initial commit of ebook 19816HEADmain

13 files changed, 19419 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/19816-8.txt b/19816-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..036cb34
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-8.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: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** 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 Fé 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 Fé 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 19816-8.txt or 19816-8.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. Fraser, Emmy
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+
diff --git a/19816-8.zip b/19816-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5e45b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-8.zip
diff --git a/19816-h.zip b/19816-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..853a67b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-h.zip
diff --git a/19816-h/19816-h.htm b/19816-h/19816-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a703f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-h/19816-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,6553 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's, by Laura Lee Hope.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {margin-top: .75em;
+       text-align: justify;
+       text-indent: 1.25em;
+       margin-bottom: .75em;
+        }
+    .unindent {margin-top: .75em;
+       text-align: justify;
+       margin-bottom: .75em;
+        }
+    img {border: 0;}
+    .tnote      {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+                  padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+    ins {text-decoration:none;  border-bottom: thin dotted gray;}
+    .right    {text-align: right;}
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    .hang1 {text-indent: -3em; margin-left: 3em;}
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;}
+
+    .bbox     {border: solid 2px; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+                  padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+    .u        {text-decoration: underline;}
+
+    .caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+    .figleft     {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top:
+                 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
+
+    .figright    {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;
+                 margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
+
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+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: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** 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
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='bbox'>
+<h1>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS<br />AT COWBOY JACK'S</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>LAURA LEE HOPE</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Author of "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's,"<br />
+"Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's" "The Bobbsey<br />
+Twins Series," "The Bunny Brown Series," "The<br />
+Outdoor Girls Series," Etc.</span><br />
+<br /><br /><br />
+<i>ILLUSTRATED</i><br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<br />
+NEW YORK<br />
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP<br />
+PUBLISHERS<br />
+<br />
+
+<small>Made in the United States of America</small></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class='bbox'>
+<h2>BOOKS</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<h3>THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="SIX LITTLE BUNKERS">
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<h3>THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<h3>THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES">
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<h3>THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>(Eleven titles)</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><b>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK</b></div>
+</div>
+<div class='center'><br />
+<small>Copyright, 1921, by<br />
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</small><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><small>Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's</small><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 248px;">
+<img src="images/001.jpg" width="248" height="400" alt="BLACK BEAR CAME TOWARD THE CHILDREN." title="BLACK BEAR CAME TOWARD THE CHILDREN." />
+<span class="caption">BLACK BEAR CAME TOWARD THE CHILDREN.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's.</i> <i>Frontispiece</i>&mdash;(<a href='#Page_160'><i>Page 160</i></a>)</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">chapter</span></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">A Thunder Stroke</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Very Exciting News</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_9'>9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Lining</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_18'>18</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">What Was Stuck in the Mud?</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Good-Bye to Grand View</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_39'>39</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Coal Strike</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_48'>48</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Soup Juggler</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_57'>57</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Alarm and a Hold-Up</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Big Rock That Fell Down</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_78'>78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Where Are the Twins?</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_87'>87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Man with the Earrings</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cavallo at Last</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Surprise Coming</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_114'>114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Indian Raid</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_126'>126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Profound Mystery</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_138'>138</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mun Bun Takes a Nap</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_145'>145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In Chief Black Bear's Wigwam</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_157'>157</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The New Ponies</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Russ Bunker Guesses Right</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_177'><ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads '172'">177</ins></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pinky Goes Home</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Lame Coyote</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_195'>195</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Picnic</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Moving Picture Magic</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_215'>215</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mun Bun in Trouble</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_226'>226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Something That Was Not Expected</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>"A THUNDER STROKE"</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Whew!" said Russ Bunker, looking out into the driving rain.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" repeated Rose, standing beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" said Vi, and "Whew!" echoed Laddie, while Margy added "Whew!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is an awful funny word, anyway," Rose Bunker said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What's funny?" Violet asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I make a riddle out of it?" added Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a riddle," replied Rose, quite confidently. "For 'equinox' is
+just a rain and wind storm."</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't a riddle," said Laddie promptly. "That's the answer to a
+riddle."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! just like a bad, bad dog," gasped Vi, not a little frightened by
+the noise. "I&mdash;I am afraid of thunder."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," declared Laddie, her twin.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps, because he was a boy, he thought he must claim more courage
+than he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> really felt. At any rate, he winced a little, too, and drew
+back from the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe we'd better go back to Captain Ben's house&mdash;and mother,"
+suggested Margy in a wee small voice.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we can't go back while it rains like this," said Russ, the
+oldest of the six.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The rumble of thunder seemed nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess," Russ said soberly, "that Norah or Jerry Simms would call this
+the clearing-up shower."</p>
+
+<p>"But Norah and Jerry Simms aren't here," Vi reminded him. "Are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't make any difference. It can be the clearing-up shower of
+this equinox, just the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Can it?" asked Vi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better keep on playing," Rose said, very sensibly. "Then we won't
+bother 'bout the thunder strokes."</p>
+
+<p>"It is lightning," objected Russ. "I don't mind the thunder. Thunder is
+only a noise."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," said Rose, "it's the thunder that scares you&mdash;&mdash; Oh!
+Hear it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does the thunder hit you?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Russ, still bravely, "it thunders over there just as it
+does here, Rose Bunker."</p>
+
+<p>Of course that was so, and Rose knew it. But nothing seemed quite so bad
+when daddy and mother were close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's play again," she said, with a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll we play?" asked Violet. "Haven't we played everything there
+is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I s'pose we have&mdash;some time or other," Rose admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we haven't," interposed Russ, who was of an inventive mind. "There
+are always new plays to make up."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like making up riddles," agreed Laddie. "I guess I could make up a
+riddle about this old storm&mdash;if only the thunder wouldn't make so much
+noise. I can't think riddles when it thunders."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Mun Bun, on whose head a drop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> fell. "It's leaking! I don't
+like a leaky house. Let's go home, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no. But I'd rather be at that other house where mother is&mdash;and
+daddy," proclaimed the smallest boy when the noise of the thunder had
+again passed.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," said Russ soberly, "we'd better go downstairs and play
+something till the thunder stops."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we play?" asked Vi again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll build an automobile and take you all to ride," said the oldest boy
+confidently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Russ! You can't!" gasped Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"A real automobile like the one that we rode down here in from
+Pineville?" asked Laddie, opening his eyes very wide.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no&mdash;not just like that," admitted Russ. "But we'll have some fun
+with it and we won't bother about the thunder."</p>
+
+<p>Rose looked a bit doubtful over that statement. But she knew it was her
+duty to help the younger children forget their fears. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;just like matches. Only it was a bigger smell than any sulphur
+match could make.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Vi and Mun Bun?" demanded the oldest of the six little Bunkers,
+staring up the dust-filled stairway.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Help me up!" shrieked Vi from the attic.</p>
+
+<p>"Help me!" cried Mun Bun, very much frightened too. "Somebody is holding
+me down."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>VERY EXCITING NEWS</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or else there would have been no fun for any of
+them. You see, if the older children in a family will not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or thought he was&mdash;hurt, as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> was doing on this very occasion
+when he and Vi were caught by the crushing-in of the house roof.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+<i>that</i> story is called "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> had fallen upon the roof of the old house in
+which the six little Bunkers were playing.</p>
+
+<p>But now none of the little Bunkers thought it so much fun&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;yes, and into the rain that drove through the holes in the
+roof!&mdash;was that his head, with an awful "tunk!" came in contact with a
+broken roof beam.</p>
+
+<p>Russ staggered back, clutching wildly at anything he could lay his hands
+on, and all but tumbled backwards down the stairs again.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened? Did the house fall on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> my legs, Russ? <i>Must</i> you pull
+my hair off to get me out?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am, children! Here I am&mdash;and Captain Ben, too! Where are you
+all?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are Russ and Vi and Mun Bun?" cried Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"They're upstairs&mdash;under that old thunder stroke," gasped Margy. "But I
+guess they're not all dead-ed yet."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun was still weeping wildly. Laddie looked at him in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why," he said, "you're a riddle, Mun Bun."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not!" sobbed the littlest Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are," said Laddie. "This is the riddle: Why is Mun Bun like a
+sprinkling cart?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed at that&mdash;even Mun Bun himself, only he hiccoughed too.
+It did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> take much to make the children laugh when the danger was
+over.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did the old thunder stroke have to do that?" asked Vi. "Why did it
+pin me down across my legs?"</p>
+
+<p>Daddy Bunker hurried them all out of the old house. He was afraid it
+might fall altogether.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>At this Russ and Rose immediately began to be excited&mdash;only for a reason
+very different from the effects of the storm. They looked at each other
+quite knowingly. <i>That</i> was what Daddy Bunker and Mother Bunker were
+talking about so earnestly the night before!</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do they call him that?" asked Vi. "Is he part cow and part boy?"</p>
+
+<p>But Daddy Bunker replied to Rose's question quite seriously:</p>
+
+<p>"That is a hard matter to decide. It is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> long journey, and you know
+school will soon begin at Pineville. And you must not miss school."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Daddy," said Russ, very gravely, "you know you take us 'most
+everywhere you go. It&mdash;it wouldn't be fair to Cowboy Jack not to take us
+to see him, would it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bunker laughed very much at this suggestion, and hurried them all
+through the rain toward Captain Ben's bungalow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SILVER LINING</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;I mean children outside of nursery books&mdash;and so far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> the
+older young Bunkers quite preferred their own good times to any they had
+ever read about.</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" Russ had once cried confidently, "we have even more fun than
+Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. Of course we do."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And <i>they</i> had goats," admitted Rose thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Only," Russ said gravely, "I don't much care for the name of that man.
+He sounds like some kind of a foreign man&mdash;and you know how those
+foreign men were that built the railroad down behind our house in
+Pineville."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mother doesn't have whiskers, either," said Margy gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Say! Why?" repeated Violet insistently.</p>
+
+<p>"Daddy shaves every morning. That is why he doesn't have whiskers," said
+Rose, trying to pacify the inquisitive Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And you got punished for it, you know," said Russ, grinning at her.
