foot +apart, the ends of the first row of rails being only a few inches from +the side of the calf. + +Having made a foundation of four rails upon the soft muck, Russ began to +lay the next tier across them, thus building a platform. It was a shaky +platform, but he crept out upon it slowly and carefully and the lower +rails did not sink much. + +"Won't you sink down in the mud, too, if you do that, Russ?" asked Vi +curiously. "Won't those old rails get splinters in your hands?" + +"Oh!" cried Laddie, jumping up and down in his excitement, "then you'll +be the riddle, Russ. 'I went out to the woodpile and got it'--you know." + +"Maybe it's a riddle--what I'm going to do for the poor calf when I can +reach him," their brother said. "I know I can get to him; but how can I +pull him up out of the mud?" + +This was a harder question to answer than one of Vi's. The rails did not +sink much under Russ's weight, and he believed he could get within reach +of the calf. But, having reached the animal, what could the boy do? + +"Bla-a-at!" bawled the calf, his smutched head lifted out of the mire. + +"Oh, dear! The poor bossy!" gasped Rose, staggering along with another +rail. "How you going to help him, Russ?" + +"Give me that rail," commanded her brother, standing up gingerly upon +the crisscrossed rails. "I bet I can keep him from sinking any farther, +anyway. And maybe Tad will find his owner before long." + +Russ had just thought of something to do. He balanced himself carefully +and took the last rail from Rose. + +"Oh, Russ!" cried Vi, "your shoes are getting all muddy." + +"Well, I can clean them, can't I?" panted the boy. + +"How can you when you haven't any blacking and brush here?" asked Vi. + +Russ paid her and her question no attention. He had too much to think of +just then. He pointed the rail he held downward and pushed it into the +mire just beyond the far end of the platform he had built. The calf +bawled again, and struggled some more; but Russ knew he was not hurting +the creature, although he could feel the end of the rail scraping down +along the calf's side. + +He pushed down with all his might until at least half the length of the +rail was out of sight. It was poked down right behind the calf's +forelegs. Russ thought that if he could pry up the fore-end of the calf, +the animal could not drown in the mud. + +This is what he tried to do, anyway. And although the calf began to +struggle again, being evidently very much frightened, Russ was able to +force the end of the rail up, and lifted the calf's head and shoulders. + +"Oh, Russ, you're doing it!" cried Rose. + +The other children jumped up and down in their delight, and praised him +too. All but Mun Bun. He didn't say anything, for the very good reason +that he was no longer there to say it! + +Nobody had noticed the little boy for the last few minutes. Mun Bun +always liked to help, and he had first followed Rose to try to pull a +rail off the fence. This was too heavy for Mun Bun, so he had wandered +along the road to find a rail or a stick or something that he could drag +back to help make Russ Bunker's platform. + +None of the others had noticed his absence, and Mun Bun was out of sight +when Russ, with the help of Rose, bore down on the end of the fence +rail far enough to hoist the calf half way out of the mire. + +"Where's Mun Bun?" demanded Rose, looking around. + +"Can you save the calf, Russ?" asked Vi. + +Russ, however, like Rose, was instantly alarmed by the absence of Mun +Bun. A dozen things might happen to the littlest Bunker here in the +swamp. + +"Where is he?" rejoined Russ. He jumped up and the rail began to tip +again, dousing the poor calf into the mire. + +"Don't, Russ!" screamed Rose. "He's going down again!" + +Russ sat down on the fence rail, and the calf came up, bawling +pitifully. It was a very serious problem to decide. If they ran to find +Mun Bun, the calf would be lost. What could Russ Bunker do? + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GOOD-BYE TO GRAND VIEW + + +"Didn't you--any of you--see which way he went?" Rose demanded of the +other children. "Oh! if Mun Bun gets into the swamp----" + +"Of course he won't," said Margy. "He isn't a bossy-calf." + +"Of course he won't," added Laddie. "Mother told us not to, and Mun Bun +will mind mother." + +"Shout for him!" commanded Russ, and raised his own voice to the very +top note in calling Mun Bun's name. + +The chorus of calls brought no response from Mun Bun. Only an old crow +cawed in reply, and of course he knew nothing about Mun Bun or where he +had gone. + +Russ got off the rail again in his excitement, and down went the calf! + +"Oh, you mustn't!" gasped Rose. "You'll drown him." + +"But I guess we've got to find Mun Bun," said Vi. + +Russ, however, had another idea. He was frightened because of the little +boy's disappearance, but he did not want to lose the calf, having +already partly saved him from the mud. + +"You and Laddie, Vi, come here and help Rose hold down the rail," said +Russ. + +"But I must go look for Mun Bun, too!" cried Rose. + +"Wait a minute," said Russ, "and we'll all go and hunt for him." + +Russ had noticed a post of the old fence that had rotted off close to +the ground. It was quite a heavy post, but Russ was strong enough to +drag it to the side of the miry pool where the calf was fixed. He rolled +the post upon the platform, and then on the end of the rail which the +other children were holding down. + +The post did not stay there very firmly at first. It was not perfectly +round and it was gnarled (which means lumpy), and it did not seem to +want to stay in place at all. Russ, however, was very persevering. He +was anxious too, to keep the poor calf from drowning in the mud. And at +length he got the post fixed to suit him. + +"Now get up," Russ told them, and Rose and Vi and Laddie stood up. + +"That fixes it!" cried Laddie, in great excitement. + +"It's all right if the calf doesn't struggle much while we are gone," +said Russ doubtfully. "Which way did Mun Bun go?" + +"He went on ahead, towards that Dripping Rock we started to see," said +Vi. "I saw him start, but I didn't think he was going to run away." + +So the five Bunkers started off hurriedly along the log road through the +swamp, calling for Mun Bun as they went, and hoping he had not got into +real trouble. And he had not come to any harm, although he had wandered +some distance from the swampy pool where the calf was. + +By and by Mun Bun heard them calling, and he called back. But he was so +busy that he did not return. They ran on along the road and at last +around a turn, and there was Mun Bun down on his hands and knees in the +middle of the road, so much interested in what he was looking at that +he did not at first give the others much of his attention. + +"What are you doing, Mun Bun?" cried Rose, first to reach the little +boy. + +"Oh, what's that?" asked Vi, at once curious when she saw the object +before Mun Bun. + +"I dess it's a box," said Mun Bun, looking over his shoulder. "But +sometimes it walks. I'm waiting to see it walk again." + +"A walking box!" shouted Laddie. "I can make a riddle out of that, I +know. When is a box not a box at all?" + +"When it's a turtle!" exclaimed Russ, beginning to laugh. + +"No, no!" said Laddie. "That isn't the answer. When it walks. That is +the answer to _my_ riddle, Russ." + +"That is an awfully funny looking turtle," Rose said. "See how high up +it is." None of them had ever seen a wood tortoise before, and the +box-like, horny shell was not like that of the little mud-turtles in +Rainbow River or the snapping turtle Laddie had found at Uncle Fred's. + +The tortoise was so scared (for Mun Bun had been poking it with a +stick) that its legs and head were drawn into the shell and it refused +to move. Russ did not know but that the tortoise would bite, so he said +they had all better go back to the calf. Mun Bun did not like to give up +his new-found treasure, but he went back, clinging to Rose's hand and +looking back at the tortoise as long as he could see it. + +When they came to the place where the calf had been stuck in the mud +there was Tad Munson and with him a man. The man had already dragged the +calf out to the road and was wiping the mud off with a bunch of grass. + +"I declare, you are smart young ones," said John Winsome. "I would not +have lost this calf for a good deal. I thank you. I never would have got +him out if you hadn't thought of those rails, sonny." + +Russ did not much care about being called "sonny." He said that he might +as well have been called "moony"--and he didn't go mooning about at all! +Older folk were always calling him "young staver" and "chip of the old +block," and things like that. They didn't mean any harm; but of course +Russ, like other boys, did not fancy being called out of name. And +"sonny" did not make the oldest Bunker feel dignified at all. + +"Don't mind, Russ," said Rose in a soft little voice when the man had +led the staggering calf away. "Don't mind if he did call you sonny. I +guess he thinks you are pretty smart just the same. Anyway, we know you +are." + +"I would have helped you get the rails and build that platform if I had +stayed," said Tad Munson. "But I don't know that I would ever have +thought of using the rails to save that poor calf. You see, all I could +think of was running for John Winsome." + +"And I guess that was the first thing to think about," Russ observed, +nodding. "Anyway, it's all over now and the calf is safe again. We might +as well go on to the Dripping Rock and see what it looks like." + +"Oh, yes!" cried Vi. "And find out what it drips." + +They trooped along the road, and, coming to the place where Mun Bun had +so earnestly studied the wood tortoise, the little Bunkers were +surprised to find that the hard-shelled creature had totally +disappeared. + +"Oh!" mourned Mun Bun. "My turkle is gone. Somebody come and took him." + +"No," Rose told the little boy. "He was watching you very slyly, and +when he saw you had gone, he ran away just as fast as he could travel." + +"He needn't have been so scared," said Mun Bun, in disgust. "I wouldn't +have hurt him." + +"But you were poking him with a stick, you know, and he prob'ly thought +you might poke his eyes out. Come on; let's hurry to the Dripping Rock." + +They did this, and Vi, in her curiosity, even got wetted a good deal +with the water that dripped from the rock where the spring welled out of +the ground and spattered over the lip of the stone basin on top of the +big boulder. Ferns grew all about the pool of water below, and Rose and +Vi and Margy gathered a lot of these to carry home to Mother Bunker. + +"I want to pick ferns, I do!" cried Mun Bun. "I want to take mother the +biggest bunch of all." + +He worked so hard at pulling the ferns that he tired himself out. And +that and the walk to the Dripping Rock and the excitement about the +calf in the mud, added to the walk back to Captain Ben's bungalow, made +Mun Bun very tired and not a little cross when he got home. + +"I want to give these ferns to mother. And I want my face and hands +washed. And I want bwead and milk and go to bed right away!" was Mun +Bun's declaration. + +Although it was only lunch time, they let him have his way, for Mun Bun +often took a nap in the early afternoon and mother said it made him as +bright as a new penny when he woke up again. + +So it was the others, and not Mun Bun, who told their elders about the +calf stuck in the mud. + +The end of their stay at Captain Ben's bungalow had now come, and +although all the little Bunkers were sorry to leave Captain Ben and +remembered with delight all the fun they had had here at Grand View, +home at Pineville beckoned them. + +"Even if we have to go to school," said Russ, "it will seem like +visiting at first. Don't you think so? Almost as though our vacation +kept on--because we haven't been home much." + +"Well," sighed Rose, to whom he spoke, "I sort of like to go to school. +But if father goes 'way out West to that Cowboy Jack's, and without us," +and she sighed again, "it will seem awfully hard, Russ." + +"Maybe something will happen!" cried the oldest little Bunker suddenly. + +But just what did happen, even Russ Bunker could not possibly have +imagined. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE COAL STRIKE + + +Mother, of course, took Mun Bun and Margy back to Pineville by train. It +was much too long a journey for them in an automobile. Mr. Bunker, with +the four bigger little Bunkers (doesn't that sound funny?) drove in a +motor-car and spent one night's sleep on the way at a very pleasant +country inn. + +They did not have quite so much excitement here as they had at the +farmhouse on their way down to the shore. But Rose and Vi had a room all +to themselves, and felt themselves quite grown-up travelers. Russ and +Laddie were in a second bed in Mr. Bunker's room, and in the night +Laddie must have had a very exciting dream because he began to kick +about and thrash with his arms and woke up Russ very suddenly. + +"Get off me!" cried Russ. "Stop!" + +Then he became wide awake, sat up, and saw that it was not a dog jumping +all over him, as he had supposed, but his brother. + +"Why, Laddie!" he exclaimed, shaking the younger boy. "If you don't stop +I'll have to get out and sleep on the floor." + +"Oh!" gasped Laddie. "Am I sleeping?" + +"Well, you're not now, I guess. But you were sleeping--and kicking, +too." + +"Oh!" said Laddie again. "I thought that old calf was pulling me down +into the mud to take a bath. That--that must be a riddle, Russ." + +"What's a riddle?" asked his brother, yawning. + +"When is a dream not a dream?" asked Laddie promptly. + +"I--ow!--don't know," yawned Russ. + +"When you wake up," declared Laddie with conviction. + +But Russ did not answer. He had snuggled down into his pillow and was +asleep again. + +"Well--anyway," muttered Laddie, "I guess that wasn't a very good riddle +after all." + +They got home to Pineville the next day, and as the automobile rolled +into the Bunker yard mother and Norah, the cook, besides Mun Bun and +Margy, were in the doorway. The two little folks at once ran screaming +into the yard. + +"There's a strike!" cried out Margy. + +"You tan't go to school!" added Mun Bun. + +"What do you mean--strike?" asked Russ wonderingly. + +"That old thunder struck us. That's enough," said Rose, harking back to +their exciting time in the old house at the seashore. + +"Who got struck?" asked Violet. "Did it hurt them--like it did Mun Bun +and me when the tree fell on us?" + +"It's a coal strike," said Margy. "And the school can't have any coal." + +Neither Rose nor Russ just understood this. What had a coal strike to do +with their going to school? + +But they found out all about it after a time. Something quite exciting +had happened in Pineville while they had been down at Grand View. Of +course, it happened in quite a number of other places at the same time; +but only as the coal strike affected their home town did it matter at +all to the six little Bunkers. + +Daddy Bunker had plenty of coal in the cellar against the coming of cold +weather when the furnace should be started. But everybody was not as +fortunate--or as wise--as Daddy Bunker. + +And in the school bins no coal had been placed early in the season. +Suddenly the delivery of coal in cars to Pineville was stopped. The coal +dealers in the town had no coal to deliver, although they had sold a +great deal of it for delivery. + +Frost had come. Indeed, the flowers and plants in the gardens were +already blackened by the touch of Jack Frost's scepter. That meant that +soon it would be so cold that little boys and girls could not sit in the +big rooms of the schoolhouse unless there were warm fires to send the +steam humming through the pipes and radiators. + +"Here we are, three weeks late for school already, and no likelihood of +coal coming into the town for another month. Of course there will be no +school," Mother Bunker said decidedly. "I should not dare let the +children go in any case unless the fires were built." + +"Quite right," said Daddy Bunker. "And I presume the other people will +feel the same about their children. School must be postponed again." + +"Oh, bully!" cried Russ. + +He shouted it out so loud that the older folks, as well as the children, +looked at him in some amazement. + +"What is bully?" asked Vi. "Do you mean a coal strike is bully? Why +can't we have coal to burn? Who has got our coal?" + +Nobody gave her questions much attention, which of course was not +unusual. But Daddy Bunker began to laugh. + +"I can see what is working in Russ's mind," he said. "You reason from +the cause of a lack of coal, to an effect that you need not go to +school?" + +"I--I don't mind going to school," Rose said, a little doubtfully but +looking at her elder brother. + +"And I don't mind, either," said Russ promptly. "Only daddy is going to +that Cowboy Jack's. And if we can't go to school for a month, why can't +we go with daddy? We might as well." + +"Oh! Oh!" cried the other children in chorus, seeing very plainly now +what Russ had meant by saying the coal strike was "bully." + +"Perhaps you are taking too much for granted," Mother Bunker said +soberly. "Still, Charles, maybe I had better not unpack our trunks quite +yet?" + +"I'll see what the outlook is to-morrow morning," said Daddy Bunker +quite soberly. "Anyway, I shall not start for the Southwest until day +after to-morrow. Will that give you time, if----?" + +"Oh, yes," said Mother Bunker, who had become by this time an expert in +making quick preparations for leaving home. "Norah and Jerry will get on +quite well here." + +This was enough to set the six little Bunkers in a ferment. At least, to +put their minds in a ferment. They were so excited and so much +interested in the possibility of going away again that they could not +"settle," as Norah said, to their ordinary pursuits. + +Even Rose had by this time decided that she would be able perhaps to +pronounce the name of the man Daddy Bunker was going to see--Mr. John +Scarbontiskil. + +"And, anyway," she told Russ, "maybe I won't have to talk to him much." + +"You needn't mind that," said Russ kindly. "Daddy says everybody calls +him Cowboy Jack. Daddy has met him and likes him, and he told me that +Cowboy Jack likes children, although he has none of his own." + +"Why hasn't he?" demanded Vi. "Don't they have little boys and girls +down there on the ranch where he lives?" + +"He hasn't got any," said Russ. "So he likes other people's children." + +[Illustration: RUSS AND LADDIE GOT OUT THEIR COWBOY AND INDIAN SUITS. + +_Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's._ (_Page 54_)] + +Russ and Laddie were very busy getting out their cowboy and Indian suits +and having Norah mend them. Of course they would want to dress like +other people did in the Southwest. + +The coal strike in western Pennsylvania really did send the six little +Bunkers off to the Southwest almost as soon as they had returned from +the seashore and their visit to Captain Ben. + +Daddy came home the next noon and said that coal enough to supply the +Pineville school might not arrive before November. At least, there would +be four full weeks before school could safely open. + +"We might as well make a long holiday of it, Charles," said Mother +Bunker, quite complacently. + +For she, too, liked to travel, and had, by now, got used to journeying +about with the children. Russ and Rose were so helpful, too, that a trip +to Cavallo did not seem such a huge undertaking after all. + +"Shall we take our bathing suits, Mother?" asked Rose. + +"No bathing suits this time, for we are not going to the seashore," +declared Mother Bunker. + +But in repacking what few things had been unpacked there were two things +forgotten. The children really did not have time to "count up" and see +if they had all their most precious possessions with them. + +It was after they were on the train the following morning, and Pineville +station, with Norah and Jerry waving good-bye on the platform, was out +of sight, that Rose suddenly discovered a lack that made her cry out in +earnest. + +"Oh! Oh! I've lost it!" she said. + +"What you lost?" asked Vi. + +"My watch!" gasped Rose. + +"Oh, dear me! Your nice new wrist watch?" asked Mother Bunker +admonishingly. + +"Yes, ma'am," sighed Rose. "I--I haven't got it." + +"Oh, my!" cried Laddie suddenly. + +He was fumbling at his scarf and trying to look at it by pulling it out +to its full length and squinting down his nose at its pretty pattern. + +"And what's the matter with you, Laddie?" asked Daddy Bunker. "What have +you lost?" + +"Oh, my!" said Laddie, quite as dolefully as Rose had spoken. "I--I +don't see my new stick-pin. It isn't here. I--I just guess I have lost +it, too." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SOUP JUGGLER + + +Rose was almost in tears when she found that her watch was lost. But +although Laddie felt very bad about his missing stick-pin, he would not +cry. Just the same, he did not feel as though he could make a riddle out +of it. + +"Now, Rose, and you, Laddie," said Mother Bunker admonishingly, as she +seated them before her in one of the double seats of the Pullman car in +which they had their reservations, "I want to know all about how you +came to forget the watch and the pin--and just where you forgot them?" + +Although Mother Bunker was usually very cheerful and patient with the +children, this was a serious matter. Carelessness and inattention were +faults that Mother Bunker was always trying to correct. For those two +faults, as she pointed out so frequently, led often to much trouble, as +in this case. The loss of the wrist watch and the stick-pin could not be +passed over lightly. + +Laddie shook his head very sorrowfully. "That _is_ a riddle, Mother," he +said. "I can forget things so easy that I forget how I forget them." + +But Rose was thinking very hard, and she broke out with: + +"Maybe I never had it there at all!" + +"Where?" asked Mrs. Bunker, while the other children stood in the aisle +or knelt on the seat behind to listen at the conference. "Where didn't +you have it?" + +"At home, Mother. I--I guess I haven't seen that watch since we were at +Captain Ben's." + +"Oh!" shouted Laddie. "That is just it! I left my stick-pin at the +bungalow. I left it sticking in that cushion on the bureau in that room +where Russ and Mun Bun and I slept. Of course I did." + +"Are you sure, Laddie?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "I remember that I did not go +into that room to see if anything was left. I should have done so, but +we were in such a hurry." + +"My rememberer is all right now," declared Laddie, with conviction. +"That is where I left the pin." + +"And you, Rose?" asked their mother. + +"I--I don't know for sure," admitted Rose. "I can't remember where I had +the watch last--or when I wore it last. But I do not believe I had it at +all when we came home to Pineville." + +"Well, Laddie is positive, and I suspect that you were quite as careless +as he was," Mrs. Bunker said. "You should not be, Rose, for you are +older." + +"Oh, Mother! I am so sorry," cried Rose. "Don't you suppose we'll ever +see my watch and Laddie's pin again?" + +"We will write a letter to Captain Ben at once," said Mrs. Bunker, +getting the writing pad and fountain pen out of her bag. "He has not +left Grand View, and he may have already found them both. But, of +course, we cannot be sure." + +"He would know they belonged to Rose and Laddie, if he found them," said +Russ, trying to comfort the others. + +"Yes. If he cleans up the house he might find them. But it is likely +that he will hire somebody to do that, and we cannot be sure that the +person cleaning up is honest." + +"Oh, how mean! To steal Rose's watch and Laddie's pin!" cried Russ. + +"What makes them steal, Mother?" queried Vi. + +"Because they have not been taught that other people's possessions are +sacred," said Mrs. Bunker gravely. "You know, I tell all you children +not to touch each other's toys or other things without permission." + +"Well!" ejaculated Vi, "Laddie took my book." + +"I didn't mean to keep it," cried her twin at once. "And, anyway, it +wasn't a sacred book. It was just a story book." + +"Stealing is an intention to defraud," explained their mother, smiling a +little. "But Vi's book was just as sacred, or set apart, to her +possession as anything could be." + +"I--I thought sacred books were like the Bible and the hymn book," +murmured Laddie wonderingly. + +Which was of course quite so. It took Laddie some time, he being such a +little boy, to understand that it was the fact of possession that was +"sacred" rather than the article possessed. + +However, Mother Bunker wrote the letter to Captain Ben, asking him to +hunt all about the bungalow for both the wrist watch Rose had lost and +the stick-pin Laddie was so confident now that he had left sticking in +the cushion on the bureau in the bedroom. She also wrote a letter to +Norah asking the cook to look for the lost articles. + +"Now what will you do with them?" asked Vi, referring to the letters. + +"Mail them," replied Mother Bunker. + +"How will you mail them? Is there a post-box in the car?" + +"No. But we will find a way of getting them into the mails," her mother +assured the inquisitive Violet. + +"I know!" cried Russ. "I saw the mailsack hanging on the hook at the +railroad station down on the coast, and the train came along and grabbed +it off with another hook." + +"That is getting the mail on to the train," said Vi promptly. "But how +do they get it off?" + +When Mrs. Bunker had finished writing the letters and had sealed and +addressed the envelopes she satisfied Vi's curiosity, as well as that of +the other children, by giving the letters and a dime to the colored +porter, who promised to mail them at the first station at which the +train stopped. + +Then they all trooped into the dining car for dinner, where daddy had +already secured two tables for his party. They had a waiter all to +themselves, and the children thought that he was a very funny man. In +the first place, he was very black, and when he smiled (which was almost +all the time) he displayed so many and such very white teeth that Mun +Bun and Margy could scarcely eat their dinner properly, they looked so +often at the waiter. + +He was a colored man who liked children too. He said he did, and he +laughed loudly when Vi asked