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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!"