+"But we were not talking about whiskers&mdash;nor shaving brushes."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes we were," said the determined Vi. "I was asking about them."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that man father is going to see an <i>awful</i> foreigner, Russ?" Rose
+wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not. Father says he's a nice man. He has met him, he says. But
+his name&mdash;oh, it's awful!"</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>is</i> his name?" asked Vi instantly.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> house, and Vi was quite her
+inquisitive little self again.</p>
+
+<p>"His name&mdash;&mdash;" said Russ.</p>
+
+<p>Then he stopped and began to search his pockets. The others waited, but
+Violet was not content to wait in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Russ? Do you itch?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't itch," said the boy, with some irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you act so," said Vi. "What are you doing then, if you're not
+itching?"</p>
+
+<p>"She means scratching!" exclaimed Rose, but she stared at Russ, too, in
+some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I know!" cried Laddie. "It's a riddle."</p>
+
+<p>"What's a riddle?" asked his twin sister eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know! I know!" shouted Margy eagerly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You do?" asked Laddie. "What is it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"My Black Dinah dolly that I lost somewhere and we never could find."</p>
+
+<p>"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?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Laddie, rather disappointed to think he had made a
+mistake in the riddle after all. "What <i>was</i> it, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a splinter," said Russ, now drawing a scrap of paper from one
+pocket. "And here it is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the splinter?" gasped Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What man's name?" asked Vi, who by this time had forgotten what the
+main subject of the discussion was.</p>
+
+<p>"Cowboy Jack's name!" cried Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he got more names than that?" asked Vi. "Isn't Cowboy Jack enough
+name for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"His name," said Russ, reading what he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> scribbled down on the paper,
+"is 'Mr. John Scarbontiskil.' That's foreign."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped Rose. "I shouldn't think Daddy Bunker would want to go to
+see a man with a name like that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose," said Russ, "that he can help his name being that."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't he make his own name&mdash;and make it a better one?" demanded Vi.
+"You know, Mun Bun made his name for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where daddy is going. To that&mdash;that Cowboy Jack's place."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Russ, almost as promptly as Vi might have asked it had
+she heard Rose's speech.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;Scar&mdash;Scar&mdash;whatever it is to him. Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! You can learn to say anything if you try," declared Russ
+loftily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," sighed Rose, who knew her limitations, "<i>I</i> can't. I can't even
+learn to say Con-stan-stan-stan-ple&mdash;You know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Con-stan-ti-no-ple!" exclaimed Russ with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That's it," Rose said. "But, anyway, I can't say it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to know why not?" demanded her brother scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause I get lost in the middle of it," declared Rose, shaking her
+head. "It's too long, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, 'Mr. John Scarbontiskil' <i>is</i> long," admitted Russ. "But if you
+practise from now, right on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the use of practising if we are not going there with
+daddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"But maybe we'll go," said Russ hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You can practise saying it on the chance of our going," her brother
+advised.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>is</i> 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;plus transportation expenses&mdash;that I do not feel that I
+can refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you all home to Pineville first.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> Then you will not be quite
+so far away from me," Daddy Bunker said reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"They told me you Bunkers were going home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"What is Dripping Rock?" Vi promptly wanted to know. "What does it
+drip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not milk, anyway, or molasses," laughed Tad.</p>
+
+<p>"It drips water, of course," Russ explained. "I have heard of it. You go
+up the road past the swamp. I know."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," said Tad. "It's not far."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go, too, to D'ipping Wock," Mun Bun declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you do," Rose told him. "And if mother lets us go&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go into the swamp, that is all," said Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Vi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know a riddle about a swamp," said Laddie eagerly. "Why is a swamp
+like what we eat for breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But you ate something else," cried Laddie delightedly. "You ate mush.
+And isn't a swamp just like mush?"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! You wouldn't think so if you ever tasted swamp mud," said Tad.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;and mushy," said Margy. "I think that's a very nice riddle,
+Laddie. Why do we eat swamps for breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! We don't!" exclaimed Rose. "Now, come along. If we are going
+to the Dripping Rock, we'd better start."</p>
+
+<p>It was not far&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> on both sides, and for half the way at least there were no open
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear somebody calling," said Russ suddenly, as he led the way with
+Tad.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody shouting," said Tad. "I wonder what he wants!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear it," cried Rose suddenly. "Is he calling for help?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up," advised Tad. "I guess somebody wants something, and he wants
+it pretty bad."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Rose, who had very bright eyes, "I see him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who do you see?" demanded Tad, who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> turning around and trying to
+look all ways at once.</p>
+
+<p>"There! Can't you see him?" demanded Rose, with growing excitement. "Oh,
+the poor thing!"</p>
+
+<p>Just then an unmistakable "bla-a-at!" startled the other children&mdash;even
+Tad Munson. He brought his gaze down from the trees into the branches of
+which he had been staring.</p>
+
+<p>"Bla-a-at!" was the repeated cry, which at first the children had
+thought had been "Help!"</p>
+
+<p>"And sure enough," Russ said confidently, "he is saying 'help!' just as
+near as he can say it."</p>
+
+<p>"The poor thing!" sighed Rose again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHAT WAS STUCK IN THE MUD</h3>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;and which Rose had
+seen first&mdash;but at once Russ felt that he must discover a way to get the
+blatting object out of the mud.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me!" cried Rose. "The poor thing!"</p>
+
+<p>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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the poor thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Who put it in that horrid swamp?" Vi demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it just wandered in," said Tad.</p>
+
+<p>"And it is sinking down right now," Russ tried. "See it?"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed the poor calf&mdash;a well grown animal&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear!" said Margy, almost in tears, "it is asking us to help it
+just as plain as it can."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to run and tell John Winsome&mdash;right now I am!" shouted Tad,
+and he turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> around and ran back along the road they had come just as
+fast as he could run.</p>
+
+<p>But Russ stayed where he was. His lips were still puckered in a whistle
+and he was thinking hard.</p>
+
+<p>"What can we do for the poor calf, Russ?" asked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Rose! You can help drag these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> rails too," cried Russ, quite
+excited by the thought that he might be able to save the calf before Tad
+Munson brought help.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"How silly, Vi! You couldn't burn those old rails on that wet place. The
+fire would go right out."</p>
+
+<p>"Russ won't burn it, or let it drown either," Margy said, with much
+confidence in their older brother.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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'&mdash;you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe it's a riddle&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>"Bla-a-at!" bawled the calf, his smutched head lifted out of the mire.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! The poor bossy!" gasped Rose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> staggering along with another
+rail. "How you going to help him, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Russ had just thought of something to do. He balanced himself carefully
+and took the last rail from Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Russ!" cried Vi, "your shoes are getting all muddy."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can clean them, can't I?" panted the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you when you haven't any blacking and brush here?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He pushed down with all his might until at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Russ, you're doing it!" cried Rose.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>None of the others had noticed his absence, and Mun Bun was out of sight
+when Russ,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Mun Bun?" demanded Rose, looking around.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you save the calf, Russ?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he?" rejoined Russ. He jumped up and the rail began to tip
+again, dousing the poor calf into the mire.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Russ!" screamed Rose. "He's going down again!"</p>
+
+<p>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?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>GOOD-BYE TO GRAND VIEW</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Didn't you&mdash;any of you&mdash;see which way he went?" Rose demanded of the
+other children. "Oh! if Mun Bun gets into the swamp&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he won't," said Margy. "He isn't a bossy-calf."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he won't," added Laddie. "Mother told us not to, and Mun Bun
+will mind mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Shout for him!" commanded Russ, and raised his own voice to the very
+top note in calling Mun Bun's name.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Russ got off the rail again in his excitement, and down went the calf!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mustn't!" gasped Rose. "You'll drown him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I guess we've got to find Mun Bun," said Vi.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You and Laddie, Vi, come here and help Rose hold down the rail," said
+Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must go look for Mun Bun, too!" cried Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute," said Russ, "and we'll all go and hunt for him."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> too, to keep the poor calf from drowning in the mud. And at
+length he got the post fixed to suit him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now get up," Russ told them, and Rose and Vi and Laddie stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"That fixes it!" cried Laddie, in great excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right if the calf doesn't struggle much while we are gone,"
+said Russ doubtfully. "Which way did Mun Bun go?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing, Mun Bun?" cried Rose, first to reach the little
+boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what's that?" asked Vi, at once curious when she saw the object
+before Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"A walking box!" shouted Laddie. "I can make a riddle out of that, I
+know. When is a box not a box at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"When it's a turtle!" exclaimed Russ, beginning to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" said Laddie. "That isn't the answer. When it walks. That is
+the answer to <i>my</i> riddle, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>The tortoise was so scared (for Mun Bun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Russ did not much care about being called "sonny." He said that he might
+as well have been called "moony"&mdash;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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> did not fancy being called out of name. And
+"sonny" did not make the oldest Bunker feel dignified at all.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" cried Vi. "And find out what it drips."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" mourned Mun Bun. "My turkle is gone. Somebody come and took him."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He needn't have been so scared," said Mun Bun, in disgust. "I wouldn't
+have hurt him."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to pick ferns, I do!" cried Mun Bun. "I want to take mother the
+biggest bunch of all."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So it was the others, and not Mun Bun, who told their elders about the
+calf stuck in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;because we haven't been home much."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," sighed Rose, to whom he spoke, "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe something will happen!" cried the oldest little Bunker suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>But just what did happen, even Russ Bunker could not possibly have
+imagined.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COAL STRIKE</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Get off me!" cried Russ. "Stop!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Laddie!" he exclaimed, shaking the younger boy. "If you don't stop
+I'll have to get out and sleep on the floor."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped Laddie. "Am I sleeping?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're not now, I guess. But you were sleeping&mdash;and kicking,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Laddie again. "I thought that old calf was pulling me down
+into the mud to take a bath. That&mdash;that must be a riddle, Russ."</p>
+
+<p>"What's a riddle?" asked his brother, yawning.</p>
+
+<p>"When is a dream not a dream?" asked Laddie promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;ow!&mdash;don't know," yawned Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"When you wake up," declared Laddie with conviction.</p>
+
+<p>But Russ did not answer. He had snuggled down into his pillow and was
+asleep again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;anyway," muttered Laddie, "I guess that wasn't a very good riddle
+after all."</p>
+
+<p>They got home to Pineville the next day, and as the automobile rolled
+into the Bunker<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a strike!" cried out Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"You tan't go to school!" added Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;strike?" asked Russ wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"That old thunder struck us. That's enough," said Rose, harking back to
+their exciting time in the old house at the seashore.</p>
+
+<p>"Who got struck?" asked Violet. "Did it hurt them&mdash;like it did Mun Bun
+and me when the tree fell on us?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a coal strike," said Margy. "And the school can't have any coal."</p>
+
+<p>Neither Rose nor Russ just understood this. What had a coal strike to do
+with their going to school?</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or as wise&mdash;as Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," said Daddy Bunker. "And I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> presume the other people will
+feel the same about their children. School must be postponed again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bully!" cried Russ.</p>
+
+<p>He shouted it out so loud that the older folks, as well as the children,
+looked at him in some amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody gave her questions much attention, which of course was not
+unusual. But Daddy Bunker began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't mind going to school," Rose said, a little doubtfully but
+looking at her elder brother.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh!" cried the other children in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> chorus, seeing very plainly now
+what Russ had meant by saying the coal strike was "bully."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are taking too much for granted," Mother Bunker said
+soberly. "Still, Charles, maybe I had better not unpack our trunks quite
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;Mr. John
+Scarbontiskil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And, anyway," she told Russ, "maybe I won't have to talk to him much."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Why hasn't he?" demanded Vi. "Don't they have little boys and girls
+down there on the ranch where he lives?"</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't got any," said Russ. "So he likes other people's children."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 247px;">
+<img src="images/56.jpg" width="247" height="400" alt="RUSS AND LADDIE GOT OUT THEIR COWBOY AND INDIAN SUITS." title="RUSS AND LADDIE GOT OUT THEIR COWBOY AND INDIAN SUITS." />
+<span class="caption">RUSS AND LADDIE GOT OUT THEIR COWBOY AND INDIAN SUITS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's.</i> (<i>Page 54</i>)</div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We might as well make a long holiday of it, Charles," said Mother
+Bunker, quite complacently.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we take our bathing suits, Mother?" asked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No bathing suits this time, for we are not going to the seashore,"
+declared Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! I've lost it!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"What you lost?" asked Vi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My watch!" gasped Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me! Your nice new wrist watch?" asked Mother Bunker
+admonishingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am," sighed Rose. "I&mdash;I haven't got it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my!" cried Laddie suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"And what's the matter with you, Laddie?" asked Daddy Bunker. "What have
+you lost?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my!" said Laddie, quite as dolefully as Rose had spoken. "I&mdash;I
+don't see my new stick-pin. It isn't here. I&mdash;I just guess I have lost
+it, too."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SOUP JUGGLER</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;and just where you forgot them?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> trouble, as
+in this case. The loss of the wrist watch and the stick-pin could not be
+passed over lightly.</p>
+
+<p>Laddie shook his head very sorrowfully. "That <i>is</i> a riddle, Mother," he
+said. "I can forget things so easy that I forget how I forget them."</p>
+
+<p>But Rose was thinking very hard, and she broke out with:</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I never had it there at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"At home, Mother. I&mdash;I guess I haven't seen that watch since we were at
+Captain Ben's."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My rememberer is all right now," declared Laddie, with conviction.