him questions, although he couldn't answer +all her questions any better than other people could. + +"Why is he called a waiter?" Vi wanted to know. "For he doesn't wait at +all. He is running back and forth to the kitchen at the end of the car +all the time." + +"That's a riddle," declared her twin soberly. "'When is a waiter not a +waiter?'" + +"You'll have to answer that one yourself, Laddie," said Daddy Bunker, +laughing. + +"When he's a runner," Laddie said promptly. "Isn't that a good riddle?" + +"And he juggles dishes almost as good as that juggler we saw at the +show," Russ declared. + +"He must have almost as much skill as a juggler to serve his customers +in this car," said Mrs. Bunker, watching the man coming down the aisle +as the train sped around a sharp curve. + +"Oh! Look there!" cried Rose, who was likewise facing the right way to +see the waiter's approach. + +The smiling black man was coming with a soup toureen balanced on one +hand while he had other dishes on a tray balanced on his other hand. The +car swayed so that the waiter began to stagger as though he were on the +deck of a ship in a heavy sea. + +"Oh! He's going!" sang out Russ. + +The waiter jerked to one side, and almost dropped the soup toureen. Then +he pitched the other way and his tray hit against one of the diners at +another table. + +"Look out what you're doing!" cried the man whom the tray had struck. + +"Yes, sah! Yes, sah!" panted the waiter, and he tried to balance his +tray. + +But there was the soup toureen slipping from his other hand. He had +either to drop the tray or the soup. Each needed the grasp of both his +hands to secure it, and the waiter, losing his smile at last and +uttering a frightened shout, made a last desperate attempt to retain +both burdens. + +"There he goes!" gasped Russ again. + +"I guess he _is_ a soup juggler," declared Laddie, staring with all his +might. "He's got it!" + +After all, the waiter showed wisdom in making his choice as long as a +choice had to be made. Even Daddy Bunker, when he could stop laughing, +voiced his approval. The tray and the viands on it flew every-which-way. +But the waiter caught the hot soup toureen in both hands. It was so hot +that he could only balance it first in one hand and then the other while +the train finished rounding that curve. + +"My head an' body!" gasped the poor waiter. "I done circulated de +celery an' yo' watah glasses, suah 'nough. But I done save mos' of de +soup," and he set the toureen down with a thump in front of Daddy +Bunker. + +The steward came running with a very angry countenance, and the people +who had been spattered by the water sputtered a good deal. But Daddy +Bunker, when he could recover from his laughter, interceded for the +"soup juggler," and the incident was passed off as an accident. + +When daddy paid his bill and tipped the very much subdued waiter, Laddie +tugged at his father's sleeve and whispered: + +"What is it, Son?" asked Mr. Bunker, stooping down to hear what the +little boy whispered. + +"Ask him if he will juggle the soup again if we come in here to eat?" + +But Mr. Bunker only laughed and herded his flock back into the other +car. The children, however, thought the incident very funny indeed, and +they hoped to see the juggling waiter again when they ate their next +meal in the dining car. + +Mother Bunker had brought a nicely packed basket for supper (Nora +O'Grady had made the sandwiches and the cookies) and she sent daddy +into the buffet car for milk and tea. + +"The children get just as hungry on the train as they do when they are +playing all day long out-of-doors," she told daddy. "But they must not +eat too much while we are traveling. And I have to shoo the candy boy +away every half hour." + +The boy who sold magazines and candy interested Russ and Laddie very +much. Russ thought that he might become a "candy butcher" when he grew +up, although at first he had decided to be a locomotive engineer. + +"It must be lots nicer to sell candy than to work an engine," Laddie +said. "You get your hands all oil in an engine." + +"Where does the oil come from?" asked Vi, who had not asked a question +since she had seen the waiter "juggle" the soup toureen. "What does an +engine have oil for? Do they keep it in a cruet, like that cruet on the +table in the hotel we stopped at coming up from Grand View?" + +And perhaps she asked even more questions, but these are all we have +time to repeat right now. For evening had come, and soon the little +Bunkers would be put to bed. Although they had two sections of the +sleeping car, there was none too much room when the porter let down the +berths and hung the curtains for them. + +Besides, even after the little folks had all got quiet, peace did not +reign for long in that sleeping car. The very strangest thing happened. +Even Russ couldn't have invented it. + +But I will have to tell you about it in the next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AN ALARM AND A HOLD-UP + + +Of course, the six little Bunkers were just ordinary children, although +they sometimes had extraordinary adventures. And confinement for only a +few hours in a Pullman car had made them very restless. It was +impossible for them always to keep quiet, and their running up and down +the aisles, and their exclamations about what they saw, sometimes +annoyed other passengers just a little. + +Most of the passengers in this car were people, fortunately, who liked +children and could appreciate how difficult it was for the six to be +always on their best behavior. And the passengers could not but admire +the way in which Daddy and Mother Bunker controlled the exuberance of +the six. + +But there was one man who had scowled at the little Bunkers almost from +the very moment they had boarded the train at Pineville. That man +seemed to say to himself: + +"Oh, dear! here is a crowd of children and they are going to annoy me +dreadfully." + +And, of course, as he expected to be annoyed, there was scarcely +anything the Bunkers did or said but what did annoy him. He was a very +fat man, and the car was sometimes too warm for him, and he was always +complaining to the porter about something or other, and altogether he +was a very miserable man indeed on that particular journey. + +Maybe he was a nice man at home. But it is doubtful if he had any +children of his own, and probably nobody's children would have suited +him at all! Mun Bun and Margy made friends with almost everybody in the +car but the fat man. He would not even look at Mun Bun when the little +fellow staggered along the car, from seat to seat, and looked smilingly +up into the fat man's red face. + +"Go away!" said the fat man to Mun Bun. + +Mun Bun's eyes grew round with wonder at the man's cross speech. He +could not understand it at all. He looked at the fat man in a very +puzzled way, and then went back to Mother Bunker's seat. + +"Muvver," he said soberly, "do you got pep'mint?" + +"I think you have eaten all the candy that is good for you now, Mun +Bun," said Mother Bunker. + +"No," said Mun Bun earnestly. "Not tandy. Pep'mint for ache," and he +rubbed himself about midway of his body very suggestively. + +"Mun Bun! are you ill?" demanded his mother anxiously. "Are you in pain, +you poor baby?" + +He explained then that he did not need the "pep'mint"; but knowing that +Mother Bunker sometimes gave it to him when he had pain, he said he +thought the man up the aisle would like some for the same reason. + +"Better ask him," suggested Daddy Bunker, who had noted the unhappy face +of the fat man. + +Mun Bun did this. He asked the man very politely if he needed +"pep'mint." But all the cross passenger said was: + +"Go on away! You are a nuisance!" + +So Mun Bun went back to daddy and mother in rather a subdued way, for +he was not used to being treated so. Mun Bun liked to make friends +wherever he went. + +Perhaps the fat man was the only person in the car who was glad when the +Bunker children went to bed. He went into the smoking room while his own +berth was being made up, and when he came back to the berths, daddy and +mother, as well as most of the other passengers, had retired. The car +was soon after that pretty quiet. + +Russ and Laddie were in the upper berth over daddy and Mun Bun. The boys +in the upper berth had been asleep for some little time when Russ woke +up--oh, quite wide awake! + +There was something going on that he could not understand. Whether this +mysterious something had awakened him or not, Russ lay straining his +ears to catch a repetition of the sound. Then it came--a sound that made +the boy "creep" all over it was so shuddery! + +"Laddie! Laddie!" he whispered, nudging the boy next to him. "Don't you +hear it?" + +Laddie was not easily awakened. When Laddie went to sleep it was, as the +children say, "for keeps." Russ had to punch him with his elbow more +than once before the smaller boy awakened. + +"Oh, oh! Is it morning?" murmured Laddie. + +"Listen!" hissed Russ right in his ear. "That man's being +mur--murdered!" + +"Mur--murdered?" quavered Laddie in response. "You--you tell daddy about +it, Russ Bunker. Don't you tell me. I don't believe he is, anyway. Who's +mur--murderin' him?" + +"I don't know who's doing it," admitted Russ, shaking as much as Laddie +was. + +"How do you know it's--it's being done?" repeated Laddie, his doubt +growing as he became more fully awake. + +"He says so. He says so himself. And if he says he's being murdered, he +ought to know--Oh!" + +Again the doleful sound reached their ears, this time Laddie hearing as +well as Russ the moaning of a voice which uttered a muffled cry of +"Mur-r-rder!" + +"There! What did I tell you?" gasped Russ. "I'm--I'm going to tell +daddy." + +"Wait for me! Wait, Russ Bunker! I'm going with you," Laddie cried. "I +don't want to stay here and be mur--murdered, too!" + +That was an awful word, anyway. Russ crept over the edge of the berth at +the foot and dropped down behind the curtain. Laddie was right behind +him, and in fact came down first upon Russ's shoulders and then slipped +to the floor of the car. + +Before they could get inside daddy's curtain--a place which spelled +safety to their disturbed imaginations--they heard the moaning voice +again groan: + +"Mur-r-rder!" + +It was an awful choking cry--just like a hen squawked when Jerry Simms +grabbed it by the neck and had his hand on the hen's windpipe! + +"He's mur--murderin' him all right," chattered Laddie, tugging at Russ's +pajama jacket. "Are--are you going to stop it, Russ?" + +Russ had no idea of going himself to the rescue of the victim; he had +only thought of waking daddy. But now he put his head outside the +curtain and looked into the narrow aisle of the sleeping car. The first +thing he saw was the colored porter, his cap on awry, his eyes rolling +so that their whites were very prominent, stalking up the aisle in a +crouching attitude with the little stool he sometimes sat on in the +vestibule gripped by one leg as a weapon. + +"It's the porter!" whispered Russ huskily. + +"Is--is he being mur--murdered?" stuttered Laddie. + +"He--he looks more as though he was going to do the mur-murdering," +confessed Russ. + +Laddie would not look; but Russ could not take his eyes off the +approaching porter. The colored man crept nearer, nearer--and then +suddenly he snatched away the curtain almost directly across the aisle +from where the two little Bunkers stood. + +There was nobody in that lower berth but the fat man before mentioned! +He lay on his back with his knees up, his face very red, his eyes +tightly closed. Again there issued from his lips the stifled cry of +"Mur-r-rder!" + +"Fo' de lan's sake!" exclaimed the porter, dropping his stool and +grabbing the fat passenger by the shoulder. "I suah 'nough thunk +somebody was bein' choked to deaf. Wake up, Mistah White Man! Ain't +nobody a-murderin' of yo' but yo'self." + +The fat man's eyes opened wide at that and he glared around. He saw the +face of the porter at last and blinked his eyes for a moment. Then he +sighed. + +"I--I guess I was asleep. Must have been dreaming," he stammered +gruffly. + +"Say, Mistah!" the porter replied, "if yo' sleep like dat always, you +bettah have a car by yo'self. For yo' ain't goin' to let nobody else +sleep in peace. Turn over! Yo's on your back." + +Russ and Laddie could only stare, and some of the other passengers began +to open their curtains and ask questions of the porter. The fat man +grabbed his own curtain away from the colored man and quickly shut +himself in again. + +"All right! All right!" said the porter, picking up his stool and going +back to his place. "Ain't nobody killed yet. Guess we goin' to have +peace now fo' a while." + +Daddy Bunker awoke too and sent his little folks back to bed, and Russ +and Laddie did not wake up again till broad daylight. They had to tell +the other little Bunkers before breakfast about what had happened; but +they never saw the fat man again, for he left the train at a station +quite early. + +There were other things to interest the little Bunkers. In the first +place, it began to rain soon after they got up. A rainy day at home was +no great cross for the children to bear. There was always the attic to +play in. But on the train, with the rain beating against the windows and +not much to see as the train hurried on, the children began to grow +restless. + +It was reported that the heavy rains ahead of them had done some damage +to the railroad, and the speed of the train was reduced until, by the +middle of the forenoon, it seemed only to creep along. The conductor, +who came through the car once in a while, told them that there were +"washouts" on the road. + +"What's washouts?" demanded Vi. "Is it clothes on clotheslines, like +Norah's washlines? Why don't they take the wash in when it rains so?" + +She really had to be told what "washout" meant, or she would have given +daddy and mother no peace at all. And the other children were interested +in the possibility that the train might be halted by a big hole in the +ground where the tracks ought to be. + +Every time the train slowed down they were eagerly on tiptoe to see if +the "washout" had come. They were finally steaming through a deep cut in +the wooded hills when, of a sudden, the brakes were applied and the +train came to a stop with such a shock that the little Bunkers were all +tumbled together--although none of them was hurt. + +"Here's the washout! Here's the washout!" cried Laddie eagerly. + +"Can we go look out of the door, Mother?" asked Rose. + +For some of the passengers were standing in the vestibule and the door +was open. Daddy got up and went with the children, all clamorous to see +the hole in the ground that had halted the train. + +But it was not a hole at all. It was something so different from a hole, +or a washout as the children had imagined that to be, that when they saw +it they were very much excited and surprised. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE BIG ROCK THAT FELL DOWN + + +"Where is it? Let me see it!" was Vi's cry, as she rushed out into the +vestibule ahead of Daddy Bunker and her brothers and sisters. + +Vi was so curious that she thought she just had to be first. Daddy +Bunker tried to restrain her, for he was afraid she would fall down the +car steps and out upon the cinder path beside the rails. And although it +had now ceased raining, she might easily have been hurt, if not made +thoroughly wet. + +"Oh, Vi's going to see the washout first!" cried Laddie, who did not +like to play second when his twin wanted to be first. + +"Now, wait!" commanded daddy. "You shall all see what there is to +see----" + +"I want to see the wash up on the clotheslines," said Mun Bun, breaking +into his father's speech. + +"Well, if you will be patient," Mr. Bunker said, smiling, "I think we'll +all have a fair view of the wonder. But the 'washup' isn't going to be +just what you think it is, Mun Bun." + +Nor was it just what any of the six little Bunkers thought it would +be--as I said before. Daddy went down the steps first and then turned +and "hopped" the children down to the cinder path, one after the other. +Only Russ, who came last, jumped down without any assistance. + +It was still very wet and all about were shallow puddles. But the rain +itself had ceased. In places, especially in the ditches alongside the +railroad bed, the water had torn its way through the earth, leaving it +red and raw. And big stones had been unearthed in the banks of the +ditches and in some cases carried some distance away from where they had +formerly lain. + +"Why, that isn't a hole in the ground at all!" cried Laddie, first to +realize that what had made the train stop was something different from +what they had all expected. + +"Oh!" shouted Violet. "It's a great, big rock that's fallen down the +hill." + +"Well," said Russ, soberly, "I guess it's a washout at that. For the +rain must have washed it out of the hillside. See! There is the hole up +there in the bank." + +"You are right, Russ," said Daddy Bunker. "It is a washout, and it will +take a long time to get that big rock off of the track so that the train +can go on." + +The rock that had fallen completely blocked the west-bound track, as +daddy said. And a good deal of earth and gravel had fallen with it so +that the rails of the east-bound track were likewise buried. There was +already a gang of trackmen clearing away this gravel; but, as the +children's father had told them, it would take many hours to remove the +great boulder. + +"Suppose our train had been going by when the rock fell?" suggested Russ +to Rose. + +"What would the rock have done to us?" asked Vi, who heard her brother +say this. + +"I guess it would have done something," replied Russ solemnly. + +"It would have pushed us right off the track," declared Rose, nodding +her head. + +"And what would it have done then?" demanded Vi. + +"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained her twin suddenly. + +"Wish I wouldn't what?" + +"Ask so many questions." + +"Why not?" + +"Why, I was just thinking of a riddle about that big rock; and now it's +all gone," sighed Laddie. + +"No, it isn't gone at all," Vi said wonderingly. "Daddy says it will +take hours to move it." + +"Oh! That old rock!" said Laddie. "I meant my riddle. That's all gone." + +"I guess it wasn't a very good riddle, then, if it went so easy," said +the critical Vi. "Oh, look there!" + +"At what?" exclaimed her twin, following Vi to the fence beside the +railroad bed. + +"See that path, Laddie? I guess we could climb right up that hill and +see down into that hole where the big rock washed out." + +"So we could," agreed the boy. "Let's." + +Daddy and the other children were some yards away, but in plain sight. +Indeed, they would be in sight if Vi and Laddie climbed to the very top +of the bank. It did not seem to either of the twins that they needed to +ask permission to climb the path when daddy was so near and could see +them by just looking up. So they hopped over the low fence and began to +climb. + +It was an easy path, almost all of stone, and the rain had washed it +clean. It was great fun to be so high above the railroad and look down +upon the crowd of passengers from the stalled train and upon the +workmen. The two explorers could see into the hole washed in the +hillside, and it was much deeper than it had looked to be when they +stood below. There was a puddle of muddy water in it, too. + +"Guess we don't want to fall into that," said Laddie, and Vi did not +even ask why not. "Let's go on to the top. We can see farther." + +Vi was quite willing to go as far as her twin did. And there really +seemed to be no reason why they should not go. It would be hours before +that rock could be moved, and of course the train could not go on until +that was done. + +They reached the top of the bank. Here was a great pasture which sloped +away to a piece of woods. Although the ground was wet, it had stopped +raining some time before and a strong wind was blowing. This wind had +dried the grass and weeds and the twins did not wet their feet. And---- + +"Oh!" squealed Vi, starting away from the edge of the bank on a run. +"See the flowers! Oh, see the flowers, Laddie!" + +Laddie saw the flowers quite as soon as she did, but he did not shout +about it. He followed his sister, however, with much promptness, and +both of them began to pick the flowering weeds that dotted the pasture. + +"We'll get a big bunch for mother. Won't she be glad?" went on Vi. + +Mother Bunker was supposed to have a broad taste in flowers, and every +blossom the children found was brought for her approval. In a minute the +twins were so busy gathering the blossoms of wild carrots and other +weeds that they forgot the train, and the big rock that had fallen, and +even the fact that they had climbed the bank without permission. + +At length Laddie stood up to look abroad over the great field. Perhaps +he had pulled the blossoms faster than Vi. At any rate, he had already a +big handful. Suddenly he caught sight of something that interested him +much more than the flowers did. + +There was a stone fence near by which divided the fields. And on the +fence something flashed into view and ran along a few yards--something +that interested the boy immensely. + +"Oh, look, Vi!" cried Laddie. "There's a chippy!" + +"What chippy? Who's chippy?" demanded Vi excitedly. + +"There he goes!" shouted Laddie. "A chipmunk!" + +He dropped his bunch of blossoms and started for the stone fence. Vi +caught a glimpse of the whisking chipmunk, and she dropped her flowers +and ran after her brother. + +"Oh, let me catch him! Let me catch him!" + +The chipmunk ran along the stone fence a little way, and then looked +back at the excited children. He did not seem much frightened. Perhaps +he had been chased by children before and knew that he was more than +their match in running. + +At any rate, that chipmunk drew Laddie and Vi on to the very edge of the +woods, and then, with a flirt of its tail, it disappeared into a hole +and they could not find him. + +Laddie and Vi were breathless by that time, and they had to sit down and +rest. They looked back over the field. It was a long way to the brink of +the bank from which they could see the train and the passengers. + +"I--I guess we'd better go back," said Laddie. + +"And mother's flowers!" exclaimed Vi. "Do you know where you dropped +them?" + +"I dropped mine just where you dropped yours, I guess," returned her +brother. + +"We'll go pick them up. Come on." + +They were both tired when they started to trudge back up the hill. And +just as they started they heard a long blast of a whistle, and then two +short blasts. + +"What do you suppose that is?" asked Vi. + +"It's the engine. Oh, Vi! maybe it's going to start without us," and +Laddie began to run, tired as he was. + +"Wait for me, Laddie! It can't go--you know it can't. The big rock is in +the way." + +But they were both rather frightened, and they did not stop to find +their flowers. The possibility that the train might go off and leave +them filled the two children with alarm. They ran on as hard as they +could, and Vi fell down and soiled her hands and her dress. + +She was beginning to cry a little when Laddie came back for her and took +her hand. He was frightened, too; but he would not show it by +crying--not then, anyway. + +"Come on, Vi," he urged. "If that old train goes on with daddy and +mother and the rest, I don't know what we _shall_ do!