With a small rope around the neck of the crowing rooster—which could not crow as loudly as it had before, because it was nearly choked—Trouble was dragging the fowl along after him as he ran across the yard.
"Trouble! Trouble!" cried Aunt Millie. "What are you doing?"
"Playin' cowboy!" was his answer. "I lasso rooster wif my rope, like Teddy catches post."
"Oh, you mustn't do that!" cried Aunt Millie, as she ran after the small boy and the dragging rooster.
"Cock-a doodle-do!" crowed the rooster, or, rather, it tried to crow that way, but it would get only about half of it out and then Trouble would pull the rope tight about the fowl's neck and the crow would be shut off suddenly.
"Gid-dap, pony!" cried Baby William, trotting along on his short, fat legs, making-believe, as he often did, that he was riding horseback. "Gid-dap! I lasso a rooster, I did!"
"Yes, and you'll kill the poor thing if you're not careful," panted Aunt Millie, as she raced after the little fellow and caught him. Then she gently pulled the rooster to her by means of the rope, and took it off the fowl's neck.
The rooster was bedraggled from having been dragged through the dust and the dirt, and it was so dizzy from having been whirled around by Trouble that it could hardly stand up.
Aunt Millie smoothed out its feathers and got it some water. The rooster drank a little and seemed to feel better. Then it ran off to join the other roosters and the cackling hens that had been watching what Trouble did, doubtless wondering what had gotten into the lassoed rooster to make it run around the way it did on the end of a rope. But it was Baby William who made all the trouble.
"You must never do that again," said Mrs. Martin when she came out of the ranch house and heard what her little boy had done. "That was very wrong, William, to lasso the poor rooster and drag it about with a rope around its neck."
"I not do it any more," promised Trouble. "But I want a lasso like Teddy."
"No, you're not big enough for that," his mother said. "You must wait until you are a little older. Don't bother the chickens any more."
"No, I only get de eggs," promised Baby William.
"And please don't lasso them, or you'll break them," put in Aunt Millie; but Janet thought her "eyes laughed," as she later told Teddy.
"No more lasso?" asked Trouble, looking at the rope his aunt had taken from the rooster's long neck.
"No more lasso!" exclaimed Mrs. Barton, trying not to smile, for the sight of the rooster, caught the way he had been, made even the older folks want to laugh. Ted and Janet did laugh, but they did not let Trouble see them. If he had he might have thought he had done something smart or cute, and he would try it over again the first chance he had. So they had to pretend to be sharp with him. The rooster was not hurt by being lassoed.
Afterward Trouble told how he did it. With the slip-noose of the rope in one hand and holding the rope's end in the other, Baby William walked quietly up behind the rooster and tossed the loop over its head. Then he pulled it tight and started to run, as he had seen the cow ponies galloping to pull down a horse or steer that needed to be branded or marked with the sign of the Ring Rosy Ranch. The rooster was very tame, often eating out of Aunt Millie's hand, so he was not afraid to let Trouble come up quite close to him.
One day, about a week after the Curlytops had found Clipclap in the cave, Jim Mason said he thought the pony was well enough to be ridden. Clipclap was brought out in the yard and Teddy and Janet went up to him.
The pony put his nose close to them and rubbed his head against their outstretched hands.
"See, he knows us!" cried Janet.
"And I guess he's thanking us for bringing him water," added her brother.
"And getting the doctor to cure him of poison," went on the little girl. "I'm glad he likes you, Teddy."
"And your pony likes you, too, Janet," said the little boy.
Janet's pony, Star Face, certainly seemed to like her. For he came when she called him and took lumps of sugar from her hand. He liked Teddy, too. In fact both ponies were very pretty and friendly and it would be hard to say which was the better. Janet liked hers and Teddy liked his, and that is the best thing I can say about them.
No one came to claim Clipclap. Though Uncle Frank spoke to a number of other ranchmen about finding the sick pony, none of them had ever seen Clipclap before as far as they knew. If he belonged to some other ranch it must have been far away.
"So you may feel that it is all right for you to keep your pony, Curlytop," said Uncle Frank to Teddy. "If anyone should, later, say it belongs to him, and can prove it, we'll give it up, of course."
"But I don't want to give Clipclap up!" Teddy cried.
"Well, maybe you won't have to," said his father. "But you must not keep what is not yours. Anyhow, if you should have to give up Clipclap Uncle Frank will give you another pony."
"There couldn't be any as nice as Clipclap—not even Janet's Star Face," declared Teddy.
He felt bad at the thought of having to give up his pet, but there was no need to, for as the weeks went on no one came to claim Clipclap, and Teddy counted him as his own.
By this time Teddy and Janet had learned to ride quite well for such little children. They knew how to sit in a saddle, up straight like an arrow, and not slouched down or all humped up "like a bag of meal," as Uncle Frank was wont to say. They knew how to guide their ponies by pulling on the reins to left or to right, according to which way they wanted to go.
Of course they could not ride very fast yet, and Mother Martin was just as glad they could not, for she was afraid, if they did, they might fall off and get hurt. But Teddy and Janet were careful, and they knew how to sit in the saddle with their feet in the stirrups.
"They're getting to be good little riders," said Jim Mason to Uncle Frank one day.
"I'll take 'em with me the next time I go for a short ride."
"Maybe we could find the bad Indians that took your horses, Uncle Frank," said Teddy.
"Well, I wish you could," said the owner of Ring Rosy Ranch.
The cowboys had not been able to get back the stolen horses nor find the Indians who had run them off. Other ranches, too, had been robbed and a number of head of horses and cattle had been driven away.