+"That is where I left the pin."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Rose?" asked their mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know for sure," admitted Rose. "I can't remember where I had
+the watch last&mdash;or when I wore it last. But I do not believe I had it at
+all when we came home to Pineville."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother! I am so sorry," cried Rose. "Don't you suppose we'll ever
+see my watch and Laddie's pin again?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He would know they belonged to Rose and Laddie, if he found them," said
+Russ, trying to comfort the others.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. If he cleans up the house he might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how mean! To steal Rose's watch and Laddie's pin!" cried Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes them steal, Mother?" queried Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" ejaculated Vi, "Laddie took my book."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I thought sacred books were like the Bible and the hymn book,"
+murmured Laddie wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>Which was of course quite so. It took Laddie some time, he being such a
+little boy, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> understand that it was the fact of possession that was
+"sacred" rather than the article possessed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what will you do with them?" asked Vi, referring to the letters.</p>
+
+<p>"Mail them," replied Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"How will you mail them? Is there a post-box in the car?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But we will find a way of getting them into the mails," her mother
+assured the inquisitive Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is getting the mail on to the train," said Vi promptly. "But how
+do they get it off?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's a riddle," declared her twin soberly. "'When is a waiter not a
+waiter?'"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to answer that one yourself, Laddie," said Daddy Bunker,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"When he's a runner," Laddie said promptly. "Isn't that a good riddle?"</p>
+
+<p>"And he juggles dishes almost as good as that juggler we saw at the
+show," Russ declared.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Look there!" cried Rose, who was likewise facing the right way to
+see the waiter's approach.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! He's going!" sang out Russ.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter jerked to one side, and almost dropped the soup toureen. Then
+he pitched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> the other way and his tray hit against one of the diners at
+another table.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out what you're doing!" cried the man whom the tray had struck.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sah! Yes, sah!" panted the waiter, and he tried to balance his
+tray.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"There he goes!" gasped Russ again.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he <i>is</i> a soup juggler," declared Laddie, staring with all his
+might. "He's got it!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"My head an' body!" gasped the poor waiter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> "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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>When daddy paid his bill and tipped the very much subdued waiter, Laddie
+tugged at his father's sleeve and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Son?" asked Mr. Bunker, stooping down to hear what the
+little boy whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him if he will juggle the soup again if we come in here to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Bunker had brought a nicely packed basket for supper (Nora
+O'Grady had made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> the sandwiches and the cookies) and she sent daddy
+into the buffet car for milk and tea.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'althought'">although</ins> at first he had decided to be a locomotive engineer.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be lots nicer to sell candy than to work an engine," Laddie
+said. "You get your hands all oil in an engine."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But I will have to tell you about it in the next chapter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ALARM AND A HOLD-UP</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one man who had scowled at the little Bunkers almost from
+the very moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> they had boarded the train at Pineville. That man
+seemed to say to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! here is a crowd of children and they are going to annoy me
+dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away!" said the fat man to Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> very
+puzzled way, and then went back to Mother Bunker's seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Muvver," he said soberly, "do you got pep'mint?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you have eaten all the candy that is good for you now, Mun
+Bun," said Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Mun Bun earnestly. "Not tandy. Pep'mint for ache," and he
+rubbed himself about midway of his body very suggestively.</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun! are you ill?" demanded his mother anxiously. "Are you in pain,
+you poor baby?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Better ask him," suggested Daddy Bunker, who had noted the unhappy face
+of the fat man.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun did this. He asked the man very politely if he needed
+"pep'mint." But all the cross passenger said was:</p>
+
+<p>"Go on away! You are a nuisance!"</p>
+
+<p>So Mun Bun went back to daddy and mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> in rather a subdued way, for
+he was not used to being treated so. Mun Bun liked to make friends
+wherever he went.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;oh, quite wide awake!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a sound that made
+the boy "creep" all over it was so shuddery!</p>
+
+<p>"Laddie! Laddie!" he whispered, nudging the boy next to him. "Don't you
+hear it?"</p>
+
+<p>Laddie was not easily awakened. When Laddie went to sleep it was, as the
+children say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> "for keeps." Russ had to punch him with his elbow more
+than once before the smaller boy awakened.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh! Is it morning?" murmured Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" hissed Russ right in his ear. "That man's being
+mur&mdash;murdered!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mur&mdash;murdered?" quavered Laddie in response. "You&mdash;you tell daddy about
+it, Russ Bunker. Don't you tell me. I don't believe he is, anyway. Who's
+mur&mdash;murderin' him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know who's doing it," admitted Russ, shaking as much as Laddie
+was.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know it's&mdash;it's being done?" repeated Laddie, his doubt
+growing as he became more fully awake.</p>
+
+<p>"He says so. He says so himself. And if he says he's being murdered, he
+ought to know&mdash;Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"There! What did I tell you?" gasped Russ. "I'm&mdash;I'm going to tell
+daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me! Wait, Russ Bunker! I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> going with you," Laddie cried. "I
+don't want to stay here and be mur&mdash;murdered, too!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Before they could get inside daddy's curtain&mdash;a place which spelled
+safety to their disturbed imaginations&mdash;they heard the moaning voice
+again groan:</p>
+
+<p>"Mur-r-rder!"</p>
+
+<p>It was an awful choking cry&mdash;just like a hen squawked when Jerry Simms
+grabbed it by the neck and had his hand on the hen's windpipe!</p>
+
+<p>"He's mur&mdash;murderin' him all right," chattered Laddie, tugging at Russ's
+pajama jacket. "Are&mdash;are you going to stop it, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the porter!" whispered Russ huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Is&mdash;is he being mur&mdash;murdered?" stuttered Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;he looks more as though he was going to do the mur-murdering,"
+confessed Russ.</p>
+
+<p>Laddie would not look; but Russ could not take his eyes off the
+approaching porter. The colored man crept nearer, nearer&mdash;and then
+suddenly he snatched away the curtain almost directly across the aisle
+from where the two little Bunkers stood.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I guess I was asleep. Must have been dreaming," he stammered
+gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> saw the fat man again, for he left the train at a station
+quite early.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> might be halted by a big hole in the
+ground where the tracks ought to be.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;although none of them was hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the washout! Here's the washout!" cried Laddie eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Can we go look out of the door, Mother?" asked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BIG ROCK THAT FELL DOWN</h3>
+
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, wait!" commanded daddy. "You shall all see what there is to
+see&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see the wash up on the clotheslines," said Mun Bun, breaking
+into his father's speech.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Nor was it just what any of the six little Bunkers thought it would
+be&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" shouted Violet. "It's a great, big rock that's fallen down the
+hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Russ, soberly, "I guess it's a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> washout at that. For the
+rain must have washed it out of the hillside. See! There is the hole up
+there in the bank."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose our train had been going by when the rock fell?" suggested Russ
+to Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"What would the rock have done to us?" asked Vi, who heard her brother
+say this.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it would have done something," replied Russ solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"It would have pushed us right off the track," declared Rose, nodding
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>"And what would it have done then?" demanded Vi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained her twin suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish I wouldn't what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask so many questions."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I was just thinking of a riddle about that big rock; and now it's
+all gone," sighed Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't gone at all," Vi said wonderingly. "Daddy says it will
+take hours to move it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! That old rock!" said Laddie. "I meant my riddle. That's all gone."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it wasn't a very good riddle, then, if it went so easy," said
+the critical Vi. "Oh, look there!"</p>
+
+<p>"At what?" exclaimed her twin, following Vi to the fence beside the
+railroad bed.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"So we could," agreed the boy. "Let's."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> 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&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" squealed Vi, starting away from the edge of the bank on a run.