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +WHERE ARE THE TWINS? + + +The wrecking crew with their big derrick and other tools had not yet +arrived in the cut where the stalled west-bound train, on which rode the +Bunker family, had stopped. But the section gang had shoveled away the +dirt and gravel from the east-bound track. + +Russ and Rose and Margy and Mun Bun had found plenty to interest them in +watching the shovelers and in listening to the men passengers talking +with daddy and some of the train crew. Finally Mun Bun expressed a +desire to go back into the car, and Rose went with him. As they were +climbing the steps into the vestibule a brakeman came running forward +along the cinder path beside the tracks. + +"All aboard! Back into the cars, people!" he shouted. "We're going to +steam back. Get aboard!" + +Russ and Margy being the only Bunker children in sight, Mr. Bunker +"shooed" them back to the Pullman car. He saw Rose and Mun Bun +disappearing up the high steps, and he presumed Laddie and Violet were +ahead. The train had started and the four children and daddy came to +mother's seat before it was discovered that there were two little +Bunkers missing. + +"Oh, Charles!" gasped Mrs. Bunker. "Where are they?" The train began to +move more rapidly. "They are left behind!" + +"No, Amy, I don't think so," Mr. Bunker told her soothingly. "I looked +all about before I got aboard and there wasn't a chick nor child in +sight. I was one of the last passengers to get aboard. The section men +had even got upon their handcar and were pumping away up the east-bound +track. There is not a soul left at that place." + +"Then where are they?" cried Mother Bunker, without being relieved in +the least by his statement. + +"I think they are aboard the train--somewhere. They got into the wrong +car by mistake. We will look for them," said Mr. Bunker. + +So he went forward, while Russ started back through the rear cars, both +looking and asking for the twins. As we quite well know, Vi and Laddie +were not aboard the train at all, and the others found this to be a fact +within a very few minutes. Back daddy and Russ came to the rest of the +family. + +"I knew they were left behind!" Mother Bunker declared again, and this +time nobody tried to reassure her. + +Her alarm was shared by daddy and the older children. Even Margy began +to cry a little, although, ordinarily, she wasn't much of a cry-baby. +She wanted to know if they had to go on to Cowboy Jack's and leave Vi +and Laddie behind them--and if they would never find them again. + +"Of course we'll find them," Rose assured the little girl. "They aren't +really lost. They just missed the train." + +Daddy hurried to find their conductor and talk with him. He came back +with the news that the train was only going to run back a few miles to +where there was a cross-over switch, and then the train would steam back +again into the cut on the east-bound track. The conductor promised to +stop there so Mr. Bunker could look for the lost children. + +But Mother Bunker was much alarmed, and the children kept very quiet and +talked in whispers. Although Russ and Rose spoke cheerfully about it to +the other children, they were old enough to know that something really +dreadful might have happened to the twins. + +"I guess nobody could have run off with them," whispered Russ to his +sister. + +"Oh, no! There were no Gypsies or tramps anywhere about. Anyway, we +didn't see any." + +"They weren't carried off. They walked off," said Russ decidedly. "Maybe +they will be back again waiting for the train." + +They all hoped this would be the fact. The train finally stopped and +then steamed ahead again and ran on to the east-bound track that had +been cleared of all other traffic so that the passenger train could get +around the landslide. Mr. Bunker and Russ went out into the vestibule so +as to jump off the train the moment it stopped in the cut. The conductor +and one of the brakemen got off too, but other passengers were warned to +remain aboard. The train could not halt here for long. + +Russ ran around the big rock that had fallen on the other track, and up +the road a way. But there was no sign of Vi and Laddie. Mr. Bunker saw +the path up the bank, and he climbed just as the twins had and reached +the top. + +The big pasture was then revealed to the anxious father; but Vi and +Laddie were nowhere in view. Why! Daddy Bunker didn't even see the +chipmunk Laddie and his sister had chased. Daddy Bunker shouted and +shouted. If the twins had been within sound of his voice they surely +would have answered. But no answer came. + +"You'll have to come down from there, Mr. Bunker!" called the conductor +of the train. "We can't wait any longer. We're holding up traffic as it +is." + +So Mr. Bunker came down to the railroad bed, very much worried and +hating dreadfully to go back and tell Mother Bunker and the rest of the +little Bunkers that the twins were not to be found. + +There was nothing else to be done. Where the twins could have +disappeared to was a mystery. And just what he should do to trace Vi +and Laddie their father could not at that moment imagine. + +The train started again, but ran slowly. Mrs. Bunker did not weep as +Margy did, and as Rose herself was inclined to do. But she was very pale +and she looked at her husband anxiously. + +"My poor babies!" she said. "I think we will all have to get off the +train at the next station, Charles, and wait until Vi and Laddie are +found." + +Daddy Bunker could not say "no" to this, for he did not see any better +plan. Of course they could not go on to Cowboy Jack's ranch and leave Vi +and Laddie behind. + +The other passengers in the car took much interest in the Bunkers' +trouble. Most of the men and women had grown fond of Violet, in spite of +her inquisitiveness, and all admired Laddie Bunker. It seemed a really +terrible thing that the two should have become separated from their +parents and the other children. + +"Something is always happening to us Bunkers," confessed Russ. "But what +happens isn't often as bad as this. I don't see what Vi and Laddie could +have been thinking of." + +We know, however, that the twins had been thinking of nothing but +gathering flowers and chasing a chipmunk until that train whistle had +sounded. How the twins did run then across the pasture and up to the +very verge of the high bank overlooking the railroad cut! + +"Oh, the train's gone!" shrieked Vi, when she first looked down. + +"And the workmen are gone too," gasped Laddie. + +There was nobody left in the cut, and both the train and the handcar on +which the section hands had traveled, were out of sight. It was the +loneliest place that the twins had ever seen! + +"Now, see what we've done," complained Vi, between her sobs. "We ran +away and lost mother and daddy and the others. They've gone on to Cowboy +Jack's and left us here." + +"Then we didn't run away from them," Laddie said more sturdily. "They +ran away from us." + +"That doesn't make any difference," complained his sister. "We--we're +lost and can't be found." + +"Say!" cried Laddie suddenly, "how do you s'pose that train hopped over +that rock?" + +This point interested Vi at once. It was a most astonishing thing. If +the train had gone on to Cowboy Jack's, it surely had got over that big +rock in a most wonderful way. + +"How did it get over the rock?" Vi began. "Did it fly over? I never saw +the wings on that engine, did you? And if the engine _did_ fly over, it +couldn't have dragged the cars with it, could it?" + +"Oh, don't, Vi!" begged Laddie, much puzzled. "I couldn't tell you all +that. Maybe they had some way of lifting the train around the rock. +Anyway, it's gone." + +"And--and--and what shall _we_ do?" began Vi, almost ready to cry again. + +"We have just got to follow on behind it. I guess daddy will miss us and +get off and come back to look for us after a while." + +"Do you suppose he will?" + +"Yes," said Laddie with more confidence, as he thought of his kind and +thoughtful father. "I am sure he will, Vi. Daddy wouldn't leave us alone +on the railroad with no place to go and nothing to eat." + +At this Vi was reminded that they had not eaten since breakfast, and +although it was not yet noon, she declared that she was starving! + +"You can't be starving yet," Laddie told her, with scorn. "We haven't +been lost from the train long enough for you to be starving, Violet +Bunker." + +"Well, Laddie, I just know we will starve here if the train doesn't come +back for us." + +"Maybe another train will come along and we can buy something from the +candy boy. You 'member the candy boy on our train? I've got ten cents in +my pocket." + +"Oh, have you? That will buy four lollipops--two for you and two for me. +I guess I wouldn't starve so soon if I had two lollipops," admitted Vi. + +"I guess you won't starve," Laddie told her without much sympathy. "Now +we must climb down to the tracks and start after daddy's train." + +"Do you suppose we can catch it? Will it stop and wait when daddy finds +out we're not on it? And are you _sure_ he'll come back looking for us? +Shall we get supper, do you s'pose, Laddie, just as soon as we get on +the train? For I'm awfully hungry!" + +Her twin could not answer. Like the other Bunkers, he was nonplussed by +some of Vi's questions. Nor did he have much idea of how Daddy Bunker +was going to stop the train, which he supposed had gone ahead, and +return to meet Vi and him trudging along the railroad tracks. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE MAN WITH THE EARRINGS + + +The twins got out of the cut between the two hills after a time, and +then it _was_ long past noon and Laddie was hungry as well as Vi. It +seemed terrible to the Bunker twins to have money to spend and no way to +spend it. They might just as well have been on a desert island, like +that man Robinson Crusoe about whom Rose read to them. + +"I know a riddle about that Robinson Crusoe man. Yes, I do!" suddenly +exclaimed Laddie. + +"What is the riddle, Laddie? Do I know it?" + +"You can try to guess it, Vi," said the eager little boy. "Now listen! +'How do we know Robinson Crusoe had plenty of fish to eat?'" + +"'Cause the island was in the water," said Vi promptly. "Of course there +were fish." + +"Well, that isn't the answer," Laddie said slowly. + +"Why isn't it?" + +"Because--because the answer is something about Friday. You fry fish, +you know--And anyway, Crusoe's man was named _Friday_." + +"Pooh!" scoffed Vi. "You fry bacon and eggs and lots of other things, +besides those nice pancakes Norah makes for breakfast when we're at +home. I don't think much of that riddle, Laddie Bunker, so now!" + +"I guess it is a good riddle if I only knew how to ask it," complained +her twin. "But somehow I've got it mixed up." + +"Don't ask any more riddles like that. They make me hungry," declared +Vi. "And there isn't a candy shop or anything around here." + +She came very near to speaking the exact truth that time. On both sides +of the railroad track where they now walked so wearily there seemed to +be almost a desert. There were neither houses nor trees, and although +the country was rolling, it was not at all pleasant in appearance. + +And how tired their feet did become! If you have ever walked the +railroad tracks (which you certainly must never do unless grown people +are with you, for it is a dangerous practise) you know that stepping +from tie to tie between the rails is a very uncomfortable way to travel, +because the ties are not laid at equal distances apart. First Vi and +Laddie had to take a short step and then a long step. And if they missed +the tie in stepping, their shoes crunched right down into the wet +cinders, for the ground by no means was all dried up since the heavy +rain. + +"Oh, me, I'm so tired!" complained Vi, after a while. + +"So'm I," confessed her twin brother. + +"And I don't see daddy coming for us," added Vi, her voice tremulous +with tears again. + +[Illustration: "I SEE SOMETHING!" CRIED LADDIE. + +_Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's._ (_Page 99_)] + +"I see something!" cried Laddie suddenly and hopefully. He did not want +his sister to begin crying. + +"Is it Daddy Bunker?" demanded Vi, looking ahead eagerly. + +"It's a house--right beside the railroad," said Laddie, quickening his +own pace a little and trying to drag Vi along, as he still held her +hand. + +"Where? Where is the house?" demanded Vi anxiously. "I don't see any +house." + +"Well, it's a very small house. But there it is," said her brother, +pointing ahead with confidence. + +"Oh! I see it, Laddie," cried Vi. "Oh, what a little house it is--and so +close to the tracks! Do you suppose anybody lives in that little house?" + +"I don't know. It is small," admitted Laddie. + +"Maybe a dog lives in it. It isn't much bigger than Mr. Striver's +dog-house at home in Pineville." + +"I guess it isn't a dog-house. Anyway, we'll see." + +"Maybe it's a candy store," suggested the reviving Vi more cheerfully. +"If you could spend your dime, Laddie, for something to eat, I'd feel a +whole lot better, I guess." + +"Oh, I know what it is, Vi!" exclaimed the boy suddenly. "It's a +riddle." + +"There you go again with your old riddles," sniffed Vi. "We can't eat +riddles." + +"This is a good one," declared her brother cheerfully. "I'm going to ask +you: What looks like a dog-house, but isn't a dog-house?" + +"I don't know. A hen-house, Laddie?" + +"Pooh! They don't build hen-houses right down beside railroad tracks, +and just where a road crosses the tracks." + +"Don't they? What do they build there, then?" + +"Why," cried Laddie, quite delighted at his discovery, "a flagman's +house. That is what that little house is, Vi. A flagman stays there to +stop people from crossing the tracks when the train is coming. There! +There's the flagman now. See him?" + +Just as Laddie spoke so excitedly a man came out of the little house, +and he bore a flag in his hand. Unnoticed by the children, there had +begun behind them a rumbling sound, and the rails between which they +walked began to hum. There was a train coming from the east. + +The flagman unrolled his flag, and then he looked both ways along the +road that crossed the railroad. Then he turned and saw the two little +folks coming toward him. At sight of them he became much more excited +than the children were. + +"Look out-a da train!" he shouted. "Look out-a da train!" + +"What does he say?" asked Vi curiously. + +The flagman began to wave his arms and the flag, and ran toward the +twins. He was a man with a very dark face, and his hair was black and +curly. But what interested Laddie and Vi most about the flagman was that +he wore big gold rings in his ears. + +"Look out-a da train!" shouted the flagman again. + +"I never saw a man wearing earrings before," said Vi soberly. "And he +acts awfully funny, doesn't he?" + +The little girl began to feel a bit afraid of the strange man. She +stopped walking ahead and pulled back on her brother's hand. + +"I guess he doesn't mean any harm," said Laddie doubtfully. + +But drawn away by Vi, he stepped with her off the ties into the path +between the east-and west-bound tracks. The flagman stopped running, but +still gestured to the children. And just then, quite startling in the +twins' ears, sounded the long drawn shriek of a locomotive whistle. + +Laddie and Vi glanced behind them. Around the curve, out of the railroad +cut in which their adventure had begun, was coming a big locomotive +drawing a long passenger train. The man with the earrings reached Vi and +Laddie the very next moment. + +"Look-a da train!" he cried. "You bambinoes want-a get run over--yes?" + +"We're not Bambinoes, Mister," said Laddie. "We're Bunkers." + +Vi could not quench her usual curiosity, although the man seemed so +strange in her eyes. She asked: + +"Why do you wear rings in your ears? Please, why do you wear 'em?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +CAVALLO AT LAST + + +The man with the earrings led the twins over the other track so that +they would be sufficiently far from the train. To his surprise the +engine began to slow down, the engineer and fireman waved their hands as +they leaned out of the window and door of the cab, and by and by the +train rumbled to a stop. + +"That looks just like our train," Laddie announced confidently. "Only +ours was traveling on this nearer track. Maybe the two trains were +racing and our train got ahead in spite of the washout." + +Vi stuck to her subject. She scarcely looked at the train when it first +stopped. Her gaze was fastened upon the flagman who had showed such +anxiety for her safety and that of Laddie. + +"Say, please, Mister," she continued to ask, "what makes you wear +earrings?" + +A Pullman coach had halted just opposite the spot where the twins and +the flagman stood. They saw several people at two of the windows, waving +to them. Then Russ Bunker popped out of the front door of the car and +down the steps. + +"Look! Look! Here they are!" Russ shouted, as he ran toward his brother +and sister and the man who wore earrings. + +"Why, Russ Bunker!" ejaculated Vi, "how did you come on that train? Were +you left behind, too?" + +"Come on! Hurry up!" the oldest Bunker boy replied. "This is our train. +And the engineer will stop only a minute. Do you know, it costs three +dollars and thirty-three and a third cents every time the train stops? +The brakeman told me so." + +"Why does it cost that much?" demanded Vi, forgetting the Italian +flagman and his earrings, as Russ hurried her toward the car steps. "Are +you sure about the third of a cent, Russ?" + +Laddie looked back and waved his hand to the man who wore earrings. +"Good-bye!" he called to the man. + +"Good-a-bye!" cried the flagman in return, smiling very broadly. +"Good-a-bye!" + +"Why does he talk so funny?" asked Vi, panting, as Russ helped her up +the car steps and into the vestibule. + +"He talks broken English," said Russ in return. "Come on, Laddie." + +Vi remembered that answer, and later, when she was helping Laddie relate +the story of their adventure to Mother Bunker and daddy and the other +children, she declared that the man with the earrings was "a broken +Englishman," and would have it that Russ told her so. + +It had been a very exciting time, both for the twins when they were lost +and for the rest of the family on the train. Vi and Laddie could not +stop talking about it. And, really, it had been a very important +adventure in their small experience. + +"That man with the earrings thought he knew us, too," Vi said finally. + +"Of course he didn't know you," Rose observed. + +"He thought we were Mrs. Bam--Bam---- Laddie, whose little boy and girl +did that man think we were?" + +Laddie did not understand her question at first; but finally he realized +what Vi meant. + +"Oh, I know! 'Bambinoes.' That was the name. He asked us about our being +called 'Bambinoes.'" + +"Oh, dear me!" laughed Mother Bunker. "That was his way of saying +'babies.' He called you babies in his mixture of languages." + +"Is that the broken English for little boy and little girl?" scoffed Vi. +"I guess that man doesn't know very much, even if he _does_ wear +earrings." + +There was quite a celebration over the return of Vi and Laddie to the +train, for the other passengers made a good deal of the two little lost +Bunkers. A lady and gentleman made a little party for them that +afternoon at their end of the car. There was milk bought in the buffet +car, and cakes. But Mun Bun declared he wanted ice-water. Nothing else +would satisfy his thirst. + +The glasses brought from home were all in use at the time at the +"party"; so somebody had to go with Mun Bun to the ice-water tank at the +other end of the car and get him his drink. + +"I'll go," said Margy. "I can reach the paper cups." + +"Be careful and don't spill the water all over him," Mother Bunker said +to her, and the two smallest Bunkers went to the end of the car on that +errand. + +Margy borrowed the porter's stool in the anteroom to climb up to the +rack where the waxed-paper cups were kept. Those cups pleased Mun Bun +greatly. + +"Wouldn't they be nice to make dirt pies in, Margy?" suggested the +smallest Bunker longingly. "And puddings. If we only had 'em when we +were at home, wouldn't they be nice?" + +"But we haven't any sand pile here," Margy pointed out. "So we can't +make dirt pies in them." + +"We can fill them with water. There's lots of water. You push that +button again, Margy, and let some more water run." + +"But you mustn't spill it on you. You know mother said you shouldn't," +replied the little girl. + +Margy was, however, quite as pleased with the wax-paper cups as Mun Bun +was. When one cup was full, Mun Bun took it and set it carefully down +on the floor. Then he reached for another. He actually forgot he was +thirsty he was so much interested in filling and stationing the cups in +a long line on the floor. + +The porter had left his station in the anteroom and did not see what the +two children were doing. And the rest of the Bunker family were so much +engaged at the other end of the car they quite forgot Margy and Mun Bun +for the time being. + +"Get another! Get another, Margy!" Mun Bun kept saying. + +Margy reached down the cups until there was not another one in the rack. +And by that time the ice-water dripped very slowly from the faucet. The +tank was just about empty. + +"I guess we have got it all, Mun Bun," said the little girl. "They are +all full." + +"And I didn't spill a drop on me," declared the little boy virtuously. +"So mother will say I am a good boy, won't she?" + +Just what Mrs. Bunker might have said had she come upon the little +mischief-makers we cannot know. For it was the colored porter who was +first to discover what the smallest Bunkers were doing. He came back +from the other end of the car, smiling broadly at Mun Bun and Margy +when he saw them. The two stood to one side and looked rather seriously +at the tall colored man. Somehow they felt that perhaps their play would +not entirely meet his approval. + +Suddenly Mun Bun saw where the pleasant colored man was about to step. +He cried out: + +"Oh, don't! Look out! All our puddin' dishes!" + +"What's that, little boy?" demanded the porter. + +"Look out! You'll splash----" + +Margy tried to warn him too. But she was too late. The porter stepped +right into the first of the filled waxed-paper cups, and then went +plowing on, almost falling over them! + +"My haid and body!" gasped the porter, stumbling on until he had +overturned and stepped on the complete array of waxed-paper cups. "What +you chilluns been a-doin' here, eh?" + +"Now you spilled 'em," cried Mun Bun. "Look, Margy, how he's spilled +'em." + +There could be no doubt of that fact. The passage was a-flood with +ice-water! The porter was sputtering, and the two children were +inclined to be somewhat tearful when Daddy Bunker came along to see what +they were up to. + +"These yere pestiferous chilluns!" exclaimed the colored man, trying to +mop up the flood. "And dem cups was near 'nough to las' me clear to +Texas." + +"All right--all right, Sam!" rejoined Daddy Bunker, giving the colored +man a generous tip. "You get some more cups and some more ice, and call +it square. I expect I'd better tie a halter to each one of my children +for the rest of the journey so as to keep track of them. I can't trust +them out of my sight any more." + +It was not quite as bad as that, although daddy was really annoyed by +what Mun Bun and Margy had done. They were old enough to know mischief +from play, and he told them so. Mun Bun looked pretty sober when he got +back to the party. + +"Aren't we going to get to that wanch-place pwetty soon, Muvver?" he +asked Mrs. Bunker. "'Cause if we ain't, I'd rather go back home. There +aren't any nice plays here on this train. And I'm tired of it." + +"I suppose you are tired of it, dear," his mother said, taking him upon +her lap. "We are all pretty tired of it. But after another night's sleep +we shall be near our journey's end." + +This news was eagerly received by all the little Bunkers. Even Russ and +Rose were tired of traveling by train. After a certain time, riding in +the steam cars grew very wearisome. The Bunker children were active by +nature, and Russ liked to build things. He missed the attic and the +woodshed at home. + +The train rocked on into the Southwest, and while the children slept it +covered several hundred miles. After they got up and were washed and +dressed and had breakfasted, the bags were packed, for they did not +expect to open them again until they reached Cavallo. + +They stared out of the windows, watching the prairie country slide past, +now and then passing small herds of cattle, as well as many little towns +at which the train did not halt. + +"I suppose Cowboy Jack will come with ponies and we'll all have to ride +horseback," said Rose. "I don't know that I can stick on very well." + +"You did at Uncle Fred's," Russ told her. + +"But maybe I have forgotten how," his sister said doubtfully. + +But Rose need not have worried about riding pony-back on this occasion. +When the train stopped at Cavallo and they all got out there were no +horses waiting for the Bunkers at all. The town did not look like a +cattle-shipping place. And there was not a cowboy in sight! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SURPRISE COMING + + +There was a nice-looking railroad station at Cavallo and some rather +tall buildings in sight. There was a trolley line through the town, too, +and the children saw the cars almost as soon as they alighted from the +train. But they were all loudly wondering where the cow-ponies were, and +the cowboys whom they had expected to see. + +The little Bunkers, of course, did not know that nowadays even the +cattle-shipping towns of the Great West are changed from what they were +in the old times. Whether they are improved by the coming in of other +business besides that connected with the raising of cattle, horses, and +sheep is a question that even the Westerners themselves do not answer +when you ask them. But, in any case, Cavallo had changed a good deal +since the time Daddy Bunker had previously seen it. + +"And what can we expect? The range bosses ride around in automobiles now +because it is easier and cheaper than wearing out ponies. And I read +only the other day," added Mr. Bunker, "of a Montana ranch where they +hunt strays in the mountains from an airplane. What do you think of +that?" + +"Are you sure Mr. Scarbontiskil got your message, Charles?" asked Mrs. +Bunker of daddy. "Perhaps we had better go to a hotel." + +"Oh!" cried Laddie, "I want to go right out where the cows and horses +are." + +"So do I," said Russ. "A hotel isn't very different from a Pullman +coach." + +And they were all tired of _that_--even daddy and mother. But while they +were discussing this point (the children rather noisily, it must be +confessed) a big man in a gray suit came striding toward them, his hand +outstretched and a broad smile upon his bronzed face. He wore a crimson +necktie and a heavy gold watch-chain with a bunch of charms dangling +from it, and a diamond sparkled in the front of his silk shirt. Russ and +Rose noticed these rather astonishing ornaments, and although they +thought the man very pleasant looking, they knew that he was not dressed +as men dressed back home. At least, daddy would never have worn just +such clothes and ornaments. But he did not look at all like a cowboy. + +"I reckon this is Charlie Bunker!" exclaimed the man in a booming voice. +"I'd most forgotten how you looked, Charlie. And is this the Missus?" +and he smiled even more broadly at Mother Bunker. + +"That's who we are," cried Mr. Bunker quite as jovially as the big man +spoke. "And these are the six little Bunkers, Mr. Scarbontiskil." + +"Oh! That's him!" whispered Rose to Russ. "And I know I never _can_ say +that name!" + +The ranchman, however, at once put Rose and everybody else at their ease +on that point. When he took off his broad-brimmed hat to make Mrs. +Bunker a sweeping bow, he said: + +"Don't put on any dog out here, Charlie. I've most forgotten the name I +was handicapped with when I was born. Nobody calls me anything like that +out here. Call me 'Jack'--just 'Cowboy Jack.' It fits me a sight better, +and that's true. I was a cow-puncher long before I got hold of a lot of +good Texas land and began to own mulley cows myself. Now, let me get +acquainted with all these little shavers. What's their names? I bet they +got better names than my folks could give me." + +Rose and Russ, and even the smaller children, liked Cowboy Jack right +away. Who could help liking him, even if he did shout when he spoke and +wear such flashy clothes? His smile and his twinkling eyes would have +won him friends in any company of children, that was sure. And then, +though the clothes were odd, the children were not at all certain that +they were not more beautiful than those their father wore. + +And what a game they made of telling Cowboy Jack their names, so that he +would remember them--"get 'em stuck in his mind" as he called it. + +"I can remember 'Russ' because he is the oldest," declared Cowboy Jack. +"And 'Rose' is the sweetest flower that grows, and I can't forget her. +And 'Violet'? Why! she's the first blossom that comes up in the spring, +and I sure couldn't forget her. And this boy, her twin, you say? +'Laddie'? Why, that's