TROUBLE "HELPS"
Janet and Teddy sat beside the gopher hole, while their ponies, not
far from them, ate the sweet grass of the prairie. Clipclap and Star
Face did not wander away, even if they were not tied to a hitching
post. For Western horses and cow ponies are trained to stand where
their master leaves them, if he will but toss the reins over their
heads and let them rest on the ground.
When a pony sees that this has been done he will never run away,
unless perhaps something frightens him very much. It may be that he
thinks, when the reins are over his head and down on the ground, they
are tied to something, so he could not run away if he wanted to.
At any rate, Clipclap and Star Face stayed where Ted and Janet left
them, and the little Curlytops watched the gopher hole.
"I wonder when he'll come out," said Janet after a bit.
"Shs-s-s-s!" whispered Teddy. "Don't talk!"
"Why not?" asked his sister.
"'Cause you might scare him. You mustn't talk any more than if you
were fishing."
"A gopher isn't a fish!"
"I know it," said Teddy. "But you've got to keep quiet."
So he and Janet remained very quiet, watching the hole. Suddenly
Janet gave Teddy a slight tap with her hand. He had looked off to see
if the ponies were all right.
"What's the matter?" asked Teddy.
"Hush!" whispered Janet. "There he is."
She pointed to the gopher's hole. Teddy saw a tiny black nose and a
pair of sparkling eyes as a head was thrust a little way out of the
burrow.
"I'll get him!" cried the little boy.
With outstretched hand he made a grab toward the hole. But his
fingers only grasped a lot of dirt and stones. The gopher had dived
down back into his hole as soon as he saw Teddy's first move.
"Oh, he got away!" said Janet sorrowfully.
"Ill get him next time," declared Teddy.
But he did not. Three or four times more the little animal put his
small head and bright eyes out of the top of the hole, and each time
Teddy made a grab for him; but the gopher was too quick. Finally
Janet said:
"I guess we better go home, Teddy."
"Why?"
"Oh, it's getting late, and I'm getting hungry."
"So'm I. I'll wait until he comes up once more and then well go."
Once more the gopher peeped up, as if wondering why in the world
those two strange children did not go away and let him alone. Ted
made a grab for him, but missed and then the little boy said:
"Come on, Jan. Now we'll go home!"
"And we haven't any nice little gopher to take to Trouble," said
Janet sadly.
"Oh, well, maybe it would bite him if we did catch one," reflected
her brother. "I'll take him some of these pretty stones," and he
picked up some from the ground. "He'll like to play with these."
Teddy whistled for his pony and Clipclap came slowly up to his
little master. Janet held out a bunch of grass to Star Face and her
pony, just as he had been taught, came up to her. Teddy helped his
sister get up in the saddle. It was not hard for them, as the ponies
were small, and Jim Mason had showed them how to put one foot in the
stirrup, and then, with one hand on the saddle and the other grasping
both the bridle and the pony's mane, give a jump that carried them
up. But though Janet could mount her pony alone Teddy always helped
her when he was with her by holding the stirrup.
"Let's have another race home," suggested Teddy, when they had
started.
"No," answered his sister. "You might fall some more and get hurt.
We'll ride slow."
So they did, though Teddy was anxious for a good, fast gallop.
"Well, did you have a nice time?" asked Mother Martin, as they came
to the house after putting away their ponies.
"We had lots of fun," answered Janet "Teddy fell off his pony--"
"Fell off his pony!" cried her mother.
"He threw me!" explained Ted, and then he told what had happened.
"An' didn't you catch noffin for me?" asked Trouble, who heard his
brother telling the story of his adventure.
"I brought you these nice stones," and Teddy took them out of his
pocket. "You can play with them, Trouble."
Baby William laughed and sat down to play with the stones.
"Did the cowboys come back with the Indians?" asked Teddy of Aunt
Millie when she was giving him and Janet some bread and jam to eat.
"No, not yet, Curlytop. I expect Uncle Frank and the boys will be
gone all night."
"Will they have a house to sleep in?" asked Janet.