+"See the flowers! Oh, see the flowers, Laddie!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get a big bunch for mother. Won't she be glad?" went on Vi.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> sight of something that interested him
+much more than the flowers did.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;something
+that interested the boy immensely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, look, Vi!" cried Laddie. "There's a chippy!"</p>
+
+<p>"What chippy? Who's chippy?" demanded Vi excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"There he goes!" shouted Laddie. "A chipmunk!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let me catch him! Let me catch him!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, that chipmunk drew Laddie and Vi on to the very edge of the
+woods, and then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> with a flirt of its tail, it disappeared into a hole
+and they could not find him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I guess we'd better go back," said Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"And mother's flowers!" exclaimed Vi. "Do you know where you dropped
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped mine just where you dropped yours, I guess," returned her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll go pick them up. Come on."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose that is?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the engine. Oh, Vi! maybe it's going to start without us," and
+Laddie began to run, tired as he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me, Laddie! It can't go&mdash;you know it can't. The big rock is in
+the way."</p>
+
+<p>But they were both rather frightened, and they did not stop to find
+their flowers. The pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>sibility 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;not then, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Vi," he urged. "If that old train goes on with daddy and
+mother and the rest, I don't know what we <i>shall</i> do!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>WHERE ARE THE TWINS?</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"All aboard! Back into the cars, people!" he shouted. "We're going to
+steam back. Get aboard!"</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Margy being the only Bunker chil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>dren 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charles!" gasped Mrs. Bunker. "Where are they?" The train began to
+move more rapidly. "They are left behind!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Then where are they?" cried Mother Bunker, without being relieved in
+the least by his statement.</p>
+
+<p>"I think they are aboard the train&mdash;somewhere. They got into the wrong
+car by mistake. We will look for them," said Mr. Bunker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew they were left behind!" Mother Bunker declared again, and this
+time nobody tried to reassure her.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and if they would never find them again.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we'll find them," Rose assured the little girl. "They aren't
+really lost. They just missed the train."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> conductor promised to
+stop there so Mr. Bunker could look for the lost children.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess nobody could have run off with them," whispered Russ to his
+sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! There were no Gypsies or tramps anywhere about. Anyway, we
+didn't see any."</p>
+
+<p>"They weren't carried off. They walked off," said Russ decidedly. "Maybe
+they will be back again waiting for the train."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> Vi
+and Laddie their father could not at that moment imagine.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the train's gone!" shrieked Vi, when she first looked down.</p>
+
+<p>"And the workmen are gone too," gasped Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we didn't run away from them," Laddie said more sturdily. "They
+ran away from us."</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't make any difference," complained his sister. "We&mdash;we're
+lost and can't be found."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" cried Laddie suddenly, "how do you s'pose that train hopped over
+that rock?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>did</i> fly over, it
+couldn't have dragged the cars with it, could it?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;and&mdash;and what shall <i>we</i> do?" began Vi, almost ready to cry again.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose he will?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>At this Vi was reminded that they had not eaten since breakfast, and
+although it was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> yet noon, she declared that she was starving!</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Laddie, I just know we will starve here if the train doesn't come
+back for us."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have you? That will buy four lollipops&mdash;two for you and two for me.
+I guess I wouldn't starve so soon if I had two lollipops," admitted Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose we can catch it? Will it stop and wait when daddy finds
+out we're not on it? And are you <i>sure</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Her twin could not answer. Like the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> Bunkers, he was <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'nonplused'">nonplussed</ins> 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAN WITH THE EARRINGS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The twins got out of the cut between the two hills after a time, and
+then it <i>was</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I know a riddle about that Robinson Crusoe man. Yes, I do!" suddenly
+exclaimed Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the riddle, Laddie? Do I know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause the island was in the water," said Vi promptly. "Of course there
+were fish."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, that isn't the answer," Laddie said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;because the answer is something about Friday. You fry fish,
+you know&mdash;And anyway, Crusoe's man was named <i>Friday</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And how tired their feet did become! If you have ever walked the
+railroad tracks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> (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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, me, I'm so tired!" complained Vi, after a while.</p>
+
+<p>"So'm I," confessed her twin brother.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't see daddy coming for us," added Vi, her voice tremulous
+with tears again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 246px;">
+<img src="images/106.jpg" width="246" height="400" alt="&quot;I SEE SOMETHING!&quot; CRIED LADDIE." title="&quot;I SEE SOMETHING!&quot; CRIED LADDIE." />
+<span class="caption">&quot;I SEE SOMETHING!&quot; CRIED LADDIE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's.</i> (<i>Page 99</i>)</div>
+
+<p>"I see something!" cried Laddie suddenly and hopefully. He did not want
+his sister to begin crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it Daddy Bunker?" demanded Vi, looking ahead eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a house&mdash;right beside the railroad," said Laddie, quickening his
+own pace a little and trying to drag Vi along, as he still held her
+hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where? Where is the house?" demanded Vi anxiously. "I don't see any
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a very small house. But there it is," said her brother,
+pointing ahead with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I see it, Laddie," cried Vi. "Oh, what a little house it is&mdash;and so
+close to the tracks! Do you suppose anybody lives in that little house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. It is small," admitted Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe a dog lives in it. It isn't much bigger than Mr. Striver's
+dog-house at home in Pineville."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it isn't a dog-house. Anyway, we'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what it is, Vi!" exclaimed the boy suddenly. "It's a
+riddle."</p>
+
+<p>"There you go again with your old riddles," sniffed Vi. "We can't eat
+riddles."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a good one," declared her brother cheerfully. "I'm going to ask
+you: What<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> looks like a dog-house, but isn't a dog-house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. A hen-house, Laddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! They don't build hen-houses right down beside railroad tracks,
+and just where a road crosses the tracks."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't they? What do they build there, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Look out-a da train!" he shouted. "Look out-a da train!"</p>
+
+<p>"What does he say?" asked Vi curiously.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out-a da train!" shouted the flagman again.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw a man wearing earrings before," said Vi soberly. "And he
+acts awfully funny, doesn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he doesn't mean any harm," said Laddie doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Look-a da train!" he cried. "You bambinoes want-a get run over&mdash;yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're not Bambinoes, Mister," said Laddie. "We're Bunkers."</p>
+
+<p>Vi could not quench her usual curiosity, although the man seemed so
+strange in her eyes. She asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you wear rings in your ears? Please, why do you wear 'em?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>CAVALLO AT LAST</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, please, Mister," she continued to ask, "what makes you wear
+earrings?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! Look! Here they are!" Russ shouted, as he ran toward his brother
+and sister and the man who wore earrings.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Russ Bunker!" ejaculated Vi, "how did you come on that train? Were
+you left behind, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Laddie looked back and waved his hand to the man who wore earrings.
+"Good-bye!" he called to the man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-a-bye!" cried the flagman in return, smiling very broadly.
+"Good-a-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he talk so funny?" asked Vi, panting, as Russ helped her up
+the car steps and into the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>"He talks broken English," said Russ in return. "Come on, Laddie."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"That man with the earrings thought he knew us, too," Vi said finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he didn't know you," Rose observed.</p>
+
+<p>"He thought we were Mrs. Bam&mdash;Bam&mdash;&mdash; Laddie, whose little boy and girl
+did that man think we were?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Laddie did not understand her question at first; but finally he realized
+what Vi meant.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know! 'Bambinoes.' That was the name. He asked us about our being
+called 'Bambinoes.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me!" laughed Mother Bunker. "That was his way of saying
+'babies.' He called you babies in his mixture of languages."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>does</i> wear
+earrings."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," said Margy. "I can reach the paper cups."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"But we haven't any sand pile here," Margy pointed out. "So we can't
+make dirt pies in them."</p>
+
+<p>"We can fill them with water. There's lots of water. You push that
+button again, Margy, and let some more water run."</p>
+
+<p>"But you mustn't spill it on you. You know mother said you shouldn't,"
+replied the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Get another! Get another, Margy!" Mun Bun kept saying.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we have got it all, Mun Bun," said the little girl. "They are
+all full."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Mun Bun saw where the pleasant colored man was about to step.
+He cried out:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't! Look out! All our puddin' dishes!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that, little boy?" demanded the porter.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out! You'll splash&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now you spilled 'em," cried Mun Bun. "Look, Margy, how he's spilled
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt of that fact. The passage was a-flood with
+ice-water! The por<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>ter was sputtering, and the two children were
+inclined to be somewhat tearful when Daddy Bunker came along to see what
+they were up to.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"All right&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are tired of it, dear," his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You did at Uncle Fred's," Russ told her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But maybe I have forgotten how," his sister said doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>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!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SURPRISE COMING</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure Mr. Scarbontiskil got your message, Charles?" asked Mrs.
+Bunker of daddy. "Perhaps we had better go to a hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Laddie, "I want to go right out where the cows and horses
+are."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said Russ. "A hotel isn't very different from a Pullman
+coach."</p>
+
+<p>And they were all tired of <i>that</i>&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! That's him!" whispered Rose to Russ. "And I know I never <i>can</i> say
+that name!"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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'&mdash;just 'Cowboy Jack.' It fits me a sight better,
+and that's true. I was a cow-puncher long be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>fore 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And what a game they made of telling Cowboy Jack their names, so that he
+would remember them&mdash;"get 'em stuck in his mind" as he called it.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> what he is&mdash;a laddie. I couldn't mistake him
+for a lassie, so I'm sure to get <i>his</i> name stuck in my mind," and
+Cowboy Jack boomed a great laugh, shaking hands with each of the
+children as daddy presented them.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"There's <i>me!</i>" exclaimed the littlest Bunker, staring up at the big
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's me!" cried Mun Bun again, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> laid hold of the skirt of
+Cowboy Jack's long coat and tugged at it. "You forgot me."</p>
+
+<p>"Jumping grasshoppers!" exclaimed the big man, staring down at Mun Bun.
+"What do I see? Another Bunker?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's me," said Mun Bun soberly. "I have a name, too."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Mun Bun," said the little boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Jumping grasshoppers!" ejaculated the ranchman, stooping down very low
+and staring at Mun Bun. "Another Bunker&mdash;and named 'Mun Bun'? That's a
+very easily remembered name, isn't it? I couldn't forget you&mdash;sure I
+couldn't! For you see every time I go to the bake shop I buy buns&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a Bunker bun," declared the little boy. "And you can't eat me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can't eat you," admitted the ranchman. "But I can pick you
+up&mdash;this way&mdash;and carry you off, can't I?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;cinnamon buns, not Mun Buns&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Where are your horses?" cried Laddie and Vi together.</p>
+
+<p>"Out on the range," said Cowboy Jack. "Plenty of 'em there."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Got something that beats cayuses," declared Cowboy Jack. "What do you
+think of <i>these</i> for cow ponies?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Pile in! Pile in!" said Cowboy Jack in his great voice.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the surprise?" Vi asked. "Is it something we can eat? Or is it
+a surprise we can play with?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Vi again.</p>
+
+<p>"If I tell you now, it won't be a surprise," replied the ranchman. "So
+you'll have to wait and see it."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> Rose
+spied a moving bunch of cattle. <i>That</i> looked like a ranch; but Cowboy
+Jack told her that his ranch was still a good many miles ahead.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish!" cried Violet eagerly. "Make a wish&mdash;both of you."</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what'll I wish?" stammered Laddie excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! Now you spoiled it," declared Vi. "Didn't he, Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"He can't make the wish after he has spoken," agreed the older sister.