just what he is--a laddie. I couldn't mistake him +for a lassie, so I'm sure to get _his_ name stuck in my mind," and +Cowboy Jack boomed a great laugh, shaking hands with each of the +children as daddy presented them. + +"And this is 'Margy,'" proceeded the ranchman. "I'd know that was her +name just to look at her. She couldn't have any other name but 'Margy.' +No other would fit. Now, that's all, isn't it?" added Cowboy Jack, his +eyes twinkling very much as he looked right at Mun Bun but appeared not +to see him. "Russ, and Rose, and Violet, and Laddie, and Margy? Yes, +that must be all." + +"There's _me_!" exclaimed the littlest Bunker, staring up at the big +man. + +"What's that I hear?" asked Cowboy Jack, looking all about the platform, +and up in the air, and over the heads of the Bunker children. "Did I +hear somebody speak?" + +The five older Bunker children began to giggle, but Mun Bun did not take +the matter as a joke at all. He was quite sure he was being overlooked +and that he was just as important as anybody else in the crowd. + +"Here's me!" cried Mun Bun again, and he laid hold of the skirt of +Cowboy Jack's long coat and tugged at it. "You forgot me." + +"Jumping grasshoppers!" exclaimed the big man, staring down at Mun Bun. +"What do I see? Another Bunker?" + +"It's me," said Mun Bun soberly. "I have a name, too." + +"I--I wouldn't have seen you if you hadn't pulled my coat-skirt," +declared the ranchman quite as soberly as the little boy himself. "And +are you a Bunker? Honest?" + +"I'm Mun Bun," said the little boy. + +"Jumping grasshoppers!" ejaculated the ranchman, stooping down very low +and staring at Mun Bun. "Another Bunker--and named 'Mun Bun'? That's a +very easily remembered name, isn't it? I couldn't forget you--sure I +couldn't! For you see every time I go to the bake shop I buy buns--and +you are a bun, so you say. Are you a currant bun, or a cinnamon bun, or +what kind of a bun are you?" + +"I'm a Bunker bun," declared the little boy. "And you can't eat me." + +"No, I can't eat you," admitted the ranchman. "But I can pick you +up--this way--and carry you off, can't I?" + +And he suited his action to the word and rose up with Mun Bun on one of +his palms, and held him right out on a level with his twinkling eyes and +smiling lips. Mun Bun squealed a little; but he liked it, too. It was +just like being carried about by a giant! + +The next thing was to get something to eat in the lunchroom of the +railroad station. To be sure, breakfast had been not many hours before, +but there was a long trip yet before Cowboy Jack's ranch would be +reached, and one could always count on one or more of the six little +Bunkers being hungry if not fed at rather frequent intervals. So +sandwiches and buns--cinnamon buns, not Mun Buns--were bought, and milk +for the children and coffee for the grown-ups, and a light lunch was +eaten. There was really not very much to choose from, but the children +were satisfied with what was got for them. + +"Now, come on, all you little Bunkers," said Cowboy Jack. "We've got to +start right away for my ranch, or we won't get there before supper time; +and then Maria Castrado, my cook, won't give us anything but beans for +supper." + +"Oh! Where are your horses?" cried Laddie and Vi together. + +"Out on the range," said Cowboy Jack. "Plenty of 'em there." + +"But don't we ride out to your ranch on them?" Russ wanted to know, as +Cowboy Jack strode around the railroad station, again carrying Mun Bun, +and they all trooped after him. + +"Got something that beats cayuses," declared Cowboy Jack. "What do you +think of _these_ for cow ponies?" + +What he pointed out to them were two great, eight-cylinder touring-cars, +both painted blue, and behind the steering-wheel of each a smiling +Mexican who seemed as glad to see the Bunker children as Cowboy Jack was +himself. + +"Pile in! Pile in!" said Cowboy Jack in his great voice. + +He gave Mun Bun over to Mrs. Bunker, who got into one car with daddy and +the hand baggage. But he put all the other children into the tonneau of +the other car and got in with them. It was quite plain that he was fond +of children and proposed to have a lot of fun with the little Bunkers +who had come so far to visit him. + +"I've got a lot to show you youngsters," he said to Russ and the others +when the cars started. "And I have a surprise for you out at my ranch." + +"What is the surprise?" Vi asked. "Is it something we can eat? Or is it +a surprise we can play with?" + +"You can't eat my surprise," said Cowboy Jack, with one of his widest +smiles. "But you can have a lot of fun with it." + +"What is it?" asked Vi again. + +"If I tell you now, it won't be a surprise," replied the ranchman. "So +you'll have to wait and see it." + +They drove through the town in the automobiles, and it seemed a good +deal like an Eastern town after all. People dressed just the same as +they did in Pineville and there was a five-and-ten-cent store painted +red, and a firehouse with a motor-truck hook-and-ladder just like the +one at home. Russ and Laddie thought maybe they would not have any use +for their cowboy and Indian suits after all. + +But by and by the motor-cars got clear of the town and struck into a +dusty road on which there were no houses at all. In the distance Rose +spied a moving bunch of cattle. _That_ looked like a ranch; but Cowboy +Jack told her that his ranch was still a good many miles ahead. + +The little Bunkers liked riding in these big cars, for the Mexicans +drove them very rapidly. The road was quite smooth and they kept ahead +of the dust, except when they passed some other vehicle. The dust was +very white and powdery, and Margy and Laddie began to sneeze. Then they +grabbed each other's right little fingers, curling the fingers around +each other. + +"Wish!" cried Violet eagerly. "Make a wish--both of you." + +"What--what'll I wish?" stammered Laddie excitedly. + +"Oh, dear! Now you spoiled it," declared Vi. "Didn't he, Rose?" + +"He can't make the wish after he has spoken," agreed the older sister. +"No, Laddie; it is too late now." + +Margy began to wave her hands and evidently wanted to speak. + +"Did you wish, Margy?" asked Vi. + +The smaller girl nodded vigorously. Cowboy Jack laughed very heartily, +but Rose said to the little girl: + +"You can talk now, Margy." + +"I wished we'd have waffles for supper," announced Margy, hungrily. "I +like waffles." + +"And I bet we have 'em!" cried their host, laughing again. "Maria can +make dandy waffles." + +"Well, I would have wished for something--just as nice if you'd let me," +Laddie broke in. "I don't see why I couldn't wish, even if I did speak +first." + +"That's something mighty mysterious," said the ranchman soberly. "We +can't change the laws about wishing. That would bust up everything." + +He talked so queerly that sometimes the little Bunkers were not sure +whether he was in earnest, or only joking. But they all liked Cowboy +Jack very much. And best of all--so Rose thought--they did not have to +call him by his right name! + +The sun was very low when the cars got into a winding road through a +scrubby sort of wood and then climbed into the range of hills that they +had been approaching for two hours. Mun Bun was asleep. But the +children in the ranchman's car were all eagerly on the outlook for the +first sight of the ranch houses which Cowboy Jack told them would soon +appear. + +"And then for the surprise," said Russ to Rose. "I wonder what it can +be?" + +"Something nice, I am sure," sighed his sister contentedly. "It must be +something nice, or Mr. Cowboy Jack would not have mentioned it." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN INDIAN RAID + + +It did seem, however, that the ranchman must have forgotten the surprise +he had in store for the six little Bunkers. He was so busy getting his +Mexican cook to make waffles for supper and seeing that the rooms had +all been made ready by his Mexican house boys for the use of the Bunker +family and doing a dozen other pleasant things for the comfort of his +guests that he did not say a word about the surprise. + +It had been almost dark when the party arrived at the broad, low house +in which Cowboy Jack and his household lived. If the surprise was +outside the house the children would have been unable to see it. + +Mun Bun fell sound asleep over his supper, and Margy had to "prop her +eyes open," as daddy declared, before the meal was done. Both these +youngest Bunkers made no objection to going off to bed. But Vi and +Laddie wanted to stay up as long as Russ and Rose did. + +"We're almost as big as they are," declared Laddie, when he was +questioned on this point. "And if Rose and Russ would only stop and wait +for us a little, Vi and I would catch up to them--so now!" + +But Russ and Rose were quite as eager to grow up as were Laddie and Vi; +so they were not willing to wait, could they have done so. Daddy pointed +out the fact of the "march of time" to the little folks and explained +that everybody had to grow older each tiny second. + +"Why can't we stop and wait?" demanded Vi. "We can stop an automobile +and get out and wait." + +"Or get lost from a train," put in Laddie, who was sitting on what +Cowboy Jack called a "hassock"--a low seat--and studying a paper he had +found. "I ought to make up a riddle about Vi and me being lost from the +train that time." + +"I'll give you a riddle," said Cowboy Jack, with one of his booming +laughs. + +"Is it a good one?" asked Vi. + +"Please do!" cried Laddie. "I just love riddles." + +"Well, here is one," said the ranchman. "'What is it that is black and +white, but red all over?'" + +"Black--white--and red?" repeated Laddie, puzzled, for if he had ever +heard that riddle he had forgotten it. + +"I know what is red, white and blue!" cried Vi. "That's the flag." + +"Three cheers!" returned Cowboy Jack. "So you do, little girl. You've +got the flag quite right. But this isn't the flag I am talking about." + +"I don't believe I ever saw anything that was black and white but red, +too," confessed Laddie slowly. + +"Oh, yes, you have," said their big friend, apparently just as much +entertained by the riddle as the little folks. + +"I guess you must be mistaken, Mr. Cowboy Jack," said Laddie soberly. "I +can't think of a single thing that is black and white, besides being red +all over." + +"Why, look at what you have in your hand!" exclaimed the ranchman. + +"This is a paper," said Laddie. + +"And isn't it black and white?" + +"Yes, sir. The print is black and the paper is white. But I don't see +any red----" + +"But lots of us have _read_ it all over," chuckled Cowboy Jack. "It is +black and white, and is _read_ all over!" + +"Oh!" cried Laddie, clapping his hands, "that's another kind of 'red,' +isn't it? I think that is a nice riddle. Don't you, Vi?" + +But Vi was leaning against her mother's knee and her eyes were fast +closed. She had gone to sleep in the middle of the talk about the +riddle. + +"It's time for all little folks to go to bed," said Mother Bunker. + +So none of the six little Bunkers saw the surprise that night. But they +had not forgotten it when morning came again. The six little Bunkers +never forgot anything that was promised them! + +While they were all at breakfast there was a great deal of noise +outside--whooping and shouting and the like--that startled the children. +But their mother would not let them leave the table to find out about it +until breakfast was over. They heard, too, the pounding of ponies' +hoofs, and then caught sight through the windows of a company of pony +riders galloping by and off across the plain. + +"Cowboys!" cried Russ. "I guess we'd better go back and put on our +cowboy suits, Laddie." + +The smaller boy was just as eager as Russ to get out and see the pony +riders. As soon as they could honestly say they had eaten enough, Mother +Bunker excused them all. But when they got outside upon the broad +veranda at the front of the great house, the cowboys had disappeared. + +There was something else in sight, however, that astonished the children +more than the cowboys could, for they had expected to see them. +Traveling across the plain some distance from the house was a procession +that made all the little Bunkers shout aloud. + +"What's those?" Rose asked at first sight. Rose almost always saw things +first. + +Russ gave one glance and fairly whooped: "Indians!" + +"Oh, dear me!" gasped Rose, "are they _wild_ Indians?" + +"They are real Indians just the same!" exclaimed Russ, with confidence. +"They aren't just the dressed-up kind. Look at them!" + +The big Indians riding at the head of the procession wore great feather +headdresses. "Feather dusters" Laddie called them. And they did look +like feather dusters from that distance. + +"We'd better get our guns and bows and arrows, hadn't we, Russ?" the +little boy asked. + +"The Indians are not coming this way," explained Russ. "I guess we're +safe enough." + +"See! There are Indian babies, too," cried Rose. "There's one strapped +to a board on its mother's back--just like in the pictures." + +"Just the same," said Vi, rather soberly for her, "I'm glad they are +going the other way." + +The Indians were traveling away from the ranch house and soon were out +of sight. So before the children could ask any of the older people about +them they were gone. And "out of sight out of mind" was almost always +the rule with the little Bunkers, as daddy frequently said. Besides, +there were so many new and interesting things to see that the matter of +the Indians escaped the new-comers' minds. + +There were great corrals down behind the big house, as well as +bunkhouses in which the cowboys lived, and stables, and a long cook-shed +in which three men cooked for the hands, as Cowboy Jack called his +employees. Cowboy Jack owned a very large ranch and a great number of +steers and horses and mules. + +"It's almost like a circus," said Russ. "And all the different kind of +dogs, too. _That_ dog has hardly any hair, and he comes from Mexico, so +they say. While that _wolfy_ looking dog comes from away up in Alaska. +Then there are dogs from places all between Alaska and Mexico." + +This information he had gained from one of the Mexican boys with whom he +became acquainted. They did not think to ask the friendly Mexican about +the Indians, and not until the children went back to the house did they +think to make inquiry about the procession they had seen right after +breakfast. It was then Vi, inquisitive as usual, who broached the +subject. + +"Why do Indians wear feather dusters in their hair?" she asked. + +"For the same reason that ladies wear feathers in their bonnets," +declared Daddy Bunker seriously. "Because they think the feathers are +ornamental." + +"And why do they strap their babies to boards?" demanded Vi. + +"Where did you see Indians?" asked Mother Bunker, guessing the source +from which Violet's questions were springing. + +"Oh!" cried Rose. "There _were_ Indians--lots of them. We saw their +parade go by--just like a Wild West Show parade." + +Cowboy Jack began to laugh. And when he laughed his great body shook all +over, and the chair in which he sat shook too. + +"Are there Indians here, Mr. Scarbontiskil?" asked Mother Bunker. + +"That's part of the surprise I told the children about," said Cowboy +Jack, nodding to Mother Bunker, but smiling at the interested children. +"Those Injuns are a part of it." + +But he would not tell them any more--at least, not just then. + +"It's a sort of a riddle," said Laddie eagerly, when they were all out +of doors again. "I know it's a riddle. And we ought to find the +answer." + +"Well," scoffed Vi, his twin, "you can sit down and think of your old +riddle if you want to. I'm going to pick flowers for mother." + +"There must be some nice flowers here," agreed Rose. "I'll go look, too, +Vi." + +"Me want to pick flowers!" cried Mun Bun eagerly. + +He always wanted to do anything the older children did. And picking +flowers was one thing Mun Bun could do pretty well, little as he was. +Holding a hand each of Rose and Vi he trudged off from the ranch house. +Russ and Margy and Laddie came after. Russ and Laddie were still +discussing the matter of putting on their cowboy suits so as to help +herd the cattle with Cowboy Jack's "other hands." Just at this time, +however, they became more interested in picking flowers. + +For they did find pretty blossoms along the wagon track they followed. +The ranch house was soon out of sight, for the children went over a +little ridge and then down into a swale in which were clumps of low +trees. It was quite a pretty country, and there was much to interest +them. + +At one place something jumped out of the shrub and went leaping away +along the wagon track with great bounds. + +"A rabbit!" cried Laddie. "Oh, such a big rabbit!" + +"The very longest legs I ever saw," agreed Russ. "And long ears--like +those on the mules in the corral." + +"And he thumps the ground just like a horse stamping," said Rose. "There +he goes out of sight. I--I believe I would be afraid of that rabbit if +he came at me." + +"Well, he is going, not coming," remarked Russ. "I want to see where he +went." + +He and Laddie started on the run to mount the little ridge over which +the jackrabbit had disappeared. This ridge crossed the swale, or valley, +and divided what lay beyond from the view of the six little Bunkers. +When the children climbed the rise and came to the top, they all +stopped. Even Russ did not say a word for a full minute; nor did Vi ask +a question, so astonished was she by what she saw. + +There, on the low land beside a stream of water, was a log cabin. It +looked like a dilapidated cabin, for there were no windows and the door +was off its leather hinges. There was a bonfire by the doorstep and a +black kettle was hung over the fire from the tripod of smoke-blackened +sticks. + +On the doorstep sat a woman who appeared to be rocking her baby to sleep +in her arms. She was watching whatever was cooking in the pot. A man was +chopping wood a little way; from the doorstep. He wore a funny fur cap, +with the tail of some animal hanging from it down to his shoulder, and +his hair was tied in a funny looking queue--the strangest way for a man +to dress his hair the little Bunkers had ever seen. + +Suddenly Russ pointed behind the cabin--over to another ridge, or knoll, +of land. + +"Look!" Russ gasped. "Those Indians!" + +None of the Bunker children had thought of the Indians they had seen as +really wild Indians. But here came riding the Indian men now on active +ponies, and with be-feathered spears in their hands. Their headdresses +nodded, and, as the redmen rode nearer, the children saw that their +faces were broadly striped in red and yellow. The paint made the +Indians' faces look frightful. + +"Oh!" cried Rose, clinging to Mun Bun, who clung to her in return. +"Those Indians are coming right at that woman and her baby--and the +man!" + +"It's an Indian raid," murmured Russ. "Do you suppose it is _real_, or +just make-believe?" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A PROFOUND MYSTERY + + +Russ Bunker was a sensible chap, and it did not seem to him that the +Indians could really mean to harm the people living in the old cabin. +Cowboy Jack would not have let the children wander away from the ranch +house unwarned had wild Indians been in the neighborhood. + +At least, so Russ tried to believe. But the other little Bunkers were +much frightened, and when the redmen began to hurry their horses down +toward the cabin at the side of the stream, and began to whoop and yell +and wave their be-feathered spears, even Rose turned back and began to +run toward the ranch house. + +"Come on, Russ! Come on!" she cried to her older brother. "That poor +little baby!" + +"Aw, I don't believe the Indians are really going to hurt those folks," +objected Russ. + +Nevertheless, he soon caught up with his sister and the others. Russ did +not remain to see the outcome of the Indians' attack upon the cabin. + +The younger children did not altogether understand what the excitement +was all about. But they caught some fear from Russ and Rose and were +willing to hurry along the wagon track without making objection at the +pace the older children made them travel. + +And here came another astonishing thing. Out of a woody place appeared a +cavalcade of horsemen--and they were not cowboys! In fact, for a minute +Russ and Rose were just as frightened as they had been by the charging +Indians. Then Russ exclaimed, with a deal of relief: + +"Oh, Rose! I know those men. They are soldiers!" + +"All in blue clothes?" questioned Rose in doubt. "Soldiers don't wear +blue clothes. They are dressed in khaki or olive-drab. Like Captain Ben +was when he first came to our house." + +"Those are soldiers. They have got swords and guns," repeated Russ +confidently. "And I guess they are American soldiers, too." + +"Well, they are not Indians, anyway," agreed Rose. "I guess they won't +hurt us, anyway. We can go by 'em. Don't be afraid, Mun Bun." + +"Not 'fwaid," declared the littlest Bunker. "But I want to see muvver +and daddy." + +"Sure you do," agreed Russ kindly. "Guess we all do. Come on. I'm going +to tell that man riding ahead what the Indians are doing to those folks +at the cabin." + +They could still hear faintly the yells of the supposed savages behind +the hill, down which the little Bunkers had just run. This noise did not +seem to disturb the men in blue, who trotted their horses along the +wagon track in a most leisurely manner. + +The six little Bunkers stood off the track as the soldiers rode nearer. +The chains on the horses' bits jangled, and the sun flashed from the +barrels of the short guns and from the sword hilts. The men wore +broad-brimmed hats with yellow cords around them, and one of the men +riding ahead, who was an officer, wore a plume on the side of his hat. + +"It's more than Indians that wear feather headdresses," whispered Vi to +Rose. "So why _do_ they?" + +Like a number of Vi's other questions, this one remained unanswered. +When the head of the procession came up Russ began to speak quite +excitedly to the man leading it: + +"Please, Mister Officer! There are Indians over that hill. Don't you +hear them? And they are going to hurt some white people I guess." + +"There's a baby," added Rose earnestly. "I wouldn't want the baby to be +scalped." + +"Hi!" exclaimed the leader of the soldiers, "it will be pretty tough if +Props' rag baby gets scalped, that's a fact. Come on! Shack along, boys! +They are looking for us now, I bet." + +This seemed rather a strange way to command a troop of cavalry, and even +Russ Bunker was puzzled by it. But as the soldiers in blue rode on at a +faster pace Rose called after them: + +"Please save the baby! Look out for the baby!" + +"We'll do that little thing, girlie," promised one of the soldiers +riding in the rear. "Don't you fear. We'll save the baby and the whole +bunch!" + +This was quite reassuring to Rose's troubled mind. But Russ was greatly +puzzled. These soldiers did not look like the soldiers he had seen, nor +did they act or speak like soldiers. He stared after them with great +curiosity as they disappeared over the hill. But the other little +Bunkers were so anxious to get back to the ranch house that Russ could +not remain any longer to satisfy his curiosity. + +Rose and the smaller children told the story about the Indians and the +people at the cabin and about the soldiers in a very excited way to +Mother Bunker. But Russ went to find Cowboy Jack. He felt that the +ranchman should know all about what was going on in that valley, and +about both the Indians and the soldiers in blue. + +Mother reassured the younger Bunkers. There was nothing really to be +afraid of, she told them. But she did seem mysterious and smiled a good +deal while she was telling the children not to fear any of the strange +things they might see about Cowboy Jack's ranch. + +"It isn't anything like Uncle Fred's ranch," declared Laddie. "Why! it's +a regular riddle here at Cowboy Jack's. I guess I can think how to ask +that riddle in a minute--or maybe an hour. Let's see." + +So Laddie--or the others--was not by when Russ propounded his question +to Cowboy Jack, the big ranchman. + +"Those Indians? I told you they were part of the surprise I had for you +little Bunkers," declared Cowboy Jack, laughing very heartily. + +"And the soldiers?" murmured the puzzled Russ. + +"Part of the same surprise," answered the ranchman. + +"We--ell, we _were_ surprised. But I don't just understand how you come +to have wild Indians and soldiers--and they don't look just like _our_ +soldiers back East--here on your ranch. And how about that baby?" + +"I promise you," said Cowboy Jack quite seriously, "that the baby will +not be scalped--or any of the white folks at all. Those Indians are not +so savage as they seem. To-night, after the day's work is over, I'll +take you over to the redskins' camp and you can get acquainted with +them." + +Russ was rather startled by this suggestion. He wanted to be grateful +for anything that Cowboy Jack said he would do; but--but---- + +"Will Daddy Bunker go too?" asked Russ, suddenly. + +"Sure. We'll take your daddy along with us," agreed Cowboy Jack. + +"Then I'll go," said Russ Bunker, with a sigh. + +He would go anywhere daddy went, although the matter of the wild Indians +did seem to be a profound mystery. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MUN BUN TAKES A NAP + + +After lunch that day Mun Bun managed to have the most astonishing +adventure of his life! And nobody could ever have imagined that the +littlest Bunker could get into trouble just by falling asleep. + +He had walked so far and seen so many strange sights that morning that +after eating Mun Bun was just as sleepy as he could be. But he was +getting old enough now to think that he should be ashamed of taking a +nap in the afternoon. + +"Only babies take naps, don't they, Muvver?" he said to Mother Bunker. +"And I aren't a baby any more." + +"You say you are not," agreed his mother quietly. "But of course you +must prove it if we are all to believe that you are quite grown up." + +"I'm growed too big to take naps, anyway," declared Mun Bun, quite +convinced. + +"What are you going to do if you grow sleepy?" asked his mother, before +he started out after the other children. + +"I'll pinch myself awake," declared Mun Bun. "Oh, I'll show I'm not a +baby any longer." + +He was some way behind the other children; but as he started in their +wake Mother Bunker did not worry about him. She was confident that Russ +and Rose would look out for the little boy, even if he was finally +overcome with sleep. + +But as it happened, the other little Bunkers had run off to see a lot of +mule colts in a special paddock some distance from the big ranch house. +Mun Bun saw them in the distance and he sturdily started out to follow +them. He was no cry-baby ordinarily, and the fact that the others were a +long way ahead did not at first disturb Mun Bun's cheerfulness. + +But something else began to bother him almost at once. The wind had +begun to blow. It was not a cold wind, although it was autumn. But it +was a strong wind, and as it continued to come in gusts Mun Bun was +sometimes almost toppled off his feet. + +"Wind b'ow!" gasped Mun Bun, staggering against the heavy gusts. "Oh, +my!" + +That last exclamation was jounced out of him by something that blew +against the little boy--a scratchy ball of gray weed that rolled along +the ground just as though it were alive! It frightened Mun Bun at first. +Then he saw it was just dead weeds, and did not bother about the +tumble-weed any more. + +But when he got to a certain wire fence, through which he was going to +crawl to follow the other little Bunkers, the wind had buffeted him so +that he lay right down to rest! Mun Bun had never tried to walk in such +a strong wind before. + +The wind blew over him, and the great balls of tumble-weed rioted across +the big field. In some places, against stumps or clumps of brush, the +gray mats of weed piled up in considerable heaps. Mun Bun watched the +wind-rows of weed roll along toward his side of the field with +interested gaze. He had never seen anything like those gray, dry bushes +before. + +His eyes blinked and winked, and finally drowsed shut. He had no idea +of going to sleep. In fact, he had declared he would not go to sleep. So +of course what happened was quite unintentional on Mun Bun's part. While +Mother Bunker thought he was with the other children, they had no idea +Mun Bun had refused to take his usual nap and had followed them from the +house. + +The mule colts in the paddock were just the cunningest things! Margy and +Vi squealed right out loud when they saw them. + +"And their cunning long ears flap so funny!" cried Rose. "Did you ever?" + +"But their tails are not skinned down like the big mules' tails," +objected Laddie. + +"Oh, they'll shave those later. That is what they do to the big +mules--shave the hair off their tails, all but the 'paint-brush' at the +end," said Russ, who knew. + +The children pulled some green grass they found and stuck it through the +wires for the colts to pull out of their hands and nibble. Mule colts +seemed even more tame than horse colts, and the children each "chose" a +colt and named it, although the colts ran around in such a lively way +that it was difficult sometimes to keep them separated in one's mind +and, as Cowboy Jack said when he came along to see what the children +were about, to "tell which from t'other." + +"Let me see," he added, in his whimsical way. "I have to count and +reckon up you little Bunkers every once in so often so as to be sure +some of you are not strays. Let's see: There should be six, shouldn't +there? One, two, three, four, five---- But there's only five here." + +"Yes, sir," said Rose politely. "Mun Bun's taking a nap, I s'pose." + +"He is, is he?" repeated Cowboy Jack, with considerable interest. "And +where has he gone for his nap?" + +"He is up at the house with mother," Russ said. + +"Oh, no, he isn't," said the ranchman. "I just came from the house and +Mrs. Bunker asked me particularly to be sure that Mun Bun was all +right." + +"Where is Mun Bun, then?" asked Vi. + +"He's lost!" wailed Rose. + +"Why, he didn't come down here with us," Russ declared. + +"He started after you," said the ranchman, quite seriously now. "You +sure the little fellow isn't anywhere about?" + +He was so serious that Russ and Rose grew anxious too. The other little +Bunkers just stared. Vi said: + +"He's always getting lost--Mun Bun is. Why does he?" + +"'Cause he's so little," suggested her twin. "Little things get lost +easier than big things." + +"That's sound doctrine," declared Cowboy Jack. + +But he did not smile as he usually did when he was talking with the +little Bunkers. He was gazing all around the fields in sight. He asked +Russ: + +"Which way did you come down here from the house, Son?" + +Russ pointed. "Down across that lot where the bushes are all piled up." + +"Come on," said Cowboy Jack. "We'd better look for him." + +"Oh!" cried Margy suddenly, "you don't s'pose the Indians got him, do +you?" + +"Those Injuns wouldn't hurt a flea," declared the ranchman, striding +away so fast up the slope that the children had to trot to keep up with +him. + +"Do the Indians like fleas?" asked Vi. "I shouldn't think they would. +Our cat at home doesn't." + +"I know a riddle about a flea," said Laddie, more cheerfully. A riddle +always cheered Laddie. "It is: 'What is the difference between a flea +and a leopard?'" + +"Jumping grasshoppers!" exclaimed Cowboy Jack. "I should think there was +a deal of difference--in their size, anyway." + +"No, their size hasn't anything to do with it," said Laddie, delighted +to have puzzled the big man. + +"A leopard is a big cat," said Russ. "And a flea can only live on a +cat." + +"Pooh! That isn't the answer," declared Laddie. "I guess that is a good +riddle." + +"It sure is," agreed Cowboy Jack, still striding up the hill. "What is +the difference between a flea and a leopard? It beats me!" + +"Why," said the little boy, panting, "it's because--because a leopard +can't change its spots, but a flea can. You see, the flea is very lively +and jumps around a whole lot----" + +"Can't a leopard jump?" demanded Vi. + +"We--ell, that's the answer. Somebody told it to me. A leopard just +_can't_ change its spots--so there." + +"I think that's silly," declared Vi impatiently. "And I want to know +what has become of Mun Bun." + +They all wanted to know that. They were too much worried about the +littlest Bunker to laugh at Laddie's riddle. They went up to the fence +and crept through an opening where the tumble-weeds had not piled up in +great heaps as they had in many places along its length. The wind was +still blowing in fitful gusts, and Laddie and Margy and Vi took hold of +hands when they stood up in the field. + +"Now, where can that boy be?" demanded Cowboy Jack in his big voice, +staring all about again. "If he followed you children down this way----" + +"Mun Bun! Oh, Mun Bun!" shouted Rose. + +Russ joined his voice to hers, and they continued to call as they +wandered about the brush clumps and the piles of dry weeds. + +But no Mun Bun appeared! The ranchman looked very grave. Russ and Rose +really became frightened. How could they go back to Mother Bunker and +tell her that her little boy was lost on this great ranch? + +Then Cowboy Jack began to shout Mun Bun's name. And how he could shout! + +"Ye--ye--yip!" he shouted. "You--ee! Ye--ye--yip! Mun Bun! Mun Bun!" + +Rose shut her ears tight with her fingers. + +"My goodness!" she whispered to Russ, "Mun Bun _must_ hear that--or else +he has gone a very long way off." + +But Mun Bun was not a long way off. He was quite near. And after Cowboy +Jack had shouted a second time all the other Bunkers, and the ranchman +himself, heard a small voice respond--Mun Bun's voice. + +"Here I is!" said the small voice. "I'm here--_here_!" + +"I'd like to know where 'here' is," cried Cowboy Jack in his great +voice. "If Mun Bun's up in the air I don't see his aeroplane; and if +he's dug himself in like a prairie dog I don't see the mouth of his +hole. And to be sure he isn't in this field----" + +"Oh, yes, he is!" exclaimed Russ Bunker, suddenly diving for a great +heap of tumble-weed against the wire fence. "Anyway, here is his voice, +Mr. Cowboy Jack." + +"Bring out his voice and let's see it," commanded the big ranchman. + +The others began to laugh at that, but Mun Bun did not laugh. He had not +had his sleep out and did not like being waked up. The ranchman's loud +shout had aroused the little fellow, and when he found himself under the +heap of scratchy, sticky weeds he did not like that either. + +But Russ pulled the weeds away in a hurry. The wind had rolled a great +bunch of the dead weeds upon Mun Bun and had quite hidden him from +sight. + +"Like the Babes in the Wood," said Rose thoughtfully. "Only the robins +covered them up with leaves." + +"I'm not a baby," complained Mun Bun. "And robins didn't cover me. It +was nasty old dry grass things, and they've got prickers on them." + +Indeed, Mun Bun was not quite his happy self again until they took him +back to the house and Mother Bunker took him into her lap for awhile. +Margy stayed in the house with him, so the two smallest Bunkers did not +go with Cowboy Jack and daddy to see the Indians, as the ranchman had +promised Russ. + +They all climbed into one of the big blue automobiles and Cowboy Jack +drove the car himself. It was not a long way to go; but it was over the +prairie itself, for there was no trail to the Indian encampment. + +"I see the tents!" cried Rose, standing up in the back of the car to see +over the windshield. + +"Those are wigwams," said Russ. "Aren't they wigwams, Mr. +Scarbontiskil?" + +"You look out or my name will get stuck crossways in your throat and +choke you," growled the ranchman. "You can call 'em wigwams. But those +are just summer shacks, and not like the winter wigwams. Anyhow, up +there on their reservation, these Indians have pretty warm and +comfortable houses for the winter." + +The children did not understand all of this, but they were very much +interested and excited. When the car stopped before the group of +tent-like structures a number of Indian children and women gathered +around, laughing and talking. They seemed to be very pleasant people, +and not at all like the wild-looking red riders the little Bunkers had +seen earlier in the day. + +"But I am just as glad those painted men are not here," Rose said to +Russ. "Aren't you, Russ?" + +But Russ had begun to see that there must be some trick in it. These +squaws and Indian children would not be so gentle if their husbands and +fathers were as savage as they had appeared to be. He could not exactly +understand it, but there was a trick in it he was sure. Another surprise +coming! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN CHIEF BLACK BEAR'S WIGWAM + + +"Where is Black Bear, Mary?" asked Cowboy Jack of an old woman who was +cooking something in a pot over one of the fires in the open. + +"Out on the job, Mr. Jack," was the reply. "They ought to be in soon, +for the sun is too low for good light. You can go into Bear's wikiup if +you want to." + +"Oh! A bear!" whispered Vi, clinging to daddy's hand. "Is it loose?" + +"I expect it is loose, all right," chuckled daddy. "But you will +probably not find it a very savage bear." + +"Has it teeth--and claws?" pursued the little girl. "Bears bite, don't +they?" + +"I promise you that this one won't bite you," boomed Cowboy Jack's great +voice. "He's just as tame a bear as ever you saw. Isn't he, Mary?" + +The old woman smiled kindly at the children and nodded. She was old and +wrinkled, and her face looked as though it had been cured in the smoke +of many campfires. Nevertheless, she was a pleasant woman and even Vi +felt some confidence in her statement. At least, all four little Bunkers +went with Cowboy Jack and daddy to the big skin and canvas tent that +stood in the middle of the camp. It was the biggest tent of all. + +It was rather dark inside the tent; but Cowboy Jack had a hand-torch in +his pocket, and he took this out and flashed the light all about the +interior of the tent by pressing his thumb on the switch of the torch. + +"Never know what you'll find in these Injun shanties," muttered Cowboy +Jack. "Black Bear is college bred, but he's Injun just the same----" + +"Goodness me! what does he say?" gasped Rose. + +"Why, this Black Bear is a man!" exclaimed Russ. "He's an Indian. And I +guess he must be a chief of the tribe. Is he, Daddy?" + +"You've guessed it," laughed Daddy. + +"Was he one of those awful painted Indians we saw riding down on the +cabin?" queried Rose. "Are they safe?" + +Daddy laughed and assured her that "out of business hours" the painted +Indians were quite as gentle as the women and children about the camp. +But Rose and Russ could not just understand what the Indians' "business" +could be. It was a very great mystery, and no mistake! + +Vi and Laddie were so curious that they wished to examine everything in +the wikiup. And there were many, many things strange to the children's +eyes. Brilliant colored blankets hung from the walls, feather +headdresses with what Vi called "trails," so that when a man wore one +the tail of it dragged to his heels. There were beaded shirts and pretty +moccasins and long-stemmed pipes decorated with beads and feathers in +bunches. There were, too, little skins and big skins hanging from the +framework of the Indian tent, and most of the floor was soft with cured +wolf hides, the hair side uppermost. + +"Black Bear is 'heap big chief,'" chuckled Cowboy Jack. "When he travels +he takes a lot of stuff with him. Hello! Here they come, I reckon." + +The four small Bunkers heard the pounding of the ponies' hoofs on the +plain. They peered out of the "door" of the wikiup as daddy held back +the blanket that served as a curtain over the entrance. + +"Oh, they _are_ the painted Indians!" wailed Vi, and immediately hid her +face against Rose's dress. + +"They won't hurt you," scoffed Laddie. "You know they won't with daddy +and Mr. Cowboy Jack here." + +"But--but what did they do to that woman at the cabin--and her baby?" +wondered Vi with continued anxiety. + +"I don't see any scalps," said Laddie confidently. "Maybe it isn't the +fashion to scalp folks any more out here." + +"You can ask Black Bear about that," chuckled Cowboy Jack. "I'm not up +in the fashions, as you might say." + +The big ranchman was evidently vastly amused by the little Bunkers' +comments. The four children peered out of the wikiup and saw the party +of horsemen dismount. A tall figure, with a waving headdress, came +striding toward the children. Vi and Laddie, it must be confessed, +shrank back behind the ranchman and daddy. + +"Hullo!" exclaimed Cowboy Jack. "Here's Black Bear now." + +"But he doesn't look like a bear," Laddie whispered. "Bears don't walk +on their hind feet." + +"Sometimes they do," said Daddy Bunker. "And this Bear does all the +time. He is 'Mr. Bear' just the same as my name is 'Mr. Bunker.'" + +The tall man lifted off his headdress and handed it to one of the women +who came running to help him. Underneath, his hair was not like an +Indian's at all--at least, not like the Indians whose pictures the +Bunker children had seen. Black Bear's hair was cut pompadour, and if it +had not been for the awful stripes across his face he would not have +looked bad. Even Rose admitted this, in a whisper, to her brother Russ. + +It was interesting for the four little Bunkers to watch Black Bear get +rid of the paint with which his face was smeared. He stripped off the +deerskin shirt he wore and squatted down on his heels before a box in +the middle of the tent--a box like a little trunk. When he opened the +cover and braced it up at a slant, the children saw that there was a +mirror fastened in the box lid. + +The Indian woman held a lantern, and Black Bear dipped his fingers in a +jar of cold-cream and began to smear his whole face and neck. He looked +all white and lathery in a moment, and he grinned in a funny way up at +Cowboy Jack and Mr. Bunker. + +"Makes me think of the time they cast me for the part of the famous +_Pocahontas_ in the college play of 'John Smith,'" said Black Bear. +"That was some time--believe me! We made a barrel of money for the +Athletic Association." + +"Oh!" murmured Rose, "he talks--he talks just like Captain Ben--or +anybody!" + +"He doesn't talk like an Indian, that's _so_," whispered back Russ, +quite as much amazed. + +But Violet could not contain her curiosity politely. She came right out +in the lantern-light and asked: + +"Say, Mister Black Bear, are you a real Indian, or just a make-believe?" + +"I am just as real an Indian, little girl, as you ever will see," +replied the young chief, still rubbing the cream into his face and +neck. "I'm a full-blood, sure-enough, honest-Injun Indian! You ask Mr. +Scarbontiskil." + +"But you're not savage!" said the amazed Vi. "Not as savage as you all +looked when you were riding down on that cabin to-day. We saw you and we +ran home again. We were scared." + +"No. I'm pretty tame. I own an automobile and a talking-machine, and I +sleep in a brass bed when I'm at home. But, you see, I _work_ at being +an Indian, because it pays me better than farming." + +"Oh! Oh!" gasped Laddie. "Scalping people, and all that?" + +"No. There is a law now against scalping folks," said Mr. Black Bear, +smiling again. And now that he had got the yellow and red paint off his +face his smile was very pleasant. "We all have to obey the law, you +know." + +"Oh! Do Indians, too?" gasped Rose. + +"Indians are the most law-abiding folks there are," declared the chief +earnestly. + +"Then I guess I won't feel afraid of Indians again," confessed Rose +Bunker. "Will you, Russ?" + +But Russ did not answer. He felt that there was a trick about all this. +He could not see through it yet; but he meant to. It was worse than one +of Laddie's riddles. + +By and by Chief Black Bear got all the paint off his face. Then he +washed the cold-cream off. He pulled on a pleated, white-bosomed shirt, +and buttoned on a collar and tied a butterfly tie in place. Then he went +behind a blanket that was hung up at one side of the wikiup, all the +time talking gaily to Cowboy Jack and Mr. Bunker, and when he reappeared +he was dressed just as Daddy Bunker dressed back home when he went to +the lodge or to a banquet! + +The four little Bunkers stared. They could not find voice for any +comment upon this strange transformation in Black Bear's appearance. But +Cowboy Jack was critical. + +"Some dog that boy puts on, doesn't he, Charlie?" he said to Mr. Bunker. +"He thinks he's down in New Haven, or somewhere, where he went to +college. Beats me what a little smatter of book-learning will do for +these redskins." + +This did not seem to annoy Chief Black Bear at all. He laughed and +slapped the big ranchman on the shoulder. + +"Of course I'm a redskin--just as you are a whiteskin. Only I have +improved my opportunities, Jack, while you have allowed yourself to +deteriorate." That last was a pretty hard word, but Russ and Rose +understood that it meant "fall behind." "Probably your grandfather had a +college education, Jack," went on the Indian chief. "But your father and +you did not appreciate education. _My_ father and grandfathers, away +back to the days of LaSalle and even to Cortez's followers who marched +up through Texas, had no educational advantages. I appreciate my chance +the more." + +"But a boiled shirt and a Tuxedo coat!" snorted Cowboy Jack. + +"Keeps me a 'good Indian,'" laughed Black Bear. "No knowing how savage I +might be if I didn't dress for dinner 'most every night." + +Russ knew all this was joking between the chief and the ranchman, and he +saw that Daddy Bunker was very much amused. But the boy did not +understand what the Indians were doing here in Cowboy Jack's ranch, and +why they should dress up like wild savages in the daytime, and then +dress in civilized clothes when evening came. + +Russ Bunker had never been more puzzled by anything in his life before. +He felt, of course, that Daddy Bunker would explain if he asked him; but +Russ liked to find out things for himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE NEW PONIES + + +Out of a box Chief Black Bear took certain treasures that he gave to the +four little Bunkers who visited his wikiup. He even sent some +fresh-water mussel shells, polished like mother-of-pearl, to the absent +Margy and Mun Bun, of whom Cowboy Jack told him. + +"They are some nice kids," declared the ranchman, who sometimes used +expressions and words that were not altogether polite; but he meant no +harm. "Especially that Mun Bun. _He_ went to sleep in a fence-corner +to-day and got covered up with tumble-weed. But he's an all right boy." + +Cowboy Jack seemed to think a great deal of the smallest of the Bunkers. +He was frequently seen admiring Mun Bun. Even the other children noticed +it, and Rose had once asked her mother: + +"Why doesn't Mr. Scar--Scar--well, what-ever-it-iskil! Why doesn't he +have children of his own?" + +"But, my dear, everybody cannot have children just for the wishing," +Mother Bunker replied. + +"I should think he could," murmured Rose. "See how many children these +Indians and Mexicans have; and they are none of them half as nice as +Mr.--Mr.--well, Mr. Cowboy Jack." + +To Russ and Rose and Laddie and Violet, Black Bear gave stone +arrow-heads which may have been used by his forefathers when they roamed +the plains, wild and free, as the young Indian said. But better than +those, he gave Rose and Violet little beaded moccasins that fitted just +as though they were made for the little white girls! + +The children went away after that, for it was time for their own supper +at the ranch house and Cowboy Jack always seemed afraid of making Maria +Castrada cross if they were late for meals. But perhaps it was his own +hearty appetite that spurred him to be on time. + +At any rate, the Bunkers left Chief Black Bear sitting cross-legged +before a low table on which the Indian women were serving his dinner, +beginning with soup and from that going on through all the courses of a +properly served meal. + +"Funny fellow, that Black Bear," said Cowboy Jack to Mr. Bunker. "But +maybe he's got it right. I was brought up pretty nice--silverware and +finger-bowls, and all that sort of do-dads; but part of my life I've +lived pretty rough. Black Bear has set himself a certain standard of +living, and he's not going to slip back. Afraid of being a 'blanket +Indian,' I suppose." + +The children--even Russ and Rose--did not understand all this; but they +had been much interested in Chief Black Bear. + +"Only, I don't see why he paints up in the daytime and rides such wild +ponies, and all that," grumbled Rose, who, like Russ, did not like to be +mystified. + +Whenever they tried to ask the older folks to explain the mystery they +were laughed at. It was Cowboy Jack's mystery, anyway, and Mr. and Mrs. +Bunker did not feel that they had a right to explain to the children all +that they wished to know. + +"Figure it out for yourselves," said Daddy Bunker. + +"Is it a riddle, then?