"No, unless they happen to be near one when it gets dark. But they
took their blankets with them, and it's so warm that they'll just
wrap up in them and sleep out on the prairie," said Aunt Millie.
"Won't they be hungry?" Teddy inquired, as he took a big bite of the
bread and jam.
"Oh, no! Don't you remember I told you they always take something to
eat with them when they go out this way? They are used to camping on
the prairies, and they know how to make a fire, broil the bacon and
make their coffee," answered Aunt Millie. "You need never worry about
Uncle Frank and his cowboys. They'll be all right."
And so they were. It was not until the next afternoon that the party
which had gone out to chase the Indians came back. They were tired,
because they had ridden a good many miles, but they said they had
slept well and had had enough to eat.
"Did you catch the Indians?" asked Teddy eagerly.
"No, Curlytop," answered Uncle Frank. "I'm sorry to say we did not.
They got away from us."
"Did you see them?" asked Daddy Martin.
"Yes, but they were a long way off. Too far for us to get at them."
"And did they have your cattle with them?"
"Yes, they had a lot of my best animals. I guess they must be hiding
away somewhere among the hills and mountains. We came pretty close to
them at one time, and they suddenly disappeared. It seems as if they
must have gone into a big hole or cave. We couldn't find them."
"Are you going to look any more?" Teddy questioned. "And if you do
go, Uncle Frank, please can't I go too?"
"Well, most likely we will have another hunt for the Indians,"
answered the ranchman, "but I'm afraid we couldn't take you along,
Curlytop."
"Why not, Uncle Frank?"
"Oh, you might get hurt."
"Well, can I see the Indians after you catch 'em?"
"Oh, yes, I guess I can promise you _that_," and Uncle Frank smiled at
Daddy Martin.
"And can I ask them to make me a bow and arrows?" went on Teddy.
"Yes, you can _ask_ them, but I don't believe they will," Uncle
Frank replied. "These Indians aren't very nice. They're quite bad, in
fact, and we all wish they'd stay where they belong and not come off
their reservation and steal our cattle and horses."
"Well, I'm going to ask one to make me a bow and some arrows when
you catch 'em," decided Teddy.
That afternoon Teddy saw his sister trying to do something with bits
of string and sticks in a shady spot on the porch.
"What are you making, Jan," he asked. "A cat's cradle?"
"Pooh! you don't make a cat's cradle with sticks," said the little
girl.
"Well, I thought maybe it was a new kind, or maybe a _kitten's_
cradle," laughed Teddy.
"Nope; it isn't that either," went on Janet, as she kept on twisting
the strings around the sticks.
"Well, what _are_ you making?"
"A bow and arrow."
"Ho! Ho!" laughed Jan's brother "You can't make a bow and arrow _that_
way. Anyhow you don't need a string for an arrow."
"I know _that_!" Jan said. "But I'm making the bow first, and then I'm
going to make the arrow. The arrow part is what you shoot, isn't it,
Ted?"
"Yes," he answered. "I'll help you, Jan. I didn't mean to laugh at
you," he went on, for he saw that Janet was very much in earnest
about what she was doing. "I know how to make a bow and arrows."
"Oh, please show me!" begged Janet. "I want to know how to shoot
like the Indians."
Teddy, however, did not have much better luck making the bow than
his sister had had. The trouble was that the sticks Janet had picked
up were not the right kind. They would not bend, and to make a bow
that shoots arrows a piece of wood that springs, or bends, is needed.
For it is the springy action of the wood that shoots the arrow on its
way.
After trying two or three times, each time finding something wrong,
Teddy said:
"Oh, I don't guess I can make a bow, either. Let's play something
else."
"What'll we play?" asked Janet.
Teddy thought for a few moments. Playing out at Uncle Frank's ranch
was different from playing at home. In some ways it was not so easy,
for at home if the Curly-tops could not think up any way to have fun
by themselves, they could run down the street and find some other
boys and girls. But here there were no streets, and no other boys or
girls unless Teddy and Janet went a long way to look for them, and
they could not do that.
"I know what we can do," said Teddy, after a while. "We can get some
blankets and cookies and play cowboy."
