AT RING ROSY RANCH
There was so much noise in the sleeping-car where the Curlytops
and others had been peacefully traveling through the night, that, at
first, it was hard to tell what had happened.
All that anyone knew was that there had been a severe jolt--a "bunk"
Teddy called it--and that the train had come to a sudden stop. So
quickly had it stopped, in fact, that a fat man, who was asleep in a
berth just behind Mr. Martin, had tumbled out and now sat in the aisle
of the car, gazing about him, a queer look on his sleepy face, for he
was not yet fully awake.
"I say!" cried the fat man. "Who pushed me out of bed?"
Even though they were much frightened, Mrs. Martin and some of the other
men and women could not help laughing at this. And the laughter did
more to quiet them than anything else.
"Well, I guess no one here is much hurt--if at all," said Daddy Martin,
as he put on a pair of soft slippers he had ready in the little hammock
that held his clothes inside the berth. "I'll go and see if I can find
out what the matter is."
"An', Daddy, bring me suffin t'eat!" exclaimed Trouble, poking his head
out between the curtains of the berth where he had been sleeping with
his mother when the collision happened.
"There's one boy that's got sense," said a tall thin man, who was
helping the fat man to get to his feet. "He isn't hurt, anyhow."
"Thank goodness, no," said Mrs. Martin, who, as had some of the other
women, had on a dressing gown. Mrs. Martin was looking at Trouble, whom
she had taken up in her arms. "He hasn't a scratch on him," she said,
"though I heard him slam right against the side of the car. He was next
to the window."
"It's a mercy we weren't all of us tossed out of the windows when the
train stopped so suddenly, the way it did," said a little old woman.
"It's a mercy, too," smiled another woman who had previously made
friends with Jan and Teddy, "that the Curlytops did not come hurtling
down out of those upper berths."
Mr. Martin, after making sure his family was all right, partly dressed
and went out with some of the other men. The train had come to a
standstill, and Jan and Ted, looking out of the windows of their berths,
could see men moving about in the darkness outside with flaring torches.
"Maybe it's robbers," said Teddy in a whisper.
"Robbers don't stop trains," objected Janet.
"Yes they do!" declared her brother positively. "Train robbers do. Don't
they, Mother?"
"Oh, don't talk about such things now, Teddy boy. Be thankful you are
all right and hope that no one is hurt in the collision."
"That's what I say!" exclaimed the fat man. "So it's a collision, is it?
I dreamed we were in a storm and that I was blown out of bed."
"Well, you fell out, which is much the same thing," said the thin man.
"Our car doesn't seem to be hurt, anyhow."
Ted and Janet came out into the aisle in their pajamas. They looked all
about them but, aside from seeing a number of men and women who were
greatly excited, nothing else appeared to be the matter. Then in came
their father with some of the other men.
"It isn't a bad collision," said Daddy Martin. "Our engine hit a freight
car that was on a side track, but too close to our rails to be passed
safely. It jarred up our engine and the front cars quite a bit, and our
engine is off the track, but no one is hurt."
"That's good!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin. "I mean that no one is hurt."
"How are they going to get the engine back on the track?" Teddy wanted
to know. "Can't I go out and watch 'em?"
"I want to go, too!" exclaimed Janet.
"Indeed you can't--in the dark!" exclaimed her father. "Besides, the
railroad men don't want you in the way. They asked us all to go to our
coaches and wait. They'll soon have the engine back on the rails they
said."
Everyone was awake now, and several children in the car, like Trouble,
were hungry. The porter who had been hurrying to and fro said he could
get the children some hot milk from the dining-car, and this he did.
Some of the grown folks wanted coffee and sandwiches, and these having
been brought in, there was quite a merry picnic in the coach, even if
the train had been in a collision.
Then there was much puffing and whistling of the engine. The Curlytops,
looking out of the window again, saw more men hurrying here and there
with flaring torches which flickered and smoked. These were the trainmen
helping to get the engine back on the rails, which they did by using
iron wedges or "jumpers," much as a trolley car in your city streets is
put back on the rails once it slips off.
At last there was another "bunk" to the train, as Teddy called it. At
this several women screamed.
"It's all right," said Daddy Martin. "They've got the engine back on the
rails and it has just backed up to couple on, or fasten itself, to the
cars again. Now we'll go forward again."
And they did--in a little while. It did not take the Curlytops or
Trouble long to fall asleep once more, but some of the older people were
kept awake until morning, they said afterward. They were afraid of
another collision.
But none came, and though the train was a little late the accident
really did not amount to much, though it might have been a bad one had
the freight car been a little farther over on the track so the engine
had run squarely into it.
All the next day and night the Curlytops traveled in the train, and
though Jan and Ted liked to look out of the windows, they grew tired of
this after a while and began to ask:
"When shall we be at Uncle Frank's ranch?"
"Pretty soon now," said their father.
I will not tell you all that happened on the journey to the West. Truth
to say there was not much except the collision. The Curlytops ate their
meals, drank cupful after cupful of water, and Trouble did the same, for
children seem to get very thirsty when they travel--much more so than at
home.
Then, finally, one afternoon, after a long stop when a new engine was
attached to the train, Daddy Martin said:
"We'll be at Rockville in an hour now. So we'd better begin to get
together our things."
"Shall we be at Uncle Frank's ranch in an hour?" asked Teddy.
"No, but we'll be at Rockville. From there we go out over the prairies
in a wagon."
"A wagon with ponies?" asked Janet.
"Yes, real Western ponies," said her father. "Then we'll be at the
ranch."
And it happened just that way. On puffed the train. Then the porter came
to help the Martin family off at Rockville.
"Rockville! Rockville! All out for Rockville!" joked Daddy Martin.
"Hurray!" cried Teddy. "Here we are!"
"And I see Uncle Frank!" exclaimed Janet, looking from the window toward
the station as the train slowed up to stop.
Out piled the Curlytops, and into the arms of Uncle Frank they rushed.
He caught them up and kissed them one after the other--Teddy, Janet and
Trouble.
"Well, well!" he cried, "I'm glad to see you! Haven't changed a bit
since you were snowed in! Now pile into the wagon and we'll get right
out to Circle O Ranch."
"Where's that?" asked Teddy.
"Why, that's the name of my ranch," said Uncle Frank. "See, there's the
sign of it," and he pointed to the flank of one of the small horses, or
ponies, hitched to his wagon. Ted and Janet saw a large circle in which
was a smaller letter O.
"We call it Circle O," explained the ranchman. "Each place in the West
that raises cattle or horses has a certain sign with which the animals
are branded, or marked, so their owners can tell them from others in
case they get mixed up. My mark is a circle around an O."
"It looks like a ring-around-the-rosy," said Janet.
"Say! So it does!" laughed Uncle Frank. "I never thought of that. Ring
Rosy Ranch! That isn't a half bad name! Guess I'll call mine that after
this. Come on to Ring Rosy Ranch!" he invited as he laughed at the
Curlytops.
And the name Janet gave Uncle Frank's place in fun stuck to it, so that
even the cowboys began calling their ranch "Ring Rosy," instead of
"Circle O."