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a riddle. Why does +Chief Black Bear paint his face, and--and----" + +"And take it off with cold cream?" put in Vi. "Why _does_ he?" + +"I guess that's the riddle," said her twin. "You answer it, Vi." + +But although Vi could ask innumerable questions on all sorts of subjects +she seldom was able to answer one--and certainly not this one Laddie +propounded. + +Next morning while the six little Bunkers were at the big breakfast +table in Cowboy Jack's ranch house there again arose a considerable +disturbance outside in front of the house. This time the children were +pretty well over their meal, and they grew so excited that Mother Bunker +allowed them to be excused. + +Russ and Rose led the way out upon the veranda. There stood two of the +smiling Mexican houseboys--"cholos," Cowboy Jack called them--and they +bade the Bunker children a very pleasant good morning. Russ and Rose +did not forget their manners, and they replied in kind. But the four +smaller children just whooped when they saw what had brought the +Mexicans to the front of the big house. + +One of the men led two saddled ponies while the other held another fat +pony that drew a brightly painted cart with seats in it and a step +behind--just the dearest cart! Rose Bunker said. + +"Oh, I know I can learn to drive that dear, dear pony!" Rose added. "And +there is room for every one of you children with me in the cart." + +"Huh!" exclaimed Laddie. "I am going to ride pony-back like Russ does. +Which is my pony, Mr. Cowboy Jack?" he asked of the ranchman who had +followed them out of the house to enjoy their amazement and delight. + +"The one with the shortest stirrups, I guess," Russ said. "This one +looks as if I could ride him," and he took the bridle handed him by the +Mexican. + +"Oh, lift me up! Lift me up!" cried Laddie, running to the other saddle +pony. + +Cowboy Jack strode down and did so. Meanwhile Rose and the other +children were scrambling into the pony-cart, while the pony which drew +it tossed its head and looked around as though counting the number of +passengers that were getting aboard. + +"Isn't he just cute?" cried Rose again. "Oh, Mr. Cowboy Jack! you are so +good to us." + +"Got to be," said the ranchman, laughing. "I haven't any little folks of +my own, so I have to treat those I find around here pretty well, I do +say." + +Laddie clung to both the pommel and the bridle-reins at first, for he +did seem so high from the ground at first. But Russ trotted away on his +pony very securely. Russ had ridden quite a little at Uncle Fred's ranch +and had not forgotten how. + +Rose decided that she liked better to drive. But Vi must learn to drive, +too, she said. And even Margy and Mun Bun clamored to hold the reins +over the back of the sleepy brown pony. Russ's mount was what Cowboy +Jack called a pinto, but Russ said it was a calico pony. He had seen +them marked that way before--in the circus. Laddie's pony was all white, +with pinkish nose and ears. Right at the start Laddie called him +"Pinky." But the little girls could not agree on a name for the pony +that drew their cart. + +There seemed to be so many nice names that just fitted him! Margy wanted +to call him Dinah after her lost doll. + +"But that Dinah-doll was black," said Rose, in objection. "And this pony +is brown. Maybe we ought to call him Brownie." + +"Oh! I know!" cried Vi. "Let's call him Cute. He's just as cunning as he +can be." + +But this name did not appeal to the others, and they were no nearer +finding a name for the brown pony when the ride was over and they all +came back to the ranch house than at first. They had had so much fun, +however, that they had forgotten for the time being the mystery of the +Indians and soldiers whom they had seen the day before. + +Laddie had thought up a new riddle--and it was a good one. He knew it +was good and he told everybody about it, he was so excited. + +"Listen!" he cried, when he half tumbled out of his saddle by the steps +of the veranda. "This is a good riddle. Listen!" + +"We're listening, Son," said Cowboy Jack. "Shoot!" + +"What is it," asked Laddie earnestly, "that looks like a horse, has four +legs like a horse, runs like a horse, eats like a horse, but it isn't a +horse?" + +"A cow," said his twin promptly. + +"No, no! A cow has horns. A horse doesn't," Laddie declared scornfully. + +"A colt," guessed Russ. + +"No, no!" rejoined the eager Laddie. "A colt is a little horse, so that +could not be the answer, Russ Bunker." + +"A giraffe," suggested Vi again. + +"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained the riddle-maker. "Does a giraffe +look like any horse you ever saw?" + +"A carpenter's horse," said Rose. + +"Pooh! That's made of wood. Can a wooden horse _run_?" cried Laddie. + +"I guess that _is_ a pretty good riddle," said Russ soberly. "What is +the answer, Laddie?" + +"Do you all give it up?" asked the smaller boy, his eyes shining. + +"You got us thrown and tied," declared Cowboy Jack solemnly. "I couldn't +guess that riddle in a thousand years." + +"But you wouldn't want to wait that long to know what it is," Laddie +said delightedly. "Now, would you?" + +"You'd better tell us now, Laddie," said Daddy Bunker smilingly. "You +know a thousand years _is_ a long time to wait." + +"Well," said the little fellow proudly, "what looks like a horse, and +has four legs like a horse, and runs like a horse, and eats like a +horse, is----" + +"Yes, yes!" exclaimed the impatient Violet. + +"What is it, Laddie?" + +"Why," said Laddie, with vast satisfaction, "it is a _mule_." + +They all cried out in surprise at this answer. But it was a good riddle. + +"Only," said Russ thoughtfully, "it's lucky you didn't say anything +about its tail and ears. Then we would have caught you." + +The Bunker children had so much fun with the ponies Cowboy Jack had +selected for their use during the next two or three days that they +thought of very little else. The mystery of the Indians and soldiers did +not often trouble their minds. But something else did. Mail came from +the East, and with it was a letter from Captain Ben, and another from +Norah. + +"And," said Mother Bunker soberly, reading the letters to the children, +"both say that they have found neither Rose's wrist-watch nor Laddie's +stick-pin. I am afraid, Rose and Laddie, that your carelessness has cost +you both your jewelry. It is too bad. But perhaps it will teach you the +lesson of carefulness with your possessions." + +This, however, did not make either Rose or Laddie feel any better in +their minds. They had been very proud of both the lost articles and it +looked now as though they would never see the watch and the pin again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +RUSS BUNKER GUESSES RIGHT + + +One morning, while Mother Bunker was amusing the four younger children +in the house (for the twins and Margy and Mun Bun could not always go +where Rose and Russ went) the two older Bunker children rode away from +the big ranch house on that very wagon-trail that had led them into such +a strange adventure the first day of their stay on Cowboy Jack's ranch. +Rose rode on Laddie's pony, Pinky. + +Russ and Rose had thought of something the night before, and they had +planned this ride in order to do it. They had remembered Black Bear's +wild Indians and the strange soldiers in blue. The two older Bunker +children decided to try to find those strange people again, and the man +and woman and baby at the brookside. + +Just who those "white settlers" could be, and why they were living in +that part of the ranch away from Mr. Cowboy Jack's nice house, neither +Russ nor Rose had been able to make up their minds. Of course, there was +a mystery about it, and a mystery was bound to worry the little Bunkers +a good deal. They were persistent, and Russ, at least, seldom gave up +any problem until he had solved it. + +"I saw a picture in a big book at the ranch," said Rose to her brother, +"and in it a frontiersman--that's what the book called him--was dressed +like that man we saw chopping wood--the man with the squirrel-tail on +his cap and his long hair tied in a queue." + +"Did you? But that must have been the way they wore their hair a long, +long time ago." + +"It said in the book under the picture that trappers and hunters out +West here wore their hair long and tied in queues long after they +stopped doing so anywhere else. Some of the white hunters wore a +scalp-lock like the Indians. I guess maybe that was a scalp-lock," said +Rose. + +"Well, those soldiers----" + +"They are not dressed like soldiers are now," Rose interrupted. "But in +the book there were pictures of soldiers in the Mexican War--When was +that, Russ?" + +Russ had read a little American history in his class the term before and +thought he knew something about the Mexican War. He told Rose it had +been fought long after the Revolution. + +"Well, the pictures showed soldiers in the Mexican War dressed like +those we saw the other day. Or, anyway, very much like them." + +"Goodness me!" exclaimed Russ, "don't you suppose these soldiers know +_that_ war is over?" + +So they had started out without saying anything to the older folks about +their real object. In the first place, Russ and Rose did not like to be +laughed at. And they knew that Cowboy Jack, at least, was very much +amused by the fact that the little Bunkers had not guessed the mystery +of the Indians and soldiers now on his ranch. + +The brother and sister rode on through the valley they had traveled +before and up to the top of the ridge from which they had seen the +cabin by the side of the stream. The cabin was now in truth deserted. +There was no fire before it and not a person in sight. + +"Maybe those Indians took them captive. The poor little baby!" murmured +Rose. + +"Don't be a little dunce, Rose!" exclaimed Russ, with exasperation. "You +know that nice Black Bear would not hurt them. And, anyway, I guess that +baby was only a doll. That is what that soldier said when you told him +about it. He said it was Mr. Props' rag baby." + +"Who do you suppose Mr. Props is?" asked Rose. "And Mrs. Props? It must +have been Mrs. Props we saw holding the--er--baby. For maybe it was a +real baby." + +Russ saw there was no use in arguing on this point. He urged his calico +pony forward and Pinky followed promptly. The two Bunkers went along the +trail past the cabin and up the next slope. They struck into a woodsy +sort of road then, and by and by the children saw that the trail was +leading them to a ravine between two steep hills. There was much +shrubbery, so they could not see very clearly what was before them, but +as they continued to ride on there came suddenly a lot of noise from +the ravine. Horses whinnied, men shouted, and two or three guns were +discharged. + +"Oh! It's a fight, Russ!" shrieked Rose. "Do come away!" + +But Russ had seen something that interested him very much. Among the +bushes on one side of the ravine he saw several Indians creeping. They +wore feathers in their scalp-locks, and had bows and arrows and guns. He +did not see Black Bear with this company of Indians, but they were +acting just as though they were fighting somebody down in the bottom of +the ravine. + +"It's an--an ambush, Rose!" cried Russ excitedly. "Oh! There's a man +with a machine----" + +In fact he saw two men with boxes on tripods, standing side-by-side and +not many yards away in the trail. The men were turning cranks on the +sides of the boxes. + +Another man turned and saw the Bunker children apparently riding nearer. +He started back toward them, shouted and waved his arms. + +"Oh, dear me!" shrieked Rose. "It's--it's dynamite! They are going to +blow up something! Come, Russ!" + +She twitched at Pinky's bridle, and the pony swerved about and plunged +away at such a fast pace that poor Rose could only cling to the bridle +and saddle and cry. But Russ remained where he was. He was greatly +amazed, but slowly a comprehension of the whole thing was forming in the +boy's mind. + +"It's--it's only make-believe," Russ Bunker told himself. "They are not +doing anything dangerous. It's a--a play, that's what it is. Why, those +men have got moving picture cameras! + +"Oh, I know what the surprise is now--Mr. Cowboy Jack's surprise! It's a +moving picture company!" said Russ Bunker aloud. "They are make-believe +soldiers, even if Black Bear and his people are real Indians. They are +making moving pictures--that is what they are doing, Rose." + +But when he turned in his saddle to look for Rose, the girl and Pinky +had completely disappeared. + +"My goodness!" said Russ, somewhat alarmed, "she's so frightened that +she has run back home. Maybe she will fall off the pony." + +Much as he would have liked to remain to watch the actors and the +Indians make the picture on which they were at work, Russ felt it his +duty to see that Rose was all right. If anything happened to Rose daddy +and mother might blame Russ, because he was the oldest. + +The pinto pony cantered away with Russ at quite a fast pace. He kept to +the wagon-trail that led back to Cowboy Jack's ranch house. And at every +turn Russ expected to see Pinky and Rose ahead. + +But he did not see his sister on Laddie's pony. He came in sight of the +big house, and even then he did not see her. So, when the pinto stopped +before the big veranda and Mother Bunker and the other children +appeared, Russ could scarcely find voice enough to ask: + +"Oh, Mother! have you seen Rose? Did she come back alone?" + +"Rose? I have not seen her since you both rode away together. Do you +mean to say----" Then Mother Bunker saw that Russ was having hard work +to keep back the tears and she--wise woman that she was--knew that this +was no time to scold the boy. + +"Where did she go? When did you lose her?" his mother cried, running +down the steps. + +"Back--back where they are making the moving picture," gasped Russ. "She +was scared by the Indians shooting at the whites. But, of course, they +were only making believe. And--and Rose rode away somewhere +and--and--oh, Mother! I can't find her." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +PINKY GOES HOME + + +Rose had seen men digging and blasting at home in Pineville for the new +sewer system; so when the moving picture man had run back toward her and +Russ to warn them not to get into the field of the camera, Rose had +thought a charge of dynamite was about to be exploded. + +Although the man who warned them did not wave a red flag, dynamite was +all Rose could think of. The appearance of the Indians on the hillside, +in any case, frightened her, and she was quite ready to yield to panic. +As we have seen, she twitched Pinky, the pony, around by his +bridle-rein, and the spirited pony proceeded to gallop away. + +Rose did not pay any attention to where Pinky was going. And Pinky did +not remain on the trail by which the brother and sister had traveled +from Cowboy Jack's ranch. + +Pinky was very anxious to go, but where he went he did not care. He +left the trail almost at once and cantered through a pasture where the +scattered clumps of brush and greasewood soon hid him and his rider from +the sight of anybody on the wagon-trail. At least, they were quite +hidden from Russ Bunker when he rode back to look for his sister. + +Rose did not at first worry at all about where she was or where Pinky +was taking her. She listened for the expected "boom!" of the dynamite +explosion. But as minute after minute passed and the explosion did not +come, Rose began to wonder if she had made a mistake. + +Pinky kept right on moving, just as though he knew where he was going +and wished to get there shortly. But when Rose looked around she knew +she had never been in this place before. And, too, she discovered that +Russ had not followed her. + +This last discovery made Rose pull up the pony and think. It alarmed +her. She was not often frightened when Russ was by, although she had +given way to fright on this particular occasion. But she knew she would +not have been afraid had her brother been right here with her. + +As it was, Rose was very much frightened indeed. She did not know where +Russ was, nor did she know where she was. Therefore it was positive that +she was lost! + +Now, Pinky was a very intelligent pony, as was afterward proved. You +will read all about it later. But he could not know that Rose wished him +to find his way home unless she told him as much. And that Rose did not +do. + +She just burst out crying, and the pony had no idea what that meant. He +turned to look at her, tossed his head and pawed with one dainty hoof. +But he did not understand of course that the girl on his back was crying +because she was lost and was afraid. + +Perhaps, too, if Rose had let the bridle-reins alone Pinky would have +remembered the corral and his oats and have started back without being +told that the ranch house was the thing Rose Bunker most wanted to see. +But the little girl thought she had to guide the pony; so she grabbed up +the reins at last and said: + +"Come up, Pinky! We have just got to go somewhere. Go on!" + +Pinky naturally went on the way he was headed, and that chanced to be in +a direction away from Cowboy Jack's home, where the Bunkers were then +visiting. Nor did the pony bear her toward the place where the moving +picture company was at work. + +They went on, and noon came, and both Pinky and the little girl were +hungry and thirsty. + +Pinky smelled water--or saw it. He insisted on starting off to one side +of the narrow trail they had been following. + +Rose was afraid to leave that trail, for it seemed to her that a path +along which people had ridden enough to make a deep rut in the sward +must be a path that was more or less used all the time. She expected to +meet somebody by sticking to this path, or else come to a house. + +But here was a shallow stream, and Pinky insisted on trotting down to it +and wading right in. + +The water was cool, and the pony cooled his feet in it as well as his +nose. He had jerked the reins out of Rose's hands when he had sunk his +nose in the water, and she had no way of controlling him. + +"You bad, bad Pinky!" cried Rose, leaning down, clinging with one hand +to his mane and reached with the other hand to seize the reins. But she +could not reach them. She lost her stirrups. She slipped forward off the +saddle and upon the pony's neck. + +At this Pinky was startled. He tried to scramble out of the brook. He +stepped on a stone that rolled. And then he staggered and half fell and +over his head and right into the middle of the brook flew Rose Bunker! +It was a most astonishing overturn, to say nothing of the danger of it. + +Splash went Rose into a pool of water! But worse than getting wet was +the fact that one of her ankles came in contact with a stone, and the +pain of the hurt made Rose scream aloud. Oh, that knock did so hurt the +little girl! + +"Now! Now see what--what you've done!" cried Rose, when she could speak. +"You naughty, naughty Pinky!" + +Pinky had snorted and run a few steps up the bank. Now he was grazing +contentedly--not trying to run away from the little girl at all, but +quite inconsiderate of her, just the same. He let Rose sit on the edge +of the brook, with her hurt foot in the water, crying as hard as she +could cry, and he acted as though he had no interest in Rose at all! + +At least, he acted this way until he had got his fill of grass. Then he +trotted back to the brook for another drink. He did not come very near +Rose, who had crawled up out of the water and sat rocking herself too +and fro and nursing her hurt ankle. It was so badly wrenched that the +little girl could not bear her weight upon that foot. She had tried it +and found out "for sure." + +Otherwise she might easily have caught Pinky, for the pony was tame +enough in spite of his being spirited. But she could not walk far enough +to catch the pony; and then she could not have jumped up into the +saddle. + +Pinky got tired of looking at her, perhaps. Anyway, after drinking again +he wandered up from the brook and once more fell to grazing. But he was +not hungry now, and he remembered the corral at the ranch house. +Besides, something moved behind a clump of brush and startled him. + +The pony threw up his head and snorted. His ears pointed forward and he +looked questioningly at the clump of brush. The creature behind the +bushes moved again, and at that Pinky dashed away, whistling his alarm. +Rose saw him go, but she could not stop him. And fortunately, for the +time being, she did not know what had frightened the pony and sent him +off at so quick a pace. He disappeared, and with his going it seemed to +Rose that her last thread of attachment to the big ranch house and Daddy +and Mother Bunker was broken. + +When Pinky was out of sight and sound Rose stopped crying. In fact, she +stood up and did try to hobble a few steps after him. For Rose was wise +enough to see that the pony had probably started for home, and in that +same direction lay her best path too. + +But she really could not limp far nor fast. The clumps of brush soon hid +the pony, as we have said. And then poor Rose heard the same sound in +the scrub that Pinky had heard! + +"Oh! what is that?" breathed the little girl. + +She had not thought of any danger from wild animals before this time, +for it was broad daylight. And what this thing could be---- + +Then she caught a glimpse of it! It was of a sunburned yellow color, and +it slunk behind a bush and seemed to be crouching there, hiding, quite +as much afraid of Rose as Rose was of it. She saw its dusty tail +flattened out on the ground. But whether it was frightened or was +preparing to charge out upon her, the little Bunker girl could not tell +and was greatly terrified. + +She was just as frightened, indeed, as all the people at Cowboy Jack's +ranch house were when Pinky, the runaway pony, cantered into view with +nobody on his back. Cowboy Jack and daddy were already mounted on +ponies, and Russ had refused to remain at home. He wanted to aid in the +search for Rose. + +"I can show them just where we were when Rose turned back," he said to +Mother Bunker. "And then Cowboy Jack ought to be able to follow Rose." + +"I hope so," agreed his mother. + +Then she, as well as the little folks, shouted aloud at the appearance +of the cantering Pinky. + +"He's thrown the girl off!" exclaimed the ranchman. "Or else she has +tumbled off. And it was some time ago, too. Come on, Charlie Bunker! I'm +going to get Black Bear and his Injuns to help us look for her." + +"Oh, Mr. Scarbontiskil!" murmured Mrs. Bunker, "is there anything out +there in the wilderness to hurt her--by day?" + +"Not a thing, Ma'am--not a thing bigger or savager than a jackrabbit," +declared Cowboy Jack. + +"But I wonder where the pony left her?" queried Mr. Bunker. + +"Ask him, Daddy--ask him," urged Laddie eagerly. "He's an awful +intelligent pony." + +Pinky had been halted before the group at the ranch house. Daddy Bunker +said again: + +"I wonder if he could show us where he left Rose?" + +And when he spoke Pinky began to nod his head up and down and paw with +one hoof. The children were delighted--even Russ. + +"Oh! I believe he is trying to explain," Russ cried. "Ask him another +question, Daddy." + +Mr. Bunker laughed rather grimly. "Let Vi ask the pony questions; she +can think of them faster than I can. Or let Laddie ask him a riddle. +There is no time to experiment with ponies now." + +He and Cowboy Jack started away from the ranch house, and Russ, for fear +of being left behind, urged his pinto after them. + +He felt very much frightened because of Rose's absence. And he felt, +too, as though it might be his fault, although none of the older people +had suggested such a thing. Still, Russ knew that he ought to be beside +his sister right now! + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE LAME COYOTE + + +Rose had, of course, heard of coyotes. She had heard them talked about +here at Cowboy Jack's ranch. But she had not caught a glimpse of one +before. Nor did she know this slinking creature behind the bushes was +that animal which ranchmen consider such a pest. + +Although coyotes are very cowardly by nature and will seldom attack +human beings, even if starving or enraged, the beasts do kill young +calves and lambs and raid the ranch hen-houses just as foxes do in the +East. + +Besides, on the open range, the coyotes howl and whine all night, +keeping everybody in camp awake; so the cowboys have a strong dislike +for Mr. Coyote and have not a single good word to say for him. Indeed, +the coyote seems to possess few good traits. + +But Rose Bunker called the creature that had startled her a dog. + +"If I could run I know that dog would chase me!" she sobbed. "I wonder +who it belongs to? It must be a runaway dog, to be away out here where +there are no houses. I'm afraid of that dog." + +For this Rose was not to be much blamed. This was a strange country to +her, and almost everything she saw was different from what she was used +to back in Pennsylvania. Even the trees and bushes were different. And +she never had seen a dog just like that tawny one that dragged itself +behind the hedge of bushes. + +The strange part of it was--the thing that frightened Rose most--was +that the animal seemed trying to hide from her. And yet she felt that it +must be dangerous, for it was big and had long legs. She was quite right +in supposing that if she had undertaken to run, under ordinary +circumstances, the animal could have overtaken her. + +But Rose's ankle throbbed and ached, and she cried out whenever she +rested that foot upon the ground. She just couldn't run! So she began +cajoling the supposed dog, hoping that it was not as savage as she +really feared it was. One thing, it did not growl as bad dogs often did, +as Rose Bunker very well knew. + +"Come, doggy! Nice doggy!" she cooed. And then she was suddenly afraid +that it really would come! If it had leaped up and started toward Rose +the little girl would have fallen right down--she knew she would! + +But the yellow-looking creature only tried to creep farther under the +scrubby bushes. Rose began to think that maybe it was more afraid of her +than she was of it. + +"Poor doggy!" she said, hobbling around the end of the hedge of scrubby +bushes. + +There she saw its head and forepaws. And it was not until then that she +discovered what was the matter with the coyote. Its right fore paw was +fast in a steel trap. A chain hung from the trap. It had broken the +chain and hobbled away with the trap--no knowing how far it had come. + +"The poor thing!" Rose said again, at once pitying the coyote more than +she was afraid of it. + +Yet when it saw the little girl looking at him it clashed its great jaws +and grinned at her most wickedly. It was not a pleasant thing to look +at. + +"But he is hurt, and 'fraid, I suppose," Rose murmured. "Why! he's just +as lame as I am. I guess his foot hurts him in that awful trap a good +deal more than my ankle hurts me. The poor thing!" + +The coyote was evidently quite exhausted. It probably had come a good +way with that trap fastened to its paw. But it showed Rose all its +teeth, and they did look very sharp to the little girl. + +"I would not want him to snap at me," thought Rose. "And if I went near +enough I guess he would snap. I'll keep away from the poor dog, for I +would not dare try to get the trap off his foot." + +She moved away; but she kept the crouching coyote in sight. She did not +like to feel that it was following her without her seeing it do so. And +the coyote seemed to feel that it wanted to keep her in sight. For it +raised its head and watched her with unwinking eyes. + +This incident had given Rose something to think about besides her own +lost state and her lame ankle. The latter was not paining as badly as +at first. Still, she did not feel that she could hobble far. And she was +not quite sure now in which direction Pinky, the pony, had run. She +really did not know which way to go. + +"It is funny Russ didn't come after me," thought the little girl. "Maybe +those Indians got him. But, then, there was the white man. I thought he +was setting off dynamite. But there wasn't any explosion. I guess I ran +away too quick. But Russ might have followed me, I should think." + +She could not quite bring herself to blame her difficulties on Russ, +however, for she very well knew that her own panic had brought her here. +Russ had been brave enough to stay. Russ was always brave. And then, she +had blindly ridden off the trail and come to this place. + +"I guess I won't say Russ did it," she decided. "It wouldn't be so. And +I expect right now he is hunting for me, and is worried 'most to death +about where I am. And daddy--and Mother Bunker! I guess they will want +to know where I've got to. This--this is just dreadful. Maybe I shall +have to stay here days and days! And what shall I ever eat, if I do? +And I haven't even any bed out here!" + +The lost girl felt pretty bad. It seemed to her, now that she thought +more about it, that she was very ill used. Russ did not usually desert +her when she was in trouble. And Rose Bunker felt that she was in very +serious trouble now. + +She sat down again in plain view of the lame coyote and cried a few more +tears. But what was the use of crying when there was nobody here to +care? The lame coyote had its own troubles, and although it watched her, +it did not care a thing about her. + +"He is only afraid I might do something to hurt him," thought Rose. "And +I wouldn't do a thing to hurt the poor doggy. I wonder if he is +thirsty?" + +The stream of water into which Rose had tumbled from Pinky's back was +only a few yards away, and perhaps the wounded coyote had been trying to +get to it before the little girl and the pony came to this place. But +the animal was too wary to go down to drink while Rose was in sight. And +fortunately there was nothing Rose could take water to the