"How can you play cowboy with cookies and blankets?"
"I'll show you," Teddy answered, as he went into the house to get
the things he wanted. He soon came out with some old quilts and the
cookies, which were in a paper bag.
"Now," went on Janet's brother, "We'll go off on the prairie and
make believe it's night and we have to stay out like the cowboys when
they went after Uncle Frank's horses."
"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Janet, and then she and Ted rolled
themselves up in the old quilts and pretended to go to sleep on the
soft grass of the prairie, making believe it was night, though of
course it was not, for the sun was shining. Then they ate the
cookies, pretending they were bacon, sandwiches, cake and other
things that cowboys like.
Two or three days later Uncle Frank and the cowboys went out again
to look for the Indians, but they did not find them. From other
ranches word came of cattle and horses that had been stolen; and more
cowboys were hired to keep watch over the animals that had to be left
out in the big fields to eat their fill of grass. No barn was large
enough to hold them.
Meanwhile Teddy and Janet were learning how to ride better each day.
They could go quite fast now, though they were not allowed to make
their ponies gallop except on ground where Uncle Frank knew there
were no holes in which the animals might stumble.
Sometimes Daddy and Mother Martin went to ride with the children,
and then they had good times together, taking their lunch and staying
all day out on the prairie or in a shady grove of trees.
One day Ted and Janet saw some cowboys driving a number of ponies to
the corral near the ranch buildings. Some of the animals were quite
wild and went racing about as though they would like to run far off
and not come back.
But the cowboys knew how to take care of the ponies. They rode
around them, keeping them together in a bunch, and if one started to
get away the cowboys would fire their revolvers and yell, so the pony
would become frightened and turn back.
"Did you take these ponies away from the Indians?" asked Teddy, as
he saw the little animals turned into the corral and the gate shut on
them.
"No, these are some that have been running wild in a field away over
at the far end of my ranch," explained Uncle Frank. "I had them
brought in, as I'm going to ship some away to be sold."
"Come on, we'll go and look at the ponies," called Ted to his
sister. "Are they very wild?" he asked Jim Mason, who had helped the
cowboys bring them to the ranch corral.
"Yes, some of 'em are pretty wild," was the answer. "We had hard
work making them come along. They want to get loose and do as they
please."
Ted and Janet climbed up on the corral fence to look at the ponies.
A few were somewhat tame, and allowed the Curlytops to pat them. But
others were very wild, and ran about as though looking for a place to
jump the fence or get out through a hole. But the fence was good and
strong. It was high and had no holes in it.
"Lots of ponies!" murmured Trouble, as he toddled after his brother
and sister to the corral.
"Yes, lots of 'em," agreed Janet. "You'll soon be a big boy and you
can have a pony to ride like brother and sister."
"Trouble want pony now!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, no, not now," Janet said as she helped him get up on the lowest
board of the fence, part of which was wooden, so he could look in
better.
"What they run around like that for?" asked Trouble, as he saw some
of the ponies racing about the corral.
"They want to get out," Janet answered.
"Trouble go help," murmured the little fellow, but Janet either did
not hear what he said or she paid no attention, for just then two of
the ponies had a race together around the corral and she and Ted
wanted to see which would win.
Trouble got down off the fence and went around to the gate. His
brother and sister did not notice him until, all at once, Janet,
missing her little brother, cried:
"Where's Trouble?"
"I don't know," Ted answered. "Maybe he--Oh, look, Janet!" he
suddenly cried. "The corral gate is open and all the ponies are
running out!"
"Oh, that's right! They are!" Janet then screamed. "But where is
Trouble?"
"I don't know. I guess he--Oh, there he is!" and Teddy pointed to a
spot near the gate.
There stood Trouble between the fence and the big gate which had
swung back on its hinges.
"Oh, look at 'em run!" cried Janet.
"They're all running out!" added Teddy excitedly. "I wonder who let
'em loose."
"Maybe it was Trouble," suggested Janet. "Oh, it _was!"_ she went on.
"Trouble must have opened the gate and let the ponies loose!"