"We've looked all over for those Indians," said Uncle Frank, "but we can't find 'em. If you Curlytops can, I'll give you each another pony."
"I'd like Clipclap best though," announced Teddy.
"What could we do with two?" asked Janet.
"Oh, every cowboy or cowgirl, for that matter, has more than one horse when he can," said Jim Mason. "Then if one gets lame he has another to ride. But don't you Curlytops go off by yourselves looking for those bad Indians!" he warned them.
"We won't," promised Teddy. "Well only go with you or Uncle Frank."
"We don't find them," said the ranch owner. "I guess the Indians sold the horses and cattle and then they hid themselves. Well, I hope they don't take any more of my animals."
But there was more trouble ahead for Uncle Frank.
The Curlytops had a fine time on his ranch, though. When Teddy and Janet were not riding, they were watching the cowboys at work or play, for the men who looked after Uncle Frank's cattle had good times as well as hard work.
They would often come riding and swooping in from the distant fields after their day's work, yelling and shouting as well as firing off their big revolvers. But neither the Curlytops nor their mother were as frightened at this play of the cowboys as they had been at first.
"I wish I had a gun that would go bang," said Teddy one day.
"Oh, The-o-dore Mar-tin!" cried his sister, after the fashion of her mother. "If you had I'd never go riding ponyback with you—never again! I'd be afraid of you! So there!"
"Well, so would the Indians!" said Ted. However he knew he was too small to have a firearm, so he did not tease for it.
Sometimes, when Uncle Frank or his foreman, Jim Mason, went on short rides around the ranch, Teddy and Janet went with them on their ponies. Star Pace and Clipclap were two sturdy little animals, and were gentle with the children.
"Come on! Let's have a race!" Ted would call.
"All right. But don't go too fast," Janet would answer, and they would trot off, the ponies going as fast as was safe for the children.
Teddy generally won these races, for Janet, who was very tender-hearted, did not like to make her pony go as fast as it could go. Often, perhaps, if Janet had urged Star Face on she would have beaten her brother, for Clipclap still felt a little weak, now and then, from his illness.
One day a cowboy came in, riding hard from a far-off part of the ranch.
"I guess something is the matter, Jan," said Teddy, as they saw the horseman gallop past.
"What?" she asked as they noticed him talking to the foreman.
"Maybe he's found the Indians that took Uncle Frank's horses," her brother answered.
The children drew near enough to hear what the cowboy and the foreman were talking about.
"More horses gone!" exclaimed Jim Mason. "Well, we'll surely have to get after those Indians; that's all there is about it!"
"More horses stolen?" asked Daddy Martin, coming out just then.
"Yes," answered Jim Mason. "A lot of good ones. I guess more Indians must have run away from the reservation. We'll have to hunt them down!"
"Oh, I wish I could go!" sighed Teddy. "I'd like to be an Indian fighter."
"You'll have to grow a lot bigger," said his uncle, with a laugh.
Uncle Frank and some of the cowboys rode over the prairie, trying to find the stealing Indians, but they could not. Nor could they find the missing horses, either.
"It's a good thing Uncle Frank has lots of cattle," said Teddy that night when the cowboys came back to the ranch house, not having found the horse thieves. "If he didn't have he'd be poor when the Indians take his animals."
"He'll be poor if the Indians keep on the way they have been doing," said Aunt Millie. "I hope he can catch the bad men!"
Ted and Janet hoped so too, but they did not see how they could help, though Teddy wanted to. However he was kept near the house.
"Come on and see the bucking bronco, Curlytops!" called Uncle Frank to Teddy and Janet one day.
"What is it?" asked the little girl.
"A bucking bronco jumps up in the air with all four feet off the ground at once, and comes down as stiff as a board," explained Uncle Frank. "That isn't nice for the man that's in the saddle, though the cowboys know how to ride most bucking broncos, that are really sort of wild horses."
"I'd like to see 'em!" cried Teddy.
"You may," promised his uncle. "The cowboys have a bucking bronco out in the corral and they're taking turns trying to ride him. Come along if you want to see the fun."
It was fun, but some hard work, too, for one after another the cowboys fell out of the saddle of the bucking bronco as they tried to ride him.
Now and then one would stay on the wild animal's back longer than had any of his friends, not falling when the bronco leaped up in the air and came down with his legs as stiff as those of an old fashioned piano.
"Ki-yi! Yippi-i-yip!" yelled the cowboys, as they dashed about on the bucking bronco, swinging their hats or their quirts, which are short-handled whips, in the air over their heads.
They did not mind being thrown, and each one tried to ride the wild bronco. None could stay in the saddle more than a few minutes at a time though.
"Well, I guess I'll have to ride that animal myself," said Jim Mason, when all the other cowboys had tried and had fallen or jumped from the saddle. The foreman was a fine rider. "Yes, I guess I can ride that bronco," he said.
"Give the pony a chance to get his breath," suggested one of the cowboys. "I don't reckon you can ride him though, Jim."
"I'll try," was the answer.
The bronco was led to a corner of the corral, or stable yard, and tied. Then the foreman made ready to try to stay in the saddle longer than had any of his men, for when a bronco bucks it is like trying to hold on to a swing that is turning topsy-turvy.
Suddenly, as Teddy and Janet were looking at some of the funny tricks the cowboys were playing on one another, Uncle Frank gave a cry.
"Look at Trouble!" he exclaimed.
Baby William had crawled through the fence and was close to the dangerous heels of the bucking bronco.
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