coyote in. +For she certainly would have tried to do that, if she could. She was +just that tender-hearted. + +But it would have been unwise, for the coyote's teeth were as sharp as +they looked to be, and it would not have understood that the little girl +merely wished to help. + +Rose sat and watched the beast, and the lame coyote crouched under the +bushes and watched her, and it grew into mid-afternoon. Rose felt very +sad indeed. She did not see how she could walk back to the ranch house, +even if she knew the way. And she could not understand why Russ did not +come for her. + +Meanwhile Russ was urging his pinto pony as fast as he could after +Cowboy Jack and Daddy Bunker. They followed the regular wagon-track +through the valley and over the ridge which had now become quite +familiar to the little boy. They passed the cabin by the stream and then +came to the knoll from which that morning Russ and Rose had seen the +moving picture cameras. + +But neither those machines nor the men who worked them nor the Indians +on the hillside were now in sight. Cowboy Jack, however, seemed to know +just where to find the moving picture company, for he kept right on +into the ravine. + +"I reckon this is about where you saw the Indians and the camera men, +Son?" the ranchman said to Russ. + +"Yes, sir," said Russ. "But Rose left me right on this hill. I thought +she went back----" + +"I didn't notice any place where she left the trail," interposed Cowboy +Jack. "But I reckon Black Bear can find where she went. You have to hand +it to those Injuns. They can see trailmarks that a white man wouldn't +notice. And going to college didn't spoil Black Bear for a +trail-hunter." + +"He is quite a wonderful young man," Daddy Bunker said. + +But Russ was only thinking about his sister. He wondered where she could +have gone and what had happened to her. Pinky's coming back to the ranch +alone made Russ believe that something very terrible had happened to his +sister. + +He urged his pinto pony on after the ranchman and daddy, however, and +they all entered the ravine. It was a very wild place--just the sort of +place, Russ thought, where savage Indians might have lain in wait for +unfortunate white people. He was very glad that Black Bear's people were +quite tame. At least, they could not be accused of having run away with +Rose. + +In a few minutes Cowboy Jack had led them up through the ravine and out +upon what he called a mesa. There were patches of woods, plenty of grass +that was not much frost-bitten, and a big spring near which a number of +ponies were picketed. There was a traveling kitchen, such as the Army +used in the World War. Men in white caps and jackets were very busy +about the kitchen helping the moving picture company to hot food. + +And the actors and Indians were all squatting very pleasantly side by +side eating and talking. The Indians wore their war-paint, but they had +drawn on their shirts or else had blankets around their shoulders. Russ +saw Black Bear almost at once. He stood talking with some of the white +men--notably with the one who was the commander of the soldiers, the man +with the plume in his hat. + +But it seemed that a little man sitting on a campchair off to one side +and talking to a man who had a lot of papers in his hands was the most +important person in view. It was to this man that Cowboy Jack led the +way. + +"That is Mr. Habback, the director," Russ heard the ranchman tell daddy. +"We must get him to let us have Black Bear, or somebody." + +The next moment he hailed the moving picture director. + +"Can you spare some of your Injuns for an hour?" asked Cowboy Jack. +"There's a little girl lost, and I reckon an Injun can find her trail +better than any of my cholos or punchers. How about Black Bear?" + +The young Indian whose name he had mentioned came towards the group at +once. Mr. Habback looked up at Chief Black Bear. + +"Hear what this Texas longhorn says, Chief?" he said to the Indian. "A +little girl lost somewhere." + +"I can show you about where she left the trail," explained the ranchman +earnestly. + +"Was she over at my wikiup the other evening?" asked Black Bear, with +interest. + +"She--she's my sister," broke in Russ anxiously. "And she was scared by +your Indian play, and the pony must have run away with her." + +"Hullo!" said Chief Black Bear. "I remember you, too, youngster. So your +sister is lost?" + +"Well, we can't find her," said Russ Bunker. + +"I will go along with them, Mr. Habback," said the Indian chief, +glancing down at the director. "I'll take Little Elk with me. You won't +need us for a couple of hours, will you?" + +"It's all right," said the director. "Go ahead. We can't afford to lose +a little girl around here, that is sure." + +"You bet we can't," put in Cowboy Jack. "Little girls are scarce in this +part of the country." + +Black Bear spoke to one of his men, who hurried to get two ponies. The +Indians leaped upon the bare backs of the ponies and rode them just as +safely as the white people rode in their saddles. This interested Russ a +great deal, and he wondered if Black Bear would teach him how to ride +Indian style. + +But this was not the time to speak of such a thing. Rose must be found. +For all they knew the little girl might be in serious trouble--she +might be needing them right then! + +The two Indians and the ranchman and Daddy Bunker started back through +the ravine. None of them was more worried over Rose's disappearance than +was Russ. He urged his pinto pony after the older people at the very +fastest pace he could ride. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A PICNIC + + +Rose had now been so long alone that she was beginning to fear she never +would see Mother Bunker and daddy and her brothers and sisters again. +And this was an awful thought. + +But she had already cried so much that it was an effort for her to +squeeze out another tear. So she just sat on a stump and sniffed, +watching the lame coyote. + +Rose pitied that coyote. If he was as thirsty as she was hungry, the +little girl feared the poor animal must be suffering greatly. For it was +long past noon and breakfast at the ranch house was served early. + +"I guess I'll have to begin to eat leaves and grass," murmured Rose +Bunker. "I suppose I can wash them down with water, and there is plenty +of water in the brook. Only the poor, doggy can't get to it." + +While she was thinking these things, and feeling very miserable indeed, +she suddenly heard the ring of horses' hoofs on the stones in the brook. +Rose sprang up in great excitement, for she did not know what this new +trouble might be. + +Then---- + +"Oh, Daddy Bunker! Russ!" she shrieked, and began to hobble toward the +cavalcade that had ridden down from the other side of the stream of +water. + +"Rose!" cried daddy. "Are you hurt, child?" + +"Well, I _was_ hurt. But my foot's pretty near well now. Only Pinky ran +away and left me after I tumbled out of the saddle--Oh! Wait! Look out +and don't scare off the poor lame doggy." + +This last she cried when she looked back at the coyote trying to +scramble farther into the bushes. But the chain hitched to the trap had +caught over a stub, and the poor brute could not get far. Cowboy Jack +drew from his saddle holster the pistol he usually carried when he was +out on the range; but Rose screamed out again when she saw that. + +"Don't hurt the poor doggy, Mr. Cowboy Jack! He can't get away." + +"Jumping grasshoppers!" muttered the ranchman, "does she think that +coyote is a dog?" + +"She evidently does," Black Bear replied. "He can't get away. I'll tell +Little Elk to stay back and fix him. No use scaring the child. Lucky the +brute was fast in that trap. He might have done her harm." + +Rose did not hear this, but Russ did. And he was quite old enough to +understand his sister had been in danger while she remained here near +the coyote. Besides, it would have been cruel to have left the wounded +animal to die miserably alone. He could not be cured, so he would have +to be shot. + +This incident of the coyote made a deeper impression upon the mind of +Russ than it did on his sister's. He quite understood that, had the +animal been more savage or had it been free of the trap, it might have +seriously injured Rose. There were perils out here on the open ranges +that they must never lose sight of--possibilities of getting into +trouble that at first Russ Bunker had not dreamed about. It made Russ +feel as though never again would he let any of the younger children go +anywhere alone while they remained at Cowboy Jack's. + +Rose prattled a good deal to Daddy Bunker about the "lame dog" as they +all rode back to the ranch house. But Russ was more interested in +hearing about the moving picture company's camp and what they were +doing. Black Bear told the little boy some things he wished to know, +including the fact that the Indians and the other actors were making a +picture about olden times on the plains, and that it was called "A +Romance of the Santa Fe Trail." + +"I should think it would be a lot of fun to make pictures," Russ said. +"Do you think we Bunkers could get a chance to act in it, Chief Black +Bear?" + +"I don't know about that," laughed the Indian. "I shall have to ask Mr. +Habback, the director. Maybe he can use you children in the scene at the +old fort where the soldiers and frontiersmen are hemmed in by the +Indians. Of course, there were children in the fort at the time of the +attack." + +"It--it isn't going to be a real fight, is it?" asked Russ, rather more +doubtfully. + +"It has got to look like a real fight, or Mr. Habback will not be +satisfied, I can tell you." + +"But suppose--suppose," stammered Russ, "your Indians should forget and +really turn savage?" + +"Not a chance of that," laughed Black Bear. "I have hard enough work +making them take their parts seriously. They are more likely to think it +is funny and spoil the shot." + +"Then they don't ever feel like turning savage and fighting the white +folks in earnest?" asked Russ. + +"You don't feel like turning savage and fighting red men do you?" asked +Black Bear, with a serious face. + +"Oh, no!" cried Russ, shaking his head. + +"Then, why should we red people want to fight you? You will be perfectly +safe if you come down to see us make the fort scene," the Indian chief +assured him. + +So Russ got back to the ranch house full to the lips with the idea of +acting in the moving picture. Rose's ankle had only been twisted a +little, and she was perfectly able to walk the next day. But Mother +Bunker would not hear to the children going far from the house after +that without daddy or herself being with them. + +"I believe our six little Bunkers can get into more adventures than any +other hundred children," she said earnestly. "To think of that coyote +being there with Rose for hours!" + +"If he had not been in the trap he would have run away from her fast +enough," returned Daddy Bunker. + +Just the same he, too, felt that the children would better not get far +out of their sight. They could play with the ponies about the house, for +the fields were mostly unfenced. And the ponies were certainly great +play-fellows. Laddie was sure that Pinky was a most intelligent horse. + +"If we had known just how to talk to him," declared Laddie, "I am sure +he would have told us all about Rose and where he had left her that +day." + +"Maybe he would," said Rose, though she spoke rather doubtfully. "But I +slipped right out of that saddle, and I am not going to ride him any +more. I would rather drive Brownie hitched to the cart." + +"You mean Dinah, don't you?" asked Margy. + +"I guess she means Cute," said Vi. + +"Oh, no! Oh, no!" cried Mun Bun. "Let _me_ name that pony. I want to +call him Jerry. I want to call him after our Jerry Simms at home in +Pineville." + +And this was finally agreed upon. All the Bunker children liked Jerry +Simms, who had been the very first person to tell them stories about the +army and about this great West that they had come to. + +"I guess Jerry Simms would have known all about this moving picture the +soldiers and Mr. Black Bear's Indians are making," Russ remarked. "And +mayn't we all go and act in it, Daddy?" + +Russ talked so much about this that finally Mrs. Bunker agreed to go +with the children to see the representation of the Indian attack on the +fort. The six little Bunkers looked forward to this exciting proposal +for several days, and when Mr. Habback sent word that the scene was +ready to "shoot," as he called it, the children could scarcely contain +themselves until the party started from the ranch house. + +It was to be a grand picnic, for they took cooked food and a tent for +Mother Bunker and the children to sleep in. Russ and Laddie rode their +ponies, and all the rest of the party crowded into one of Cowboy Jack's +big blue automobiles when they set out for a distant part of the ranch. + +"I know we'll have just a bully time," declared Russ Bunker. "It will be +the best adventure we've ever had." + +But even Russ did not dream of all the exciting things that were to +happen on that picnic. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MOVING PICTURE MAGIC + + +It was rather rough going for the big car, and the little Bunkers were +jounced about a good bit. Russ and Laddie trotted along on their ponies +quite contentedly, however, and did not complain of the pace. But Vi +began to ask questions, as usually was the case when she was disturbed +either in mind or body. + +"Daddy, why do we jump up and down so when the car bumps?" she wanted to +know. "You and mother don't bounce the way Mun Bun and Margy and Rose +and I do. Why do we?" + +"Because you are not as heavy as your mother and I. Therefore you cannot +resist the jar of the car so well." + +"But why does the car bump at all? Our car at home doesn't bump--unless +we run into something. Why does this car of Mr. Cowboy Jack's bump?" + +"The road is not smooth. That is why," said her father, trying to +satisfy that thirst for knowledge which sometimes made Violet a good +deal of a nuisance. + +"Why isn't this road smooth?" promptly demanded the little girl. + +"Jumping grasshoppers!" ejaculated the ranchman, greatly amused, "can't +that young one ask 'em, though?" + +At once Vi's active attention was drawn to another subject. + +"Mr. Cowboy Jack," she demanded, "why do grasshoppers jump?" + +"Fine!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "You brought it on yourself, Jack. +Answer her if you can." + +"That's an easy one," declared the much amused ranchman. + +"Well, why do they jump?" asked the impatient Vi. + +"I'll tell you," returned Cowboy Jack seriously. "They jump because +their legs are so long that, when they try to walk, they tumble over +their own feet. Do you see how that is?" + +"No-o, I don't," said Vi slowly. "But if it is so, why don't they have +shorter legs?" + +"Jump--Never mind!" ejaculated Cowboy Jack. "You got me that time. I +reckon I'll let your daddy do the answering. You fixed me, first off." + +So Vi never did find out why grasshoppers had such long legs that they +had to jump instead of walk. It puzzled her a good deal. She asked +everybody in the car, and nobody seemed able to explain--not even Daddy +Bunker himself. + +"Well," murmured Vi at last, "I never _did_ hear of such--such +iggerance. There doesn't seem to be anybody knows anything." + +"I should think you'd know a few things yourself, Vi, so as not to be +always asking," criticized her twin. + +Daddy Bunker was much amused by this. But the next moment the wheels on +one side of the car jumped high over a clod of hard earth, and daddy had +to grab quick at Mun Bun or he might have been jounced completely out of +the car. + +"What are you trying to do, Mun Bun?" demanded daddy sharply. + +"I'm flying my kite," answered the little fellow calmly. "But I 'most +lost it that time, Daddy." + +Before getting into the automobile Mun Bun had found a large piece of +stiff brown paper and had tied a string of some length to it. Although +there was no framework to this "kite," the wind caused by the rapid +movement of the automobile helped to fly the piece of paper at the end +of the string. + +"Look out you don't go overboard," advised Daddy Bunker. + +"You hold on to me, Daddy--p'ease," said the smallest Bunker. "You see, +this kite pulls pretty hard." + +Russ and Laddie were riding close behind the motor-car, but on the other +side of the trail. The minute after Mun Bun had made his request, a gust +of wind took the kite over to that side of the car and it almost blew +into the face and eyes of Russ Bunker's pony. + +[Illustration: MUN BUNS' "KITE" FRIGHTENED THE PINTO. + +_Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's._ (_Page 218_)] + +The pinto was very well behaved; but this paper startled him. He shied +and wheeled suddenly to get away from the annoying kite. Instantly Russ +shot over the pony's head and came down asprawl on the ground! + +As he flew out of the saddle Russ uttered a shout of alarm, and Pinky, +Laddie's mount, was likewise frightened. Pinky started ahead at a +gallop, and Laddie was dreadfully shaken up. He squealed as loud as he +could, but he managed to pull Pinky down to a stop very soon. + +"Wha--what are you doing, Russ Bunker?" Laddie wanted to know. "Is that +the right way to get off a pony?" + +Russ had not lost his grip of the bridle-reins, and he scrambled up and +held his snorting pony. + +"You know I don't get off that way if I can help it," said Russ +indignantly. + +"But you did," said Laddie. + +"Well, I didn't mean to. My goodness! but my knee is scratched." + +The automobile had stopped, and Mother Bunker called to Russ to ask if +he was much hurt. + +"Not much, Mother," he replied. "But make Mun Bun fly his kite somewhere +else. My pony doesn't like it." + +"Mun Bun," said Daddy Bunker seriously, "I think you will have to +postpone the flying of that kite until later." + +"He'd better," chuckled Cowboy Jack, starting the car again. "First he +knows he'll scare me, and then maybe I'll run the car off the track." + +Of course that was one of Cowboy Jack's jokes. He was always joking, it +seemed. + +At last they came in sight of the place where the several big scenes of +the moving picture were going to be photographed. A river that the +little Bunkers had not before seen flowed here in a great curve which +Cowboy Jack spoke of as the Oxbow Bend. It was a grassy, gently sloping +field, with not a tree in sight save along the edge of the water. + +Nevertheless, many trees had been brought here and a good-sized +stockade, or "fort," had been erected. The structure was in imitation of +those forts, or posts, of the United States Army that marked the advance +of the pioneers into this vast Western country a good deal more than +half a century ago. + +Daddy Bunker had told the children something about the development of +this part of the United States the evening before, and Russ and Rose, at +least, had understood and remembered. But just now they were all more +interested in the people they found here at the Oxbow Bend and in what +they were doing. + +In one place were several covered wagons and the traveling kitchen. Here +the white members of the moving picture company lived. At the other side +was the encampment of Black Bear and his people. The Indian camp had +been brought to this place from the spot where the little Bunkers had +first visited it. + +Black Bear and Little Elk and the other Indians welcomed the little +Bunkers very kindly. And on this occasion the Eastern children became +acquainted with the little Indians who had come down from the Indian +reservation in Oklahoma with their parents to work for the moving +picture company. + +Rose and Russ felt they knew these Indian boys and girls already. You +see, they had seen more of the Indians than the other Bunker children +had. They found that Indian boys and girls played a good deal like white +children. At least, the dark-faced little girls had dolls made of +corncobs and wood, with painted faces, and they wrapped them in tiny +blankets. One little girl showed Rose her "best" doll which she had +carefully hidden away in a tent. This doll was a rosy-cheeked beauty +that could open and shut her eyes, and must have cost a good deal of +money. She told Rose that Chief Black Bear had given the doll to her for +learning Sunday-school texts. + +The boys took Russ and Laddie down to the edge of the river and sailed +several toy canoes that the men of the tribe had fashioned for them. The +canoes were just like big Indian canoes, with high prows and sterns and +painted with targets. Besides these toys the Indian boys had bows and +arrows that were modeled much better than the bows and arrows Russ and +Laddie owned, and could shoot much farther. + +When Russ tried the Indians' bow and arrows he was surprised at the +distance he could drive the arrow and how accurately he sent it. + +"I guess you boys know how to make 'em right," he told Joshua Little +Elk, one of the Indian lads and a son of the big Little Elk who had +helped find Rose when she was lost. "Laddie and I have only got boughten +bow-arrows, and the arrows don't fly very good." + +"My papa made this bow for me," said Joshua, who was a very polite +little boy with jet-black hair. "And he scraped the arrows and found +the heads." + +The heads were of flint, just such arrow-heads as the ancient Indians +used to make. But the modern Indians, if they used arrows at all in +hunting, have steel arrow-heads which they buy from the white traders. + +These things and a lot more Russ and Laddie learned while they were with +the Indians. But there was not time for play all of the day. By and by +Mr. Habback, the moving picture director, shouted through his megaphone, +and everybody gathered at the stockade, or fort, and he explained what +was to be done. Some of the pictures were to be taken that day; but the +bigger fight would be made the day following. + +However, the Bunker children were not altogether disappointed at this +time. There was a run made by one of the covered wagons for the fort, +and the little Bunkers, dressed in odds and ends of calico and +sunbonnets and old-time straw hats, sat in the back of the wagon and +screamed as they were told to while the six mules that drew the wagon +raced for the fort with the Indians chasing behind on horseback. + +Mun Bun might have fallen out had not both Russ and Rose clung to him. +And the little fellow did not like it much after all. + +"My hair wasn't parted, Muvver," he said afterward to Mother Bunker. +"And I didn't have my new blouse on--or my wed tie. I don't think that +will be a good picture of me. Not near so good as the one we had taken +before in the man's shop that takes reg'lar pictures." + +But although Mun Bun did not care much for the picture making, the other +little Bunkers continued to be vastly amused and interested. They +watched Black Bear and the commander of the soldiers smoke the pipe of +peace in the Indian encampment. Mr. Habback allowed Russ to dress up +like a little Indian boy to appear with Joshua Little Elk in this +picture, because they were about the same size. They brought the +ornamented pipe to the chief after it had been filled by the old Indian +woman, Mary. + +It was a very interesting affair, and if Mun Bun was bored by it, he +fell asleep anyway, so it did not matter. But the next day the big fight +was staged, and that was bound to be exciting enough to keep even Mun +Bun awake. The fight was about to start and the call was made for all +the children to gather inside the stockade. + +The Bunkers were all to be there. But suddenly there was a great outcry +around the tent that had been set up for the use of Mother Bunker and +the six little Bunkers. + +Mun Bun was not to be found. They sent the other children scurrying +everywhere--to the soldiers' camp, to the Indian encampment, and all +around. Nobody had seen Mun Bun for an hour. And in an hour, as you and +I know, a good deal can happen to a little Bunker! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MUN BUN IN TROUBLE + + +"Why does he do it, Daddy?" asked Vi. + +"Why does he do what?" returned her father, who was too excited and +anxious to wish to be bothered by Vi's questions. + +"Mun Bun. Why does he?" + +"Don't bother me now," said her father. "It is bad enough to have Mun +Bun disappear in this mysterious way----" + +"But why does he disappear--and everything?" Vi wanted to know. "He's +the littlest of all of us Bunkers, but he makes the most trouble. Why +does he?" + +"I'm sure," said Mother Bunker, who had overheard Vi, "you may be right. +But I can't answer your question and neither can daddy. Now, don't +bother us, Vi. If you can't find your little brother, let us look for +him." + +The whole party at the Oxbow Bend was roused by this time, and men, +women and children were looking for the little lost boy. Some of the +cowboys who were working with the moving picture people scurried all +around the neighborhood on pony back; but they could see nothing of Mun +Bun. + +Russ and Rose had searched everywhere they could think of. Mun Bun had +not been in their care at the time he was lost, and for that fact Russ +and Rose were very thankful. This only relieved them of personal +responsibility, however; the older brother and sister were very much +troubled about Mun Bun's absence. + +The smallest Bunker really had succeeded in getting everybody at Oxbow +Bend very much stirred up. Even the usually stolid Indians went about +seeking the little white boy. And Mun Bun was nearer the Indians just +then than he was to anybody else! + +The little fellow had gone wandering off after breakfast while almost +everybody else was down at the fort listening to Mr. Habback's final +instructions about the big scene that was to be shot. Mun Bun had +already expressed himself as disapproving of the picture. He knew he +would not look nice in it. + +He came to the Indian encampment, and the only person about was an old +squaw who was doing something at the cooking fire. She gave Mun Bun no +attention, and he looked only once at her. She did not interest the +little boy at all. + +But there was something here he was curious about. He had seen it +before, and he wanted to see in it--to learn what the Indians kept in +it. It was a big box, bigger than Mother Bunker's biggest trunk, and now +the lid was propped up. + +Mun Bun did not ask the old woman if he could look in it. Maybe he did +not think to ask. At any rate, there was a pile of blankets beside the +box and he climbed upon them and then stood up and looked down into the +big box. + +It was half filled with a multitude of things--beaded clothing, gaily +colored blankets, feather headdresses, and other articles of Indian +apparel. And although there was so much packed in the box, there was +still plenty of room. + +"It would make a nice cubby-house to play in," thought Mun Bun. "I +wonder what that is." + +"That" was something that glittered down in one corner. Mun Bun stooped +over the edge of the box and tried to reach the glittering object. At +first he did not succeed; then he reached farther--and he got it! But in +doing this he slipped right over the edge of the box and dived headfirst +into it. + +Mun Bun cried out; but that cry was involuntary. Then he remembered that +he was where he had no business to be, and he kept very still. He even +lost interest in the thing he had tried to reach and which had caused +his downfall. + +Of a sudden he heard talking outside. It was talking that Mun Bun could +not understand. He was always alarmed when he heard the Indians speaking +their own tongue, for he did not know what they said. So Mun Bun kept +very still, crouching down there in the box. He would not try to get out +until these people he heard went away. + +Just then, and before Mun Bun could change his mind if he wanted to, +somebody came along and slammed down the lid of that box! + +Poor little Mun Bun was much frightened then. At first he did not cry +out or try to make himself heard. But he heard the person outside lock +the box and then go away. After that he heard nothing at all for a long +time. + +Perhaps Mun Bun sobbed himself to sleep. At least, it seemed to him when +he next aroused that he had been in the box a long, long time. He knew +he was hungry, and being hungry is not at all a pleasant experience. + +Meanwhile the search for the smallest Bunker was carried on all about +the Oxbow Bend. In the brush and along the river's edge where the +cottonwoods stood, and in every little coulee, or hollow, back of the +camps. + +"I don't see," complained Rose, "why we Bunkers have to be losing things +all the time. There was my wrist-watch and Laddie's pin. Next came Vi +and Laddie. Then Mun Bun was lost in the tumble-weed. Then I got lost +myself. Now it's Mun Bun again. Somehow, Russ, it does seem as though we +must be awful careless." + +"You speak for yourself, Rose Bunker!" returned her brother quite +sharply. "I know _I_ wasn't careless about Mun Bun. I didn't even know +he needed watching--not when daddy and mother were around." + +Nobody seemed more disturbed over Mun Bun's disappearance than Cowboy +Jack. The ranchman had set everybody about the place to work hunting for +the little boy, and privately he had begun to offer a reward for the +discovery of the lost one. + +To Cowboy Jack came one of the older Indian men. He was not a modern, +up-to-date Indian, like Chief Black Bear. He still tied his hair in a +scalp-lock, and if he was not actually a "blanket Indian" (that is, one +of the old kind that wore blankets instead of regular shirts and +jackets), this Indian was one that had not been to school. Russ and Rose +were standing with Cowboy Jack when the old Indian came to the ranchman. + +"Wuh! Heap trouble in camp," said the old Indian in his deep voice. + +"And there's going to be more trouble if we don't find that little +fellow pretty soon," declared the ranchman vigorously. + +"Bad spirits here. Bad medicine," grunted the old Indian. + +"What's that? You mean to say one of those bootleggers that sell you +reds bad whisky is around?" + +"No. No firewater. Heap worse," said the Indian. + +"Can't be anything worse than whisky," declared Cowboy Jack +emphatically. + +"Bad spirits," said the Indian stubbornly. "In box. Make knocking. White +chief come see--come hear." + +He called Cowboy Jack a "chief" because the white man owned the big +ranch. Rose and Russ listened very earnestly to what the Indian said, +and they urged Cowboy Jack to go to the Indian encampment and see what +it meant. + +"What's a spirit, Russ?" asked his sister. + +"Alcohol," declared Russ, proud of his knowledge. "But I don't see how +alcohol could knock on a box. It's a liquid--like water, you know." + +They trotted after Cowboy Jack and the old Indian and came to the big +box that had been locked in preparation for shipping back to the +reservation when the Indians got through their job here with the picture +company. It looked to be a perfectly innocent box, and at first the +children and Cowboy Jack heard nothing remarkable from within it. + +"I reckon you were hearing things in your mind, old fellow," said the +ranchman to the Indian. + +The latter grunted suddenly and pointed to the box. There was a sound +that seemed to come from inside. Something made a rat, tat, tat on the +cover of the box. + +"Goodness me!" murmured Rose, quite startled. + +"That's a real knocking," admitted Russ. + +Cowboy Jack sprang forward and tried to open the box. + +"Hey!" he exclaimed. "It's locked. Where's the key? When did you lock +this box?" + +"Black Bear--him lock it. Got key," said the old Indian, keeping well +away from the box. + +"You go and get that key in a hurry. Somebody is in that box, sure as +you live!" cried the ranchman. + +"I know! I know!" shouted Russ excitedly. "It's Mun Bun! They have +locked him in that box!" + +"Oh, poor little Mun Bun!" wailed Rose. "Do--do you suppose the Indians +were trying to steal him?" + +"Of course not," returned Russ disdainfully. "Mr. Black Bear wouldn't +steal anybody. He just didn't know Mun Bun was in there. I guess Mun Bun +crawled in by himself." + +Then he went close to the big box and shouted Mun Bun's name, and they +all heard the little boy reply--but his voice came to them very faintly. + +"We'd better get him out in a hurry," said Cowboy Jack anxiously. "The +little fellow might easily smother inside that box." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT EXPECTED + + +There was great excitement at the Indian camp during the next few +minutes. Everybody came running to the spot when they heard that Mun Bun +was found but could not be got at. Everybody but Chief Black Bear. He +had gone off to a place at some distance from the camp, and a man on +pony-back had to go to get him, for Black Bear had the key of the big +box. + +Daddy Bunker and mother came with the other Bunker children, and Vi +began to ask questions as usual. But nobody paid much attention to her +questions. Laddie said he thought he could make up a riddle about Mun +Bun in the box, but before he managed to do this the chief arrived with +the key. + +When the lid of the box was lifted the first person Mun Bun saw was +Daddy Bunker, and he put up his arms to him and cried: + +"Daddy! Daddy! Mun Bun don't want to stay in this place. Mun Bun wants +to go home." + +"And I must say," said Mother Bunker, who had been much worried, "that +home will be the very best place in the world after this. I will not let +Mun Bun out of my reach again. How does he manage to get into so much +trouble?" + +"Why, Muvver!" sobbed the littlest Bunker, "I just tumble in. I tumbled +into this box and then they locked me in." + +"How does he tumble into trouble?" demanded Vi, staring at Mun Bun. + +"I _know_ there is a riddle about it," said Laddie thoughtfully. "Only I +can't just make it out yet." + +They were all very glad that Mun Bun was not hurt. But it did seem that +he would have to be watched very closely or he might disappear again. + +"He's just like a drop of quicksilver," said Cowboy Jack. "When you try +to put your finger on him, he isn't there." + +Just then the great horn blew to call everybody to the fort, for Mr. +Habback was ready for the big scene of the picture. The little +Bunkers--at least, all but Mun Bun--were eager to respond, for they +wanted to be in the picture. Mother, however, kept the little boy with +her, and they only watched the picture when it was made. That satisfied +Mun Bun just as well, for he did not believe that he looked nice enough +to go to a photographer just then. + +"I guess I'll have my picture taken when I get back to Pineville, +Muvver," he said. "I'll like it better." + +But the rest of the party would never forget that exciting day. The +Indians led by Black Bear attacked the fort, and there was much shooting +and shouting and riding back and forth. The shooting was with blank +cartridges, of course, so that nobody was hurt. + +But even the ponies seemed to be excited, and Russ told Rose he was +quite sure Pinky and his pinto, who were both in the picture, enjoyed +the play just as much as anybody! + +"Only, they will never see the picture when it is on the screen. And +daddy says we will, if nothing happens. When the picture comes to +Pineville we can take all the children we know at school and show 'em +how we worked for the picture company and helped make 'A Romance of the +Santa Fe Trail!'" + +This, later, they did. But, of course, you will have to read about that +in another story about the Six Little Bunkers. + +Mr. Habback thanked the Bunkers when the work was done, and in the +middle of the afternoon Cowboy Jack took them all back to the ranch +house again in his big blue car, one of his cowboys leading in Pinky and +the pinto pony later. + +On the way to the ranch Russ and Rose heard daddy tell mother that he +had managed to fix up Mr. Golden's business for him and that it would +soon be time to start East. + +"I don't care--much," Rose said, when she heard this. "We have had a +very exciting time, Russ. And I guess I want to go to school again. They +must have coal in Pineville. I should think they would have some by +now." + +"I hate to lose my pinto pony," said Russ. + +"Can't we take him and Pinky with us?" Laddie asked. "I do wish we +could." + +"Can't do that," said daddy seriously. "We have enough pets now for +Jerry Simms to look after." + +"I tell you what," said Cowboy Jack heartily. "I'll take good care of +the ponies, little folks, so that when you come out to see me again they +will be all ready for you to use." + +"And Jerry, too?" cried Mun Bun. "I like that pony. He doesn't run so +fast." + +"And Jerry, too," agreed the ranchman. + +So the little Bunkers were contented with this promise. + +When they got to the ranch house everybody there seemed very glad to see +them, and Maria, the Mexican cook, had a very nice supper ready for the +six little Bunkers. She seemed to know that she would not cook for the +visitors much longer, and she tried to please them particularly with +this meal. There were waffles again, and all the little Bunkers were +fond of those delectable dainties. Only Mother Bunker would not always +let them eat as many as they wanted to. + +But there was something at the ranch besides supper that evening that +interested the children very much. There was some more mail from the +East, and among it a little package that had been registered and sent to +Mother Bunker by Captain Ben from Grand View. + +"I guess he has sent Mother Bunker a nice present," declared Rose +eagerly. "Captain Ben likes mother." + +"Don't we all like her?" demanded Vi. "I like her very much. Can't I +give her a present too?" + +"You are always picking flowers and finding pretty things for me," said +Mrs. Bunker kindly. "I appreciate them just as much as any present +Captain Ben could give me." + +"But what is it, Mother?" asked Rose, quite as excited as Vi and the +others. + +"We shall have to open it and see," her mother said. + +But she would not open the little package until after supper. Perhaps +that is why the little Bunkers were willing to eat fewer of Maria's nice +waffles. They were all eager to see what was in the package. Even daddy +claimed to be curious. + +So, when the lamps were lit in the big living room and everybody was +more than ready, as Russ complained, Mother Bunker began to untie the +string which fastened the package from Captain Ben. + +"I guess it is a diamond necklace," declared Rose earnestly. + +"Oh, maybe it is a pretty pearl brooch," said Russ. + +"What do you suppose it is, Daddy?" asked Mother Bunker, busy with the +string and seals and smiling at Mr. Bunker knowingly. + +"It isn't a white elephant, I am sure," chuckled Daddy Bunker. + +"Oh! Now he is making fun," cried Rose. "It is something pretty, of +course, for mother." + +"I know! I know!" cried Laddie suddenly. "I know what it is." + +"If you know so much," returned his twin "tell us." + +"It's a riddle," declared Laddie. + +"I guess it must be," laughed his mother. "'Riddle-me-ree! What do I +see?'" and she opened the outside wrapper and displayed a little box +with a letter wrapped about it. + +"From Captain Ben to be sure," she said, unfolding the letter and +beginning to read it. + +"And it is a riddle!" repeated Laddie with conviction. + +Mother Bunker began to laugh. She nodded and smiled at them. + +"It certainly is a riddle," she said. "It is almost as good a riddle as +that one Laddie told about the splinter." + +"I know! I know!" cried the little boy. "'I went out to the woodpile and +got it.' I remember that one. But--but that isn't a splinter he has sent +you, is it, Mother?" + +"It is something that Captain Ben looked for and could not find. But all +the time he had it. What is it?" + +The little Bunkers stared at each other. Laddie murmured: + +"That is a riddle! What can it be?" + +Suddenly Rose uttered a little squeal and clasped her hands. + +"Oh, Mother!" she cried. "Is it--is it my _watch_?" + +At that Laddie began fairly to dance up and down. He was so excited he +could scarcely speak. + +"Is it my pin?" he wanted to know. "My stick-pin that I left at Grand +View, Mother? Is it?" + +There certainly was great excitement in the room until Mother Bunker +opened the box. And there lay in cotton-wool the missing watch and +stick-pin. Captain Ben had hunted a second time for the lost treasures +the little Bunkers had so carelessly left behind, and had found the +watch and pin. + +Rose and Laddie were so delighted that they could only laugh and dance +about for a few minutes. But Vi was rather disappointed that it was not, +after all, a present for Mother Bunker. + +It was quite late before the little Bunkers could get settled in their +beds that night. That is, all but Mun Bun. He fell asleep in Mother +Bunker's lap and did not know much about what went on. + +Rose and Laddie promised not to lose their treasures again. And, of +course, they had not meant to leave the watch and pin behind at Grand +View. But daddy told them that thoughtlessness always bred trouble and +disappointment. + +"Like Mun Bun getting into the Indian's trunk," said Vi seriously. "He +made us a lot of trouble to-day." + +Mun Bun made them no more trouble while they remained on the ranch, for +Mother Bunker and Rose were especially careful in watching him. The +little boy did not mean to get lost; but Cowboy Jack laughingly said +that Mun Bun seemed to have that habit. + +"Some day you folks are going to mislay that boy and won't find him so +easily. I tell you, he is a regular drop of quicksilver." + +But after that, although the six little Bunkers had plenty of fun at +Cowboy Jack's, they had no dangerous adventure. They rode and drove the +ponies, and played with the dogs, and watched the cowboys herd the +cattle and some of the men train horses to saddle-work that had never +been ridden before and did not seem to like the idea at all of carrying +people on their backs. + +"It is lucky Pinky and your calico pony don't mind carrying us," Laddie +remarked on one occasion to Russ. "I guess if they pitched like those +big horses do, they would throw us right over their heads on to the +ground." + +"Well, my pinto threw me once," said Russ rather proudly. "But it only +shook me up a little. And, of course, accidents are apt to happen +anywhere and to anybody." + +But Laddie did not think he would care to be thrown over Pinky's head. +Rose had told him it was not a nice experience at all! + +In a few days the Bunkers packed their trunks and bags and the big blue +automobiles came around to the door, and they bade everybody at Cowboy +Jack's ranch good-bye. They had had a lovely time--all of them. + +"And I've had the best time of all having you here," declared the +ranchman. "I hate to have you little Bunkers go. I don't see, Charlie, +why you can't spare two or three of them and let 'em stay with me." + +"I guess not!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "We have just enough children. We +couldn't really stand another one, but we can't spare one of these we +have. Could we, Mother?" + +Mother Bunker quite agreed. She "counted noses" when the six little +Bunkers were packed into the cars with the baggage. You see, after all, +it was quite a task to keep account of so many children at one time. And +especially if they chanced to be as lively as were the six little +Bunkers, who never remained--any of them--in one spot for long at a +time. That made them particularly hard to count. + +Russ and Rose and Laddie and Violet and Margy and Mun Bun all told +Cowboy Jack that they had had a good time, and they hoped to see him +again. If they do ever go to Cowboy Jack's ranch again I hope I shall +know about it. And if I do, I will surely tell you all that happens to +the Six Little Bunkers. + + +THE END + + + + +SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES + +By LAURA LEE HOPE + +Author of The Bobbsey Twins Books, The Bunny Brown Series, The +Make-Believe Series, Etc. + + * * * * * + +=Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding.= + +=Every Volume Complete in Itself.= + + * * * * * + + Delightful stories for little boys and girls which + sprung into immediate popularity. To know the six + little Bunkers is to take them at once to your + heart, they are so intensely human, so full of fun + and cute sayings. Each story has a little plot of + its own--one that can be easily followed--and all + are written in Miss Hope's most entertaining + manner. Clean, wholesome volumes which ought to be + on the bookshelf of every child in the land. + + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL'S + SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MILLER NED'S + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS + +For Little Men and Women + +By LAURA LEE HOPE + +Author of "The Bunny Brown Series," Etc. + + * * * * * + +=Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding.= + +=Every Volume Complete in Itself.= + + * * * * * + + These books for boys and girls between the ages of + three and ten stand among children and their + parents of this generation where the books of + Louisa May Alcott stood in former days. The haps + and mishaps of this inimitable pair of twins, + their many adventures and experiences are a source + of keen delight to imaginative children + everywhere. + + THE BOBBSEY TWINS + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE + THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY + THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND + THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA + THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR + THE BOBBSEY TWINS CAMPING OUT + THE BOBBSEY TWINS AND BABY MAY + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. + + + + +THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES + +By LAURA LEE HOPE + +Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books, Etc. + + * * * * * + +=Durably Bound. Illustrated. Uniform Style of Binding.= + +=Every Volume Complete in Itself.= + + * * * * * + + These stories by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" + Books are eagerly welcomed by the little folks + from about five to ten years of age. Their eyes + fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of + inquisitive little Bunny Brown and his cunning, + trustful sister Sue. + + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG + BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT A SUGAR CAMP + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +THE HONEY BUNCH BOOKS + +By HELEN LOUISE THORNDYKE + + * * * * * + +=Individual Colored Wrappers and Text Illustrations Drawn by= + +=WALTER S. ROGERS= + + * * * * * + +A new line of fascinating tales for little girls. Honey Bunch is a +dainty, thoughtful little girl, and to know her is to take her to your +heart at once. + + +HONEY BUNCH: JUST A LITTLE GIRL + + Happy days at home, helping mamma and the + washerlady. And Honey Bunch helped the house + painters too--or thought she did. + + +HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE CITY + + What wonderful sights Honey Bunch saw when she + went to visit her cousins in New York! And she got + lost in a big hotel and wandered into a men's + convention! + + +HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS ON THE FARM + + Can you remember how the farm looked the first + time you visited it? How big the cows and horses + were, and what a roomy place to play in the barn + proved to be? + + +HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE SEASHORE + + Honey Bunch soon got used to the big waves and + thought playing in the sand great fun. And she + visited a merry-go-round, and took part in a + sea-side pageant. + + +HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST LITTLE GARDEN + + It was great sport to dig and to plant with one's + own little garden tools. But best of all was when + Honey Bunch won a prize at the flower show. + + +HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS IN CAMP + + It was a great adventure for Honey Bunch when she + journeyed to Camp Snapdragon. It was wonderful to + watch the men erect the tent, and more wonderful + to live in it and have good times on the shore and + in the water. + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +THE FLYAWAYS STORIES + +By ALICE DALE HARDY + +Author of The Riddle Club Books + + * * * * * + +=Individual Colored Jackets and Colored Illustrations by= + +=WALTER S. ROGERS= + + * * * * * + +A splendid new line of interesting tales for the little ones, +introducing many of the well known characters of fairyland in a series +of novel adventures. The Flyaways are a happy family and every little +girl and boy will want to know all about them. + + +THE FLYAWAYS AND CINDERELLA + + How the Flyaways went to visit Cinderella only to + find that Cinderella's Prince had been carried off + by the Three Robbers, Rumbo, Hibo and Jobo. "I'll + rescue him!" cried Pa Flyaway and then set out for + the stronghold of the robbers. A splendid + continuation of the original story of Cinderella. + + +THE FLYAWAYS AND LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD + + On their way to visit Little Red Riding Hood the + Flyaways fell in with Tommy Tucker and The Old + Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. They told Tommy about + the Magic Button on Red Riding Hood's cloak. How + the wicked Wolf stole the Magic Button and how the + wolves plotted to eat up Little Red Riding Hood + and all her family, and how the Flyaways and King + Cole sent the wolves flying, makes a story no + children will want to miss. + + +THE FLYAWAYS AND GOLDILOCKS + + The Flyaways wanted to see not only Goldilocks but + also the Three Bears and they took a remarkable + journey through the air to do so. Tommy even rode + on a Rocket and met the monstrous Blue Frog. When + they arrived at Goldilocks' house they found that + the Three Bears had been there before them and + mussed everything up, much to Goldilocks' despair. + "We must drive those bears out of the country!" + said Pa Flyaway. Then they journeyed underground + to the Yellow Palace, and oh! so many things + happened after that! + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + +THE BLYTHE GIRLS BOOKS + +By LAURA LEE HOPE + + * * * * * + +=Individual Colored Wrappers and Text Illustrations by= + +=THELMA GOOCH= + +=Every Volume Complete in Itself= + + * * * * * + +The Blythe girls, three in number, were left alone in New York City. +Helen, who went in for art and music, kept the little flat uptown, while +Margy just out of a business school, obtained a position as a private +secretary and Rose, plain-spoken and businesslike, took what she called +a "job" in a department store. + + + THE BLYTHE GIRLS: HELEN, MARGY AND ROSE; + Or, Facing the Great World. + +A fascinating tale of real happenings in the great metropolis. + + + THE BLYTHE GIRLS: MARGY'S QUEER INHERITANCE; + Or, The Worth of a Name. + +The girls had a peculiar old aunt and when she died she left an unusual +inheritance. This tale continues the struggles of all the girls for +existence. + + + THE BLYTHE GIRLS; ROSE'S GREAT PROBLEM; + Or, Face to Face With a Crisis. + +Rose still at work in the big department store, is one day faced with +the greatest problem of her life. A tale of mystery as well as exciting +girlish happenings. + + + THE BLYTHE GIRLS: HELEN'S STRANGE BOARDER; + Or, The Girl From Bronx Park. + +Helen, out sketching, goes to the assistance of a strange girl, whose +real identity is a puzzle to all the Blythe girls. Who the girl really +was comes as a tremendous surprise. + + + THE BLYTHE GIRLS: THREE ON A VACATION; + Or, The Mystery at Peach Farm. + +The girls close their flat and go to the country for two weeks--and fall +in with all sorts of curious and exciting happenings. How they came to +the assistance of Joe Morris, and solved a queer mystery, is well +related. + + * * * * * + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + +Table of Contents, page 172 changed to page 177 to reflect text. + +Page 66, "althought" changed to "although". (although at first) + +Page 96, "nonplused" changed to "nonplussed". (was nonplussed by) + +Page 127, "is" changed to "it". (Is it a good) + +Page 134, "once" changed to "one". (At one place) + +Bobbsey Twins advertisement, "stands" changed to "stand". (stand among +children) + +Flyaways and Goldilocks advertisement, "Goldilock's" changed to +"Goldilocks'" twice. + +One instance each of Castrada and Castrado was retained. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's, by +Laura Lee Hope + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY *** + +***** This file should be named 19816.txt or 19816.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/1/19816/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, J.P.W. 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