THE SICK PONY
Teddy Martin did not run away as Jan started to leave the pile of
rocks from which the queer sound had come. Instead he stood still and
looked as hard as he could toward the hole among the stones--a hole
that looked a little like the cave on Star Island, but not so large.
"Come on, Teddy!" begged Janet. "Please come!"
"I want to see what it is," he answered.
"Maybe it's something that--that'll bite you," suggested the little
girl. "Come on!"
Just then the noise sounded again. It certainly was a groan.
"There!" exclaimed Janet. "I _know_ it's an Indian, Ted! Maybe it's
one of the kind that took Uncle Frank's ponies. Oh, please come!"
She had run on a little way from the pile of rocks, but now she
stood still, waiting for Teddy to follow.
"Come on!" she begged.
Janet did not want to go alone.
"It can't be an Indian," said Teddy, looking around but still not
seeing anything to make that strange sound.
"It could so be an Indian!" declared Janet.
"Well, maybe a sick Indian," Teddy admitted. "And if he's as sick as
all that I'm not afraid of him! I'm going to see what it is."
"Oh, The-o-dore Mar-tin!" cried Janet, much as she sometimes heard
her mother use her brother's name. "Don't you dare!"
"Why not?" asked Teddy, who tried to speak very bravely, though he
really did not feel brave. But he was not going to show that before
Janet, who was a girl. "Why can't I see what that is?"
"'Cause maybe--maybe it'll--bite you!" and as Janet said this she
looked first at the rocks and then over her shoulder, as though
something might come up behind her when she least expected it.
"Pooh! I'm not afraid!" declared Teddy.
"Anyhow, if it does bite me it's got to come out of the rocks first."
"Well, maybe it will come out."
"If it does I can see it and run!" went on the little boy.
"Would you run and leave me all alone?" asked Janet.
"Nope! Course I wouldn't do _that_," Teddy declared. "I'd run and I'd
help you run. But I don't guess anything'll bite me. Anyhow, Indians
don't bite."
"How do you know?" asked Janet. "Some Indians are wild. I heard
Uncle Frank say so, and wild things bite!"
"But not Indians," insisted Teddy. "A Indian's mouth, even if he is
wild, is just like ours, and it isn't big enough to bite. You've got
to have an awful big mouth to bite."
"Henry Watson bit you once, I heard mother say so," declared Janet,
as she and her brother still stood by the rocks and listened again
for the funny sound to come from the stones. But there was silence.
"Well, Henry Watson's got an awful big mouth," remarked Teddy.
"Maybe he's wild, and that's the reason."
"He couldn't be an Indian, could he?" Janet went on.
"Course not!" declared her brother. "He's a boy, same as I am, only
his mouth's bigger. That's why he bit me. I 'member it now."
"Did it hurt?" asked Janet.
"Yep," answered her brother. "But I'm going in there and see what
that noise was. It won't hurt me."
Teddy began to feel that Janet was asking so many questions in order
that he might forget all about what he intended to do. And he surely
did want to see what was in among the rocks.
Once more he went closer to them, and then the noise sounded more
loudly than before. It came so suddenly that Teddy and Janet jumped
back, and there was no doubt but what they were both frightened.
"Oh, I'm not going to stay here another minute!" cried Janet. "Come
on, Ted, let's go home!"
"No, wait just a little!" he begged. "I'll go in and come right out
again--that is if it's anything that bites. If it isn't you can come
in with me."
"No, I'm not going to do that!" and Janet shook her head very
decidedly to say "no!" Once more she looked over her shoulder.
"Well, you don't have to come in," Teddy said. "I'll go alone. I'm
not scared."
Just then Janet looked across the fields, and she saw a man riding
along on a pony.
"Oh, Teddy!" she called to her brother. "Here's a man! We can get
him to go in and see what it is."
Teddy looked to where his sister pointed. Surely enough, there was a
man going along. He was quite a distance off, but the Curlytops did
not mind that. They were fond of walking.
"Holler at him!" advised Janet. "He'll hear us and come to help us
find out what's in here."
Teddy raised his voice in the best shout he knew how to give. He had
strong lungs and was one of the loudest-shouting boys among his chums.
"Hey, Mister! Come over here!" cried Teddy.
But the man kept on as if he had not heard, as indeed he had not.
For on the prairies the air is so clear that people and things look
much nearer than they really are. So, though the man seemed to be
only a little distance away, he was more than a mile off, and you
know it is quite hard to call so as to be heard a mile away;
especially if you are a little boy.
Still Teddy called again, and when he had done this two or three
times, and Jan had helped him, the two calling in a sort of duet,
Teddy said:
"He can't hear us."
"Maybe he's deaf, like Aunt Judy," said Janet, speaking of an
elderly woman in the town in which they lived.
"Well, if he is, he can't hear us," said Teddy; "so he won't come to
us. I'm going in anyhow."
"No, don't," begged Janet, who did not want her brother to go into
danger. "If he can't hear us, Teddy, we must go nearer. We can walk
to meet him."
Teddy thought this over a minute.
"Yes," he agreed, "we can do that. But he's a good way off."
"He's coming this way," Janet said, and it did look as though the
man had turned his horse toward the children, who stood near the pile
of rocks from which the queer noises came.
"Come on!" decided Ted, and, taking Janet's hand, he and she walked
toward the man on the horse.
For some little time the two Curlytops tramped over the green,
grassy prairies. They kept their eyes on the man, now and then
looking back toward the rocks, for they did not want to lose sight
either of them or of the horseman.
"I'm going to holler again," said Teddy. "Maybe he can hear me now.
We're nearer."