+"No, Laddie; it is too late now."</p>
+
+<p>Margy began to wave her hands and evidently wanted to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you wish, Margy?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>The smaller girl nodded vigorously. Cowboy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> Jack laughed very heartily,
+but Rose said to the little girl:</p>
+
+<p>"You can talk now, Margy."</p>
+
+<p>"I wished we'd have waffles for supper," announced Margy, hungrily. "I
+like waffles."</p>
+
+<p>"And I bet we have 'em!" cried their host, laughing again. "Maria can
+make dandy waffles."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I would have wished for something&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"That's something mighty mysterious," said the ranchman soberly. "We
+can't change the laws about wishing. That would bust up everything."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;so Rose thought&mdash;they did not have to
+call him by his right name!</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"And then for the surprise," said Russ to Rose. "I wonder what it can
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something nice, I am sure," sighed his sister contentedly. "It must be
+something nice, or Mr. Cowboy Jack would not have mentioned it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>AN INDIAN RAID</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 objec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>tion to going off to bed. But Vi and
+Laddie wanted to stay up as long as Russ and Rose did.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;so now!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't we stop and wait?" demanded Vi. "We can stop an automobile
+and get out and wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Or get lost from a train," put in Laddie, who was sitting on what
+Cowboy Jack called a "hassock"&mdash;a low seat&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you a riddle," said Cowboy Jack, with one of his booming
+laughs.</p>
+
+<p>"Is <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'is'">it</ins> a good one?" asked Vi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please do!" cried Laddie. "I just love riddles."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here is one," said the ranchman. "'What is it that is black and
+white, but red all over?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Black&mdash;white&mdash;and red?" repeated Laddie, puzzled, for if he had ever
+heard that riddle he had forgotten it.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what is red, white and blue!" cried Vi. "That's the flag."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I ever saw anything that was black and white but red,
+too," confessed Laddie slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you have," said their big friend, apparently just as much
+entertained by the riddle as the little folks.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, look at what you have in your hand!" exclaimed the ranchman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This is a paper," said Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"And isn't it black and white?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. The print is black and the paper is white. But I don't see
+any red&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But lots of us have <i>read</i> it all over," chuckled Cowboy Jack. "It is
+black and white, and is <i>read</i> all over!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's time for all little folks to go to bed," said Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>While they were all at breakfast there was a great deal of noise
+outside&mdash;whooping and shouting and the like&mdash;that startled the children.
+But their mother would not let them leave the table to find out about it
+until break<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>fast 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Cowboys!" cried Russ. "I guess we'd better go back and put on our
+cowboy suits, Laddie."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What's those?" Rose asked at first sight. Rose almost always saw things
+first.</p>
+
+<p>Russ gave one glance and fairly whooped: "Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me!" gasped Rose, "are they <i>wild</i> Indians?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They are real Indians just the same!" exclaimed Russ, with confidence.
+"They aren't just the dressed-up kind. Look at them!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get our guns and bows and arrows, hadn't we, Russ?" the
+little boy asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The Indians are not coming this way," explained Russ. "I guess we're
+safe enough."</p>
+
+<p>"See! There are Indian babies, too," cried Rose. "There's one strapped
+to a board on its mother's back&mdash;just like in the pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same," said Vi, rather soberly for her, "I'm glad they are
+going the other way."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's almost like a circus," said Russ. "And all the different kind of
+dogs, too. <i>That</i> dog has hardly any hair, and he comes from Mexico, so
+they say. While that <i>wolfy</i> looking dog comes from away up in Alaska.
+Then there are dogs from places all between Alaska and Mexico."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do Indians wear feather dusters in their hair?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"For the same reason that ladies wear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> feathers in their bonnets,"
+declared Daddy Bunker seriously. "Because they think the feathers are
+ornamental."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do they strap their babies to boards?" demanded Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you see Indians?" asked Mother Bunker, guessing the source
+from which Violet's questions were springing.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Rose. "There <i>were</i> Indians&mdash;lots of them. We saw their
+parade go by&mdash;just like a Wild West Show parade."</p>
+
+<p>Cowboy Jack began to laugh. And when he laughed his great body shook all
+over, and the chair in which he sat shook too.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there Indians here, Mr. Scarbontiskil?" asked Mother Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>But he would not tell them any more&mdash;at least, not just then.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"There must be some nice flowers here," agreed Rose. "I'll go look, too,
+Vi."</p>
+
+<p>"Me want to pick flowers!" cried Mun Bun eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'once'">one</ins> place something jumped out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> shrub and went leaping away
+along the wagon track with great bounds.</p>
+
+<p>"A rabbit!" cried Laddie. "Oh, such a big rabbit!"</p>
+
+<p>"The very longest legs I ever saw," agreed Russ. "And long ears&mdash;like
+those on the mules in the corral."</p>
+
+<p>"And he thumps the ground just like a horse stamping," said Rose. "There
+he goes out of sight. I&mdash;I believe I would be afraid of that rabbit if
+he came at me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he is going, not coming," remarked Russ. "I want to see where he
+went."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> a bonfire by the doorstep and a
+black kettle was hung over the fire from the tripod of smoke-blackened
+sticks.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the strangest way for a man
+to dress his hair the little Bunkers had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Russ pointed behind the cabin&mdash;over to another ridge, or knoll,
+of land.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" Russ gasped. "Those Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Rose, clinging to Mun Bun, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> clung to her in return.
+"Those Indians are coming right at that woman and her baby&mdash;and the
+man!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's an Indian raid," murmured Russ. "Do you suppose it is <i>real</i>, or
+just make-believe?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A PROFOUND MYSTERY</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Russ! Come on!" she cried to her older brother. "That poor
+little baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, I don't believe the Indians are really going to hurt those folks,"
+objected Russ.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And here came another astonishing thing. Out of a woody place appeared a
+cavalcade of horsemen&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rose! I know those men. They are soldiers!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Those are soldiers. They have got swords and guns," repeated Russ
+confidently. "And I guess they are American soldiers, too."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Not 'fwaid," declared the littlest Bunker. "But I want to see muvver
+and daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's more than Indians that wear feather headdresses," whispered Vi to
+Rose. "So why <i>do</i> they?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a baby," added Rose earnestly. "I wouldn't want the baby to be
+scalped."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Please save the baby! Look out for the baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>This was quite reassuring to Rose's troubled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> how to ask
+that riddle in a minute&mdash;or maybe an hour. Let's see."</p>
+
+<p>So Laddie&mdash;or the others&mdash;was not by when Russ propounded his question
+to Cowboy Jack, the big ranchman.</p>
+
+<p>"Those Indians? I told you they were part of the surprise I had for you
+little Bunkers," declared Cowboy Jack, laughing very heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"And the soldiers?" murmured the puzzled Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Part of the same surprise," answered the ranchman.</p>
+
+<p>"We&mdash;ell, we <i>were</i> surprised. But I don't just understand how you come
+to have wild Indians and soldiers&mdash;and they don't look just like <i>our</i>
+soldiers back East&mdash;here on your ranch. And how about that baby?"</p>
+
+<p>"I promise you," said Cowboy Jack quite seriously, "that the baby will
+not be scalped&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>Russ was rather startled by this suggestion. He wanted to be grateful
+for anything that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> Cowboy Jack said he would do; but&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Will Daddy Bunker go too?" asked Russ, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. We'll take your daddy along with us," agreed Cowboy Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll go," said Russ Bunker, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>He would go anywhere daddy went, although the matter of the wild Indians
+did seem to be a profound mystery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>MUN BUN TAKES A NAP</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Only babies take naps, don't they, Muvver?" he said to Mother Bunker.
+"And I aren't a baby any more."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm growed too big to take naps, anyway," declared Mun Bun, quite
+convinced.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do if you grow sleepy?" asked his mother, before
+he started out after the other children.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll pinch myself awake," declared Mun Bun. "Oh, I'll show I'm not a
+baby any longer."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> to come in gusts Mun Bun was
+sometimes almost toppled off his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Wind b'ow!" gasped Mun Bun, staggering against the heavy gusts. "Oh,
+my!"</p>
+
+<p>That last exclamation was jounced out of him by something that blew
+against the little boy&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes blinked and winked, and finally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The mule colts in the paddock were just the cunningest things! Margy and
+Vi squealed right out loud when they saw them.</p>
+
+<p>"And their cunning long ears flap so funny!" cried Rose. "Did you ever?"</p>
+
+<p>"But their tails are not skinned down like the big mules' tails,"
+objected Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they'll shave those later. That is what they do to the big
+mules&mdash;shave the hair off their tails, all but the 'paint-brush' at the
+end," said Russ, who knew.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash; But there's only five here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Rose politely. "Mun Bun's taking a nap, I s'pose."</p>
+
+<p>"He is, is he?" repeated Cowboy Jack, with considerable interest. "And
+where has he gone for his nap?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is up at the house with mother," Russ said.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mun Bun, then?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"He's lost!" wailed Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he didn't come down here with us," Russ declared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He started after you," said the ranchman, quite seriously now. "You
+sure the little fellow isn't anywhere about?"</p>
+
+<p>He was so serious that Russ and Rose grew anxious too. The other little
+Bunkers just stared. Vi said:</p>
+
+<p>"He's always getting lost&mdash;Mun Bun is. Why does he?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause he's so little," suggested her twin. "Little things get lost
+easier than big things."</p>
+
+<p>"That's sound doctrine," declared Cowboy Jack.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Which way did you come down here from the house, Son?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ pointed. "Down across that lot where the bushes are all piled up."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," said Cowboy Jack. "We'd better look for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Margy suddenly, "you don't s'pose the Indians got him, do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those Injuns wouldn't hurt a flea," declared the ranchman, striding
+away so fast up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> the slope that the children had to trot to keep up with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do the Indians like fleas?" asked Vi. "I shouldn't think they would.
