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.