So he stopped, and putting his hands to his mouth, as he had seen
Uncle Frank do when he wanted to call to a cowboy who was down at a
distant corral, the little boy called:
"Hi there, Mr. Man! Come here, please!"
But the man on the horse gave no sign that he had heard. As a matter
of fact, he had not, being too far away, and the wind was blowing
from him toward Teddy and Jan. If the wind had been blowing the other
way it might have carried the voices of the children toward the man.
But it did not.
Then Teddy made a discovery. He stopped, and, shading his eyes with
his hands, said:
"Jan, that man's going away from us 'stid of coming toward us. He's
getting littler all the while. And if he was coming to us he'd get
bigger."
"Yes, I guess he would," admitted the little girl. "He is going
away, Teddy. Oh, dear! Now he can't help us!"
Without a word Teddy started back toward the rocks, and his sister
followed. He was close to them when Janet spoke again.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'm going in there and see what that noise was," Teddy replied.
"Oh, you mustn't!" she cried, hoping to turn him away. But Teddy
answered:
"Yes, I am, too! I'm going to see what it is!"
"I'm not!" cried Janet. "I'm going home. You'd better come with me!"
But, though she turned away and went a short distance from the rocks
in the direction she thought the ranch house of Ring Rosy Ranch
should be, she very soon stopped. She did not like going on alone.
She looked back at Ted.
Teddy had walked a little way toward the hole in the rocks. Now he
called to his sister.
"The noise comes from in here," he said. "It's in this little cave."
"Are you going in?" asked Janet, trying to pretend she was not afraid.
"I want to see what made that noise," declared Teddy. Since he and
his sister had gone camping with Grandpa Martin they were braver than
they used to be. Of course, Ted, being a year older than his sister,
was a little bolder than she was.
Janet, not feeling that she ought to run on home and leave Teddy
there and yet not feeling brave enough to go close to the cave among
the rocks with him, hardly knew what to do. She walked back a little
way and then, suddenly, the noise came, more loudly than at first.
"Oh, there it goes again!" cried Janet, once more running back.
"I heard it," Teddy said. "It didn't war-whoop like an Indian."
"If he's sick he couldn't," explained Janet.
"And if he's sick he can't hurt us," went on Teddy. "I'm going to
holler at him and see what he wants."
"You'd better come back and tell daddy or Uncle Frank," suggested
Janet.
Teddy rather thought so himself, but he did not like to give up once
he had started anything. He felt it would be a fine thing if he, all
alone, could find one of the Indians.
"And maybe it is one of those who took Uncle Frank's ponies,"
thought Teddy to himself.
Again the groan sounded, this time not quite so loud, and after it
had died away Teddy called:
"Who's in there? What's the matter with you?"
No answer came to this. Then Ted added:
"If you don't come out I'm going to tell my uncle on you. He owns
this ranch. Come on out! Who are you?"
This time there came a different sound. It was one that the
Curlytops knew well, having heard it before.
"That's a horse whinnying!" cried Teddy.
"Or a pony," added Janet. "Yes, it did sound like that. Oh, Ted,
maybe it's a poor horse in there and he can't get out!" she went on.
Again came the whinny of a horse or a pony. There was no mistake
about it this time.
"Come on!" cried Teddy. "We've got to get him out, Janet. He's one
of Uncle Frank's cow ponies and he's hurt in that cave. We've got to
get him out!"
"But how can you?" Janet inquired. "It's an awful little cave, and I
don't believe a pony could get in there."
"A little pony could," said Teddy.
Janet looked at the cave. She remembered that she had seen some
quite small ponies, not only on Ring Rosy Ranch but elsewhere. The
cave would be large enough for one of them.
"I'm going in," said Teddy, as he stood at the mouth of the hole
among the piled-up rocks.
"He might kick you," warned Janet.
"If he's sick enough to groan that way he can't kick very hard,"
replied Teddy. "Anyhow, I'll keep out of the way of his feet. That's
all you've got to do, Uncle Frank says, when you go around a strange
horse. When he gets to know you he won't kick."
"Well, you'd better be careful," warned Janet again.
"Don't you want to come in?" Teddy asked his sister.
"I--I guess not," she answered. "I'll watch you here. Oh, maybe if
it's a pony we can have him for ours, Teddy!" she exclaimed.
"Maybe," he agreed. "I'm going to see what it is."
Slowly he walked to the dark place amid the rocks. The whinnyings
and groanings sounded plainer to him than to Janet, and Teddy was
sure they came from a horse or a pony. As yet, though, he could see
nothing.
Then, as the little boy stepped out of the glaring sun into the
shadow cast by the rocks, he began to see better. And in a little
while his eyes became used to the gloom.
Then he could see, lying down on the dirt floor of the cave amid the
rocks, the form of a pony. The animal raised its head as Teddy came
in and gave a sort of whinnying call, followed by a groan.
"Poor pony!" called Ted. "Are you hurt? I'm so sorry! I'll go get a
doctor for you!"
"Who are you talking to?" asked Janet.
She had drawn nearer the cave.
"There's a sick pony in here all right," Teddy told his sister.
"Come on in and look."
"I--I don't b'lieve I want to."
"Pooh! he can't hurt you! He's sick!" cried Teddy.
So, after waiting a half minute, Janet went in. In a little while
she, too, could see the pony lying down in the cave.
"Oh, the poor thing!" she cried. "Teddy, we've got to help him!"
"Course we have," he said. "We've got to go for a doctor."
"And get him a drink," added Janet. "When anybody's sick--a pony or
anybody--they want a drink. Let's find some water, Teddy. We can
bring it to him in our hats!"
Then, leaving the sick pony in the cave, the Curlytops ran out to
look for water.