+Our cat at home doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"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?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Jumping grasshoppers!" exclaimed Cowboy Jack. "I should think there was
+a deal of difference&mdash;in their size, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"No, their size hasn't anything to do with it," said Laddie, delighted
+to have puzzled the big man.</p>
+
+<p>"A leopard is a big cat," said Russ. "And a flea can only live on a
+cat."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! That isn't the answer," declared Laddie. "I guess that is a good
+riddle."</p>
+
+<p>"It sure is," agreed Cowboy Jack, still striding up the hill. "What is
+the difference between a flea and a leopard? It beats me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said the little boy, panting, "it's because&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can't a leopard jump?" demanded Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"We&mdash;ell, that's the answer. Somebody told it to me. A leopard just
+<i>can't</i> change its spots&mdash;so there."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's silly," declared Vi impatiently. "And I want to know
+what has become of Mun Bun."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun! Oh, Mun Bun!" shouted Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Russ joined his voice to hers, and they continued to call as they
+wandered about the brush clumps and the piles of dry weeds.</p>
+
+<p>But no Mun Bun appeared! The ranchman looked very grave. Russ and Rose
+really be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>came frightened. How could they go back to Mother Bunker and
+tell her that her little boy was lost on this great ranch?</p>
+
+<p>Then Cowboy Jack began to shout Mun Bun's name. And how he could shout!</p>
+
+<p>"Ye&mdash;ye&mdash;yip!" he shouted. "You&mdash;ee! Ye&mdash;ye&mdash;yip! Mun Bun! Mun Bun!"</p>
+
+<p>Rose shut her ears tight with her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness!" she whispered to Russ, "Mun Bun <i>must</i> hear that&mdash;or else
+he has gone a very long way off."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;Mun Bun's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Here I is!" said the small voice. "I'm here&mdash;<i>here!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, he is!" exclaimed Russ Bunker, suddenly diving for a great
+heap of tumble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>-weed against the wire fence. "Anyway, here is his voice,
+Mr. Cowboy Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring out his voice and let's see it," commanded the big ranchman.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Like the Babes in the Wood," said Rose thoughtfully. "Only the robins
+covered them up with leaves."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> so the two smallest Bunkers did not
+go with Cowboy Jack and daddy to see the Indians, as the ranchman had
+promised Russ.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I see the tents!" cried Rose, standing up in the back of the car to see
+over the windshield.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are wigwams," said Russ. "Aren't they wigwams, Mr.
+Scarbontiskil?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 peo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>ple,
+and not at all like the wild-looking red riders the little Bunkers had
+seen earlier in the day.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am just as glad those painted men are not here," Rose said to
+Russ. "Aren't you, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>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!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN CHIEF BLACK BEAR'S WIGWAM</h3>
+
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! A bear!" whispered Vi, clinging to daddy's hand. "Is it loose?"</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it is loose, all right," chuckled daddy. "But you will
+probably not find it a very savage bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Has it teeth&mdash;and claws?" pursued the little girl. "Bears bite, don't
+they?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness me! what does he say?" gasped Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've guessed it," laughed Daddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he one of those awful painted Indians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> we saw riding down on the
+cabin?" queried Rose. "Are they safe?"</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they <i>are</i> the painted Indians!" wailed Vi, and immediately hid her
+face against Rose's dress.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't hurt you," scoffed Laddie. "You know they won't with daddy
+and Mr. Cowboy Jack here."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but what did they do to that woman at the cabin&mdash;and her baby?"
+wondered Vi with continued anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any scalps," said Laddie confidently. "Maybe it isn't the
+fashion to scalp folks any more out here."</p>
+
+<p>"You can ask Black Bear about that," chuckled Cowboy Jack. "I'm not up
+in the fashions, as you might say."</p>
+
+<p>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 con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>fessed,
+shrank back behind the ranchman and daddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" exclaimed Cowboy Jack. "Here's Black Bear now."</p>
+
+<p>"But he doesn't look like a bear," Laddie whispered. "Bears don't walk
+on their hind feet."</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> of the tent&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Makes me think of the time they cast me for the part of the famous
+<i>Pocahontas</i> in the college play of 'John Smith,'" said Black Bear.
+"That was some time&mdash;believe me! We made a barrel of money for the
+Athletic Association."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" murmured Rose, "he talks&mdash;he talks just like Captain Ben&mdash;or
+anybody!"</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't talk like an Indian, that's <i>so</i>," whispered back Russ,
+quite as much amazed.</p>
+
+<p>But Violet could not contain her curiosity politely. She came right out
+in the lantern-light and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Mister Black Bear, are you a real Indian, or just a make-believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am just as real an Indian, little girl, as you ever will see,"
+replied the young chief,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> still rubbing the cream into his face and
+neck. "I'm a full-blood, sure-enough, honest-Injun Indian! You ask Mr.
+Scarbontiskil."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>work</i> at being
+an Indian, because it pays me better than farming."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh!" gasped Laddie. "Scalping people, and all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Do Indians, too?" gasped Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Indians are the most law-abiding folks there are," declared the chief
+earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I guess I won't feel afraid of Indians again," confessed Rose
+Bunker. "Will you, Russ?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>This did not seem to annoy Chief Black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> Bear at all. He laughed and
+slapped the big ranchman on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'm a redskin&mdash;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. <i>My</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"But a boiled shirt and a Tuxedo coat!" snorted Cowboy Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> daytime, and then
+dress in civilized clothes when evening came.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEW PONIES</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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. <i>He</i> went to sleep in a fence-corner
+to-day and got covered up with tumble-weed. But he's an all right boy."</p>
+
+<p>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:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't Mr. Scar&mdash;Scar&mdash;well, what-ever-it-iskil! Why doesn't he
+have children of his own?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear, everybody cannot have children just for the wishing,"
+Mother Bunker replied.</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;Mr.&mdash;well, Mr. Cowboy Jack."</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, the Bunkers left Chief Black Bear sitting cross-legged
+before a low table on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Funny fellow, that Black Bear," said Cowboy Jack to Mr. Bunker. "But
+maybe he's got it right. I was brought up pretty nice&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>The children&mdash;even Russ and Rose&mdash;did not understand all this; but they
+had been much interested in Chief Black Bear.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Figure it out for yourselves," said Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a riddle, then?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a riddle. Why does
+Chief Black Bear paint his face, and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And take it off with cold cream?" put in Vi. "Why <i>does</i> he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that's the riddle," said her twin. "You answer it, Vi."</p>
+
+<p>But although Vi could ask innumerable questions on all sorts of subjects
+she seldom was able to answer one&mdash;and certainly not this one Laddie
+propounded.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Russ and Rose led the way out upon the veranda. There stood two of the
+smiling Mexican houseboys&mdash;"cholos," Cowboy Jack called them&mdash;and they
+bade the Bunker children a very pleasant good morning. Russ and Rose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;just the dearest cart! Rose Bunker said.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, lift me up! Lift me up!" cried Laddie, running to the other saddle
+pony.</p>
+
+<p>Cowboy Jack strode down and did so. Meanwhile Rose and the other
+children were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he just cute?" cried Rose again. "Oh, Mr. Cowboy Jack! you are so
+good to us."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;in the circus. Laddie's pony was all white,
+with pinkish nose and ears. Right at the start Laddie called him
+"Pinky." But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> little girls could not agree on a name for the pony
+that drew their cart.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be so many nice names that just fitted him! Margy wanted
+to call him Dinah after her lost doll.</p>
+
+<p>"But that Dinah-doll was black," said Rose, in objection. "And this pony
+is brown. Maybe we ought to call him Brownie."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I know!" cried Vi. "Let's call him Cute. He's just as cunning as he
+can be."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Laddie had thought up a new riddle&mdash;and it was a good one. He knew it
+was good and he told everybody about it, he was so excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" he cried, when he half tumbled out of his saddle by the steps
+of the veranda. "This is a good riddle. Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>"We're listening, Son," said Cowboy Jack. "Shoot!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"A cow," said his twin promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! A cow has horns. A horse doesn't," Laddie declared scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"A colt," guessed Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" rejoined the eager Laddie. "A colt is a little horse, so that
+could not be the answer, Russ Bunker."</p>
+
+<p>"A giraffe," suggested Vi again.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained the riddle-maker. "Does a giraffe
+look like any horse you ever saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"A carpenter's horse," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! That's made of wood. Can a wooden horse <i>run?</i>" cried Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that <i>is</i> a pretty good riddle," said Russ soberly. "What is
+the answer, Laddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you all give it up?" asked the smaller boy, his eyes shining.</p>
+
+<p>"You got us thrown and tied," declared Cowboy Jack solemnly. "I couldn't
+guess that riddle in a thousand years."</p>
+
+<p>"But you wouldn't want to wait that long to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> know what it is," Laddie
+said delightedly. "Now, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better tell us now, Laddie," said Daddy Bunker smilingly. "You
+know a thousand years <i>is</i> a long time to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!" exclaimed the impatient Violet.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Laddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Laddie, with vast satisfaction, "it is a <i>mule</i>."</p>
+
+<p>They all cried out in surprise at this answer. But it was a good riddle.</p>
+
+<p>"Only," said Russ thoughtfully, "it's lucky you didn't say anything
+about its tail and ears. Then we would have caught you."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>RUSS BUNKER GUESSES RIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw a picture in a big book at the ranch," said Rose to her brother,
+"and in it a frontiersman&mdash;that's what the book called him&mdash;was dressed
+like that man we saw chopping wood&mdash;the man with the squirrel-tail on
+his cap and his long hair tied in a queue."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you? But that must have been the way they wore their hair a long,
+long time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, those soldiers&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They are not dressed like soldiers are now," Rose interrupted. "But in
+the book there were pictures of soldiers in the Mexican War&mdash;When was
+that, Russ?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the pictures showed soldiers in the Mexican War dressed like
+those we saw the other day. Or, anyway, very much like them."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness me!" exclaimed Russ, "don't you suppose these soldiers know
+<i>that</i> war is over?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe those Indians took them captive. The poor little baby!" murmured
+Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Who do you suppose Mr. Props is?" asked Rose. "And Mrs. Props? It must
+have been Mrs. Props we saw holding the&mdash;er&mdash;baby. For maybe it was a
+real baby."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> there came suddenly a lot of noise from
+the ravine. Horses whinnied, men shouted, and two or three guns were
+discharged.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! It's a fight, Russ!" shrieked Rose. "Do come away!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an&mdash;an ambush, Rose!" cried Russ excitedly. "Oh! There's a man
+with a machine&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Another man turned and saw the Bunker children apparently riding nearer.
