THE SEARCH
Mrs. Brown hurried out of the house after Bunny, who ran back to the
stable. Sue, looking out of the window of her room upstairs, saw her
brother and called:
"What's the matter, Bunny?"
"Oh, Sue," he answered, not stopping even to look back, "Toby is gone!
Our nice pony isn't in his stable!"
"Oh! Oh!" cried Sue, and she could think of nothing else to say just
then. But you can guess that she very quickly finished dressing in order
to go down and look for herself to see what had happened to Toby.
Meanwhile Mrs. Brown and Bunny reached the stable.
"Are you sure Toby isn't here?" asked Bunny's mother.
"I--I looked everywhere for him," answered the little boy, who was
slightly out of breath from running. "I looked all over and I can't see
him anywhere."
Mrs. Brown looked, but no Toby was to be seen. The barn was not a large
one, and there were not many places where a horse, or even a small pony,
could be hidden. Bunny and his mother looked in all the places they
could think of--in the harness room and wagon room, and they even went
upstairs to the haymow.
"For Toby is a trick pony, and he might have walked upstairs," said
Bunny. "I didn't look there."
"I hardly think he would climb up where the hay is, but still he might,"
said Mrs. Brown. But no Toby was to be seen. And, really, being a trick
pony, he _might_ have walked up the stairs, which were strong, and
broad, and not very steep. I have seen a big horse, in a circus, go up a
flight of steps, so why couldn't a pony go upstairs?
But, anyhow, Toby was not in the haymow.
"Was the barn door locked when you first came out to see Toby?" asked
Mrs. Brown of Bunny.
"Yes, Mother, it was," he answered. "I took the key from off the nail in
the kitchen, and I opened the lock and the door. But Toby wasn't
there!"
"Are you sure you locked him in the stable last night?" went on Mrs.
Brown.
"Oh, yes, of course, Mother!" said Bunny. "Don't you 'member Bunker Blue
was up here and looked at Toby, and said he'd have to take him to the
blacksmith shop to-day to have new shoes put on--I mean new shoes on
Toby."
"Oh, yes, I do remember that!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "And that is just
what has happened, I think."
"What has happened, Mother?"
"Why, Bunker Blue came up here early, and took Toby out of the stable
and down to the blacksmith shop to have the new shoes nailed on. That
must be it," said Mrs. Brown. "I'll telephone down to your father's
office, and ask him if he didn't send Bunker up to get Toby. Daddy went
down before breakfast this morning in order to get some letters off on
the early mail."
"Oh, I hope Bunker has our pony!" exclaimed Bunny with a sigh, and,
though he very much wanted to believe that this was what had happened,
still he could hardly think that it was so. Bunker Blue, thought Bunny,
would have said something before taking Toby away, even if it was
early.
"Did you find Toby?" asked Sue, as she ran out, tying her hair ribbon on
the way. She was in such a hurry that she had not waited to do that in
her room.
"No, he isn't in the stable," answered Bunny.
"But Bunker must have taken him to the blacksmith's shop," said Mrs.
Brown. "I'm going to telephone to find out."
And just what Bunny feared would happen did happen. Mr. Brown said
Bunker had not been up to the house, and he had not taken Toby away.
"And is Toby really gone?" asked Mr. Brown over the telephone wire.
"He can't be found," answered Mrs. Brown.
"I'll come right up and see what I can do," said Bunny's father. And
then the only thing to do was to wait.
Bunny and Sue, with tears in their eyes, looked again in the barn and
all around the house.
"But where can Toby be?" asked Sue, over and over again.
"Maybe he ran away," said Tressa, the maid.
"He couldn't run away, 'cause the barn was locked," declared Bunny.
"Well, maybe he could open the lock, being a trick pony," went on
Tressa, who wanted to say something so the children would not feel so
bad.
"No, he couldn't do that," said Bunny. "Toby could do lots of tricks,
but there wasn't any hole in the barn door so he could reach out and
open the lock. Besides, the key was hanging in your kitchen all night,
Tressa."
"Yes, that's so. Well, maybe he jumped out of a window," went on the
kind-hearted maid. "I see one of the barn windows is open, and it is
near Toby's stall."
"Oh, maybe he did get out that way, and he's off playing in the woods!"
exclaimed Sue, who felt very sad about the pet pony's being gone.
"Oh, but he couldn't," said Bunny, after thinking it over a bit.
"There's a mosquito wire screen over the window, and if Toby had jumped
out the screen would be broken."
"Yes, that's so," admitted Tressa. "Well, I guess you'll find him
somewhere. Maybe he'll come home, wagging his tail behind him, as
Bo-Peep's sheep did."
Bunny shook his head.
"I guess somebody took our pony," he said.
"But how could they when the door was locked?" asked Sue.
Bunny did not know how to answer.
Mr. Brown came up from the fish and boat dock, and with him was Bunker
Blue.
"Did you find him?" asked Mr. Brown, meaning Toby, of course.
"No, he isn't to be found around here," answered Mrs. Brown. "We have
looked everywhere, but there is no Toby!"
"Oh, Daddy! do you think you can find him?" asked Sue, and there were
tears in her eyes.
"Of course I'll find him!" said Daddy Brown, and, somehow, it did the
children good just to hear their father say that. "Now, we'll begin at
the beginning," went on the fish merchant, "and have a look at the barn
door. You know there's an old saying not to lock the stable door after
the horse is stolen, but this time the door was locked before Toby was
taken away. We are sure of that. Now, I'll have a look at the lock and
key."
Mr. Brown looked carefully at these and also at the door of the stable.
There was nothing to show that any one had gotten in, and yet the lock
must have been opened or the door could not have been swung back to let
Toby out. And Toby was surely gone.
"He couldn't have gotten out, or been taken out, any way but through
the door," said Mr. Brown, as he walked around the stable. "The window
is too small, even if there wasn't any wire screen over it to keep out
the flies and mosquitoes."
"What do you think happened?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"Well," answered her husband, "I think some one, with another key, must
have opened the lock and have taken the pony away in the night."
"But who could it be?"
"Oh, some thief. Perhaps a tramp, though I don't believe tramps would do
anything like that. They are generally too lazy to go to so much work.
And whoever took Toby did it very quietly. They took him out of his
stable without waking any of us up, and then they carefully locked the
door again."
"I never heard a sound all night," declared Mrs. Brown.
"Nor did I," added her husband. "It's funny, though, that Splash didn't
bark. He sometimes sleeps in the shed near the stable, and if strange
men had come around one would think the dog would be sure to make a
fuss."
"Unless it was some one he knew," added Mrs. Brown, "or some one that
knew how to be friendly with a dog."
"Yes, some horse thieves might be like that," admitted Mr. Brown. "They
could make friends with our dog, and he wouldn't bite them or growl at
them to make a noise. Then they could walk off with Toby."
"I haven't seen Splash around this morning," said Tressa. "Generally he
comes early to get his breakfast, but I haven't seen him this morning."
"Oh, Daddy!" cried Bunny, "do you s'pose they stole Splash, too?"