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.