+He started back toward them, shouted and waved his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me!" shrieked Rose. "It's&mdash;it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> dynamite! They are going to
+blow up something! Come, Russ!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;it's only make-believe," Russ Bunker told himself. "They are not
+doing anything dangerous. It's a&mdash;a play, that's what it is. Why, those
+men have got moving picture cameras!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what the surprise is now&mdash;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&mdash;that is what they are doing, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>But when he turned in his saddle to look for Rose, the girl and Pinky
+had completely disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness!" said Russ, somewhat alarmed, "she's so frightened that
+she has run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> back home. Maybe she will fall off the pony."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother! have you seen Rose? Did she come back alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose? I have not seen her since you both rode away together. Do you
+mean to say&mdash;&mdash;" Then Mother Bunker saw that Russ was having hard work
+to keep back the tears and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>&mdash;wise woman that she was&mdash;knew that this
+was no time to scold the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did she go? When did you lose her?" his mother cried, running
+down the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Back&mdash;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&mdash;and Rose rode away somewhere
+and&mdash;and&mdash;oh, Mother! I can't find her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>PINKY GOES HOME</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Pinky was very anxious to go, but where he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Come up, Pinky! We have just got to go somewhere. Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>Pinky naturally went on the way he was headed, and that chanced to be in
+a direction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>They went on, and noon came, and both Pinky and the little girl were
+hungry and thirsty.</p>
+
+<p>Pinky smelled water&mdash;or saw it. He insisted on starting off to one side
+of the narrow trail they had been following.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But here was a shallow stream, and Pinky insisted on trotting down to it
+and wading right in.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You bad, bad Pinky!" cried Rose, leaning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"Now! Now see what&mdash;what you've done!" cried Rose, when she could speak.
+"You naughty, naughty Pinky!"</p>
+
+<p>Pinky had snorted and run a few steps up the bank. Now he was grazing
+contentedly&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> as she
+could cry, and he acted as though he had no interest in Rose at all!</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The pony threw up his head and snorted. His ears pointed forward and he
+looked questioningly at the clump of brush. The creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what is that?" breathed the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>She had not thought of any danger from wild animals before this time,
+for it was broad daylight. And what this thing could be&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>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, hid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>ing, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," agreed his mother.</p>
+
+<p>Then she, as well as the little folks, shouted aloud at the appearance
+of the cantering Pinky.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Scarbontiskil!" murmured Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> Bunker, "is there anything out
+there in the wilderness to hurt her&mdash;by day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a thing, Ma'am&mdash;not a thing bigger or savager than a jackrabbit,"
+declared Cowboy Jack.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wonder where the pony left her?" queried Mr. Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him, Daddy&mdash;ask him," urged Laddie eagerly. "He's an awful
+intelligent pony."</p>
+
+<p>Pinky had been halted before the group at the ranch house. Daddy Bunker
+said again:</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if he could show us where he left Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>And when he spoke Pinky began to nod his head up and down and paw with
+one hoof. The children were delighted&mdash;even Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I believe he is trying to explain," Russ cried. "Ask him another
+question, Daddy."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>He and Cowboy Jack started away from the ranch house, and Russ, for fear
+of being left behind, urged his pinto after them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAME COYOTE</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Rose Bunker called the creature that had startled her a dog.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The strange part of it was&mdash;the thing that frightened Rose most&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;she knew she would!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor doggy!" she said, hobbling around the end of the hedge of scrubby
+bushes.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;no knowing how far it had come.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor thing!" Rose said again, at once pitying the coyote more than
+she was afraid of it.</p>
+
+<p>Yet when it saw the little girl looking at him it clashed its great jaws
+and grinned at her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> most wickedly. It was not a pleasant thing to look
+at.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>This incident had given Rose something to think about besides her own
+lost state and her lame ankle. The latter was not paining as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;and Mother Bunker! I guess they will want
+to know where I've got to. This&mdash;this is just dreadful. Maybe I shall
+have to stay here days and days! And what shall I ever eat, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> I do?
+And I haven't even any bed out here!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> that, if she could. She was
+just that tender-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> picture company, for he kept right on
+into the ravine.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon this is about where you saw the Indians and the camera men,
+Son?" the ranchman said to Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Russ. "But Rose left me right on this hill. I thought
+she went back&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He is quite a wonderful young man," Daddy Bunker said.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He urged his pinto pony on after the ranchman and daddy, however, and
+they all entered the ravine. It was a very wild place&mdash;just the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;notably with the one who was the commander of the soldiers, the man
+with the plume in his hat.</p>
+
+<p>But it seemed that a little man sitting on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Mr. Habback, the director," Russ heard the ranchman tell daddy.
+"We must get him to let us have Black Bear, or somebody."</p>
+
+<p>The next moment he hailed the moving picture director.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The young Indian whose name he had mentioned came towards the group at
+once. Mr. Habback looked up at Chief Black Bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear what this Texas longhorn says, Chief?" he said to the Indian. "A
+little girl lost somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"I can show you about where she left the trail," explained the ranchman
+earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Was she over at my wikiup the other evening?" asked Black Bear, with
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;she's my sister," broke in Russ anxiously. "And she was scared by
+your Indian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> play, and the pony must have run away with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said Chief Black Bear. "I remember you, too, youngster. So your
+sister is lost?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can't find her," said Russ Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," said the director. "Go ahead. We can't afford to lose
+a little girl around here, that is sure."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet we can't," put in Cowboy Jack. "Little girls are scarce in this
+part of the country."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not the time to speak of such a thing. Rose must be found.
+For all they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> knew the little girl might be in serious trouble&mdash;she
+might be needing them right then!</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>A PICNIC</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose!" cried daddy. "Are you hurt, child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I <i>was</i> hurt. But my foot's pretty near well now. Only Pinky ran
+away and left me after I tumbled out of the saddle&mdash;Oh! Wait! Look out
+and don't scare off the poor lame doggy."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't hurt the poor doggy, Mr. Cowboy Jack! He can't get away."</p>
+
+<p>"Jumping grasshoppers!" muttered the ranchman, "does she think that
+coyote is a dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;possibilities of getting into
+trouble that at first Russ Bunker had not dreamed about.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 F&eacute; Trail."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it isn't going to be a real fight, is it?" asked Russ, rather more
+doubtfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It has got to look like a real fight, or Mr. Habback will not be
+satisfied, I can tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose&mdash;suppose," stammered Russ, "your Indians should forget and
+really turn savage?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they don't ever feel like turning savage and fighting the white
+folks in earnest?" asked Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't feel like turning savage and fighting red men do you?" asked
+Black Bear, with a serious face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" cried Russ, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+that without daddy or herself being with them.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"If he had not been in the trap he would have run away from her fast
+enough," returned Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Dinah, don't you?" asked Margy.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess she means Cute," said Vi.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! Oh, no!" cried Mun Bun. "Let <i>me</i> name that pony. I want to
+call him Jerry. I want to call him after our Jerry Simms at home in
+Pineville."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I know we'll have just a bully time," declared Russ Bunker. "It will be
+the best adventure we've ever had."</p>
+
+<p>But even Russ did not dream of all the exciting things that were to
+happen on that picnic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>MOVING PICTURE MAGIC</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are not as heavy as your mother and I. Therefore you cannot
+resist the jar of the car so well."</p>
+
+<p>"But why does the car bump at all? Our car at home doesn't bump&mdash;unless
+we run into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> something. Why does this car of Mr. Cowboy Jack's bump?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why isn't this road smooth?" promptly demanded the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Jumping grasshoppers!" ejaculated the ranchman, greatly amused, "can't
+that young one ask 'em, though?"</p>
+
+<p>At once Vi's active attention was drawn to another subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cowboy Jack," she demanded, "why do grasshoppers jump?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker. "You brought it on yourself, Jack.
+Answer her if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"That's an easy one," declared the much amused ranchman.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why do they jump?" asked the impatient Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No-o, I don't," said Vi slowly. "But if it is so, why don't they have
+shorter legs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jump&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;not even Daddy
+Bunker himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," murmured Vi at last, "I never <i>did</i> hear of such&mdash;such
+iggerance. There doesn't seem to be anybody knows anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you'd know a few things yourself, Vi, so as not to be
+always asking," criticized her twin.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you trying to do, Mun Bun?" demanded daddy sharply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm flying my kite," answered the little fellow calmly. "But I 'most
+lost it that time, Daddy."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out you don't go overboard," advised Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"You hold on to me, Daddy&mdash;p'ease," said the smallest Bunker. "You see,
+this kite pulls pretty hard."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 246px;">
+<img src="images/236.jpg" width="246" height="400" alt="MUN BUNS&#39; &quot;KITE&quot; FRIGHTENED THE PINTO." title="MUN BUNS&#39; &quot;KITE&quot; FRIGHTENED THE PINTO." />
+<span class="caption">MUN BUNS&#39; &quot;KITE&quot; FRIGHTENED THE PINTO.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's.</i> (<i>Page 218</i>)</div>
+
+<p>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!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Wha&mdash;what are you doing, Russ Bunker?" Laddie wanted to know. "Is that
+the right way to get off a pony?"</p>
+
+<p>Russ had not lost his grip of the bridle-reins, and he scrambled up and
+held his snorting pony.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I don't get off that way if I can help it," said Russ
+indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you did," said Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I didn't mean to. My goodness! but my knee is scratched."</p>
+
+<p>The automobile had stopped, and Mother Bunker called to Russ to ask if
+he was much hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, Mother," he replied. "But make Mun Bun fly his kite somewhere
+else. My pony doesn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun," said Daddy Bunker seriously, "I think you will have to
+postpone the flying of that kite until later."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Of course that was one of Cowboy Jack's jokes. He was always joking, it
+seemed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>ested in the people they found here at the Oxbow Bend and in what
+they were doing.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"My papa made this bow for me," said Joshua, who was a very polite
+little boy with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> jet-black hair. "And he scraped the arrows and found
+the heads."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"My hair wasn't parted, Muvver," he said afterward to Mother Bunker.
+"And I didn't have my new blouse on&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> The fight was about to start and the call was made for all
+the children to gather inside the stockade.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun was not to be found. They sent the other children scurrying
+everywhere&mdash;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!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MUN BUN IN TROUBLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Why does he do it, Daddy?" asked Vi.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he do what?" returned her father, who was too excited and
+anxious to wish to be bothered by Vi's questions.</p>
+
+<p>"Mun Bun. Why does he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bother me now," said her father. "It is bad enough to have Mun
+Bun disappear in this mysterious way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But why does he disappear&mdash;and everything?" Vi wanted to know. "He's
+the littlest of all of us Bunkers, but he makes the most trouble. Why
+does he?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The whole party at the Oxbow Bend was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But there was something here he was curious about. He had seen it
+before, and he wanted to see in it&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was half filled with a multitude of things&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"It would make a nice cubby-house to play in," thought Mun Bun. "I
+wonder what that is."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;and he got it! But in
+doing this he slipped right over the edge of the box and dived headfirst
+into it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>Poor little Mun Bun was much frightened then. At first he did not cry
+out or try to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak for yourself, Rose Bunker!" returned her brother quite
+sharply. "I know <i>I</i> wasn't careless about Mun Bun. I didn't even know
+he needed watching&mdash;not when daddy and mother were around."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Wuh! Heap trouble in camp," said the old Indian in his deep voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And there's going to be more trouble if we don't find that little
+fellow pretty soon," declared the ranchman vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad spirits here. Bad medicine," grunted the old Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that? You mean to say one of those bootleggers that sell you
+reds bad whisky is around?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. No firewater. Heap worse," said the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't be anything worse than whisky," declared Cowboy Jack
+emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad spirits," said the Indian stubbornly. "In box. Make knocking. White
+chief come see&mdash;come hear."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What's a spirit, Russ?" asked his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Alcohol," declared Russ, proud of his knowledge. "But I don't see how
+alcohol could knock on a box. It's a liquid&mdash;like water, you know."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I reckon you were hearing things in your mind, old fellow," said the
+ranchman to the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness me!" murmured Rose, quite startled.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a real knocking," admitted Russ.</p>
+
+<p>Cowboy Jack sprang forward and tried to open the box.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" he exclaimed. "It's locked. Where's the key? When did you lock
+this box?"</p>
+
+<p>"Black Bear&mdash;him lock it. Got key," said the old Indian, keeping well
+away from the box.</p>
+
+<p>"You go and get that key in a hurry. Somebody is in that box, sure as
+you live!" cried the ranchman.</p>
+
+<p>"I know! I know!" shouted Russ excitedly. "It's Mun Bun! They have
+locked him in that box!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, poor little Mun Bun!" wailed Rose. "Do&mdash;do you suppose the Indians
+were trying to steal him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," returned Russ disdainfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> "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."</p>
+
+<p>Then he went close to the big box and shouted Mun Bun's name, and they
+all heard the little boy reply&mdash;but his voice came to them very faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get him out in a hurry," said Cowboy Jack anxiously. "The
+little fellow might easily smother inside that box."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT EXPECTED</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>When the lid of the box was lifted the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> person Mun Bun saw was
+Daddy Bunker, and he put up his arms to him and cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Daddy! Daddy! Mun Bun don't want to stay in this place. Mun Bun wants
+to go home."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Muvver!" sobbed the littlest Bunker, "I just tumble in. I tumbled
+into this box and then they locked me in."</p>
+
+<p>"How does he tumble into trouble?" demanded Vi, staring at Mun Bun.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> there is a riddle about it," said Laddie thoughtfully. "Only I
+can't just make it out yet."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"He's just like a drop of quicksilver," said Cowboy Jack. "When you try
+to put your finger on him, he isn't there."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;at least, all but Mun Bun&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'll have my picture taken when I get back to Pineville,
+Muvver," he said. "I'll like it better."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"Only, they will never see the picture when it is on the screen. And
+daddy says we will,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> 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 F&eacute; Trail!'"</p>
+
+<p>This, later, they did. But, of course, you will have to read about that
+in another story about the Six Little Bunkers.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to lose my pinto pony," said Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't we take him and Pinky with us?" Laddie asked. "I do wish we
+could."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can't do that," said daddy seriously. "We have enough pets now for
+Jerry Simms to look after."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And Jerry, too?" cried Mun Bun. "I like that pony. He doesn't run so
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>"And Jerry, too," agreed the ranchman.</p>
+
+<p>So the little Bunkers were contented with this promise.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But there was something at the ranch besides supper that evening that
+interested the children very much. There was some more mail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> from the
+East, and among it a little package that had been registered and sent to
+Mother Bunker by Captain Ben from Grand View.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he has sent Mother Bunker a nice present," declared Rose
+eagerly. "Captain Ben likes mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't we all like her?" demanded Vi. "I like her very much. Can't I
+give her a present too?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is it, Mother?" asked Rose, quite as excited as Vi and the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have to open it and see," her mother said.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So, when the lamps were lit in the big living room and everybody was
+more than ready, as Russ complained, Mother Bunker began to un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>tie the
+string which fastened the package from Captain Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it is a diamond necklace," declared Rose earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, maybe it is a pretty pearl brooch," said Russ.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose it is, Daddy?" asked Mother Bunker, busy with the
+string and seals and smiling at Mr. Bunker knowingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't a white elephant, I am sure," chuckled Daddy Bunker.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Now he is making fun," cried Rose. "It is something pretty, of
+course, for mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I know! I know!" cried Laddie suddenly. "I know what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"If you know so much," returned his twin "tell us."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a riddle," declared Laddie.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"From Captain Ben to be sure," she said, unfolding the letter and
+beginning to read it.</p>
+
+<p>"And it is a riddle!" repeated Laddie with conviction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mother Bunker began to laugh. She nodded and smiled at them.</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly is a riddle," she said. "It is almost as good a riddle as
+that one Laddie told about the splinter."</p>
+
+<p>"I know! I know!" cried the little boy. "'I went out to the woodpile and
+got it.' I remember that one. But&mdash;but that isn't a splinter he has sent
+you, is it, Mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is something that Captain Ben looked for and could not find. But all
+the time he had it. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The little Bunkers stared at each other. Laddie murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"That is a riddle! What can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Rose uttered a little squeal and clasped her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother!" she cried. "Is it&mdash;is it my <i>watch?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>At that Laddie began fairly to dance up and down. He was so excited he
+could scarcely speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it my pin?" he wanted to know. "My stick-pin that I left at Grand
+View, Mother? Is it?"</p>
+
+<p>There certainly was great excitement in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Like Mun Bun getting into the Indian's trunk," said Vi seriously. "He
+made us a lot of trouble to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Mun Bun made them no more trouble while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;all of them.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;any of them&mdash;in one spot for long at a
+time. That made them particularly hard to count.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<h2>THE END</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>Author of The Bobbsey Twins Books, The Bunny Brown Series, The
+Make-Believe Series, Etc.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><b>Durably Bound.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Illustrated.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Uniform Style of Binding.<br />
+Every Volume Complete in Itself.</b></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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&mdash;one that can be easily followed&mdash;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. </p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="SIX LITTLE BUNKERS">
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT CAPTAIN BEN'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COWBOY JACK'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MAMMY JUNE'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT FARMER JOEL'S</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT MILLER NED'S</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Publishers, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;New York</span></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS</h2>
+
+<h3>For Little Men and Women</h3>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class="center">Author of "The Bunny Brown Series," Etc.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="center"><b>Durably Bound. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Illustrated.  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Uniform Style of Binding.<br />
+
+Every Volume Complete in Itself.</b></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>These books for boys and girls between the ages of
+three and ten <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'stands'">stand</ins> 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. </p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="THE BOBBSEY TWINS">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT CEDAR CAMP</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE COUNTY FAIR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS CAMPING OUT</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE BOBBSEY TWINS AND BABY MAY</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Publishers, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; New York.</span></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books, Etc.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><b>Durably Bound. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Illustrated.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Uniform Style of Binding.<br />
+
+Every Volume Complete in Itself.</b></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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. </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="BUNNY BROWN">
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE GIVING A SHOW</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CHRISTMAS TREE COVE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE SUNNY SOUTH</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE KEEPING STORE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR TRICK DOG</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT A SUGAR CAMP</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Grosset &amp; Dunlap,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Publishers, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;New York</span></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HONEY BUNCH BOOKS</h2>
+
+<h3>By HELEN LOUISE THORNDYKE</h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><b>Individual Colored Wrappers and Text Illustrations Drawn by<br />
+
+<big>WALTER S. ROGERS</big></b></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />HONEY BUNCH: JUST A LITTLE GIRL</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Happy days at home, helping mamma and the
+washerlady. And Honey Bunch helped the house
+painters too&mdash;or thought she did. </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE CITY</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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! </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS ON THE FARM</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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? </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE SEASHORE</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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. </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST LITTLE GARDEN</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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. </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS IN CAMP</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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. </p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Publishers,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; NEW YORK</span></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE FLYAWAYS STORIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By ALICE DALE HARDY</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>Author of The Riddle Club Books</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><b>Individual Colored Jackets and Colored Illustrations by
+
+<big>WALTER S. ROGERS</big></b></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />THE FLYAWAYS AND CINDERELLA</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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. </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />THE FLYAWAYS AND LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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. </p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />THE FLYAWAYS AND GOLDILOCKS</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>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 <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Goldilock's'">Goldilocks'</ins> house they found that
+the Three Bears had been there before them and
+mussed everything up, much to <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Goldilock's'">Goldilocks'</ins> 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! </p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  <span class="smcap">Publishers</span>,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  NEW YORK</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BLYTHE GIRLS BOOKS</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA LEE HOPE</h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><b>Individual Colored Wrappers and Text Illustrations by<br />
+
+<big>THELMA GOOCH</big><br />
+
+Every Volume Complete in Itself</b></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />
+THE BLYTHE GIRLS: HELEN, MARGY AND ROSE;<br />
+Or, Facing the Great World.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='blockquot'><p>A fascinating tale of real happenings in the great metropolis.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />
+THE BLYTHE GIRLS: MARGY'S QUEER INHERITANCE;<br />
+Or, The Worth of a Name.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='blockquot'><p>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.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />
+THE BLYTHE GIRLS; ROSE'S GREAT PROBLEM;<br />
+Or, Face to Face With a Crisis.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='blockquot'><p>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.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />
+THE BLYTHE GIRLS: HELEN'S STRANGE BOARDER;<br />
+Or, The Girl From Bronx Park.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='blockquot'><p>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.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'><br />
+THE BLYTHE GIRLS: THREE ON A VACATION;<br />
+Or, The Mystery at Peach Farm.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='blockquot'><p>The girls close their flat and go to the country for two weeks&mdash;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.</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  Publishers,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;  NEW YORK</span></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>One instance each of Castrada and Castrado was retained.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+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-h.htm or 19816-h.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. Fraser, Emmy
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/19816-h/images/001.jpg b/19816-h/images/001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d1f35f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-h/images/001.jpg
diff --git a/19816-h/images/106.jpg b/19816-h/images/106.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6c25e4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-h/images/106.jpg
diff --git a/19816-h/images/236.jpg b/19816-h/images/236.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..561df01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-h/images/236.jpg
diff --git a/19816-h/images/56.jpg b/19816-h/images/56.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..323cbf4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816-h/images/56.jpg
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. Fraser, Emmy
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+
diff --git a/19816.zip b/19816.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e280c7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19816.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..882f9e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #19816 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19816)