Trouble had done that very thing. The little fellow had not meant to do any harm, and certainly thought he was doing something to help, but really he made a great deal of work for Uncle Frank and the cowboys.
The corral, or yard where the half-tamed horses were kept while they were being got ready to send away, was closed by a large gate, but one easy to open if you knew how. All one had to do was to pull on a little handle, which snapped a spring and the gate would swing open.
Horses and cattle could not open the gate, for they could not reach the handle, even if any of them had known enough to do anything like that.
But Trouble had watched Uncle Frank or some of the cowboys open the gate by pulling on the handle; and now he did it himself. Then, of course, when the ponies saw the open gate they raced out.
"Get after 'em!" cried Uncle Frank who came galloping up on his horse to find out what was the matter. "Get after the ponies, boys! Round them up!"
"Round up," is what cowboys call riding around a lot of horses or cattle to keep the animals in one place or to drive them where they should go. Uncle Frank wanted his cowboys to ride after the runaway ponies and drive them back into the corral.
As the wild little horses trotted out through the gate, behind which Trouble stood, well out of danger, the cowboys rode after them, yelling and shouting and shooting their revolvers.
"What a lot of noise!" cried Janet, covering her ears with her hands as she got down off the fence.
"I like it!" laughed Teddy. "It's like a Wild West show!"
Indeed it was, in a way, but it meant a lot of work for Uncle Frank and his men. For all the ponies ran out of the corral and were scattering over the prairie.
"Oh, Trouble! did you let the horses out?" asked Janet, as her little brother came out from behind the gate and toddled toward her and Ted. The runaway horses were now well out of the way. "Did you open the gate?"
"Yes. I did open gate," Trouble answered, smiling.
"What for?" asked Teddy.
"Help little horses get out," said Trouble. "Them want to get out and Trouble help them. Trouble 'ike ponies!"
"Oh, but, my dear, you shouldn't have done it!" chided Mother Martin, who had come out of the house to find out what all the excitement was about. "That was very naughty of you. See all the work you have made for Uncle Frank and his men."
"Horses run out when Trouble open gate," was the only reply Baby William made.
"Yes, I know," went on his mother. "But it was wrong! You must never again open any gates on Uncle Frank's ranch. Just think—the horses might have stepped on you or kicked you!"
"We didn't see him near the gate or we'd have stopped him," put in Teddy.
"That's true," added Janet. "The first we saw was the ponies going out, and then we saw Trouble behind the gate."
"He didn't mean to be bad," said his mother, as she carried him back to the house, "but he has made a lot of work. I'll have to punish him by not letting him out to play for an hour or so. Then he'll remember not to open gates again, whether he thinks he is helping horses or not."
And, though Trouble cried very hard, he was kept in the house. For, as his mother had said, he must have something to make him remember not to do such a thing again.
Meanwhile Uncle Frank and the cowboys were busy rounding up the runaway ponies. The little horses, tired of being cooped up in the corral, raced about, kicking up their heels and glad to be out on the prairie again. But the cowboys knew how to handle them.
Around and around the drove of half-wild ponies rode the yelling and shouting men, firing off many blank cartridges to scare the little animals back into the corral.
Some of the ponies, frightened by the noise, did turn back. They ran up to the corral gate, which was still open, and sniffed at the fence. They may have said to themselves:
"We don't like it, being shut up in there, but maybe well have to go back in, for we don't like being shouted at, and we don't like the bang-bang noises like thunder."
But, even when some of the ponies had run back as far as the corral gate they did not go in. Once again they turned around and would have galloped across the prairie again. But Uncle Frank shouted:
"Get after them, boys! Drive those few in and the rest will follow after like sheep! Get after them!"
So the cowboys rode up on their own swift ponies, that seemed to be having a good time, and then the other ponies nearest the corral gate were turned in through it. Then as the rest were driven up they did as the first ones had done and galloped back where they had been before Trouble let them out.
One after another the ponies ran back into the corral until every one was there. Then Uncle Frank closed the gate, and this time he locked it so that no one could open it without the key. But no one would try, not even Trouble, for, crying and sobbing to be allowed to go out and play, he had been given a lesson that he would not soon forget.
"I'm sorry I had to punish him," said Mother Martin to the Curlytops, when they came in after the ponies were once more in the corral, "but I just had to. Work on a ranch is hard enough without little boys letting the horses run wild after they have once been caught."
"Oh, well, no great harm was done," said Uncle Frank with a good-natured laugh, "though it did make us ride pretty hard for a while. Come on, Trouble, I'll take you ponyback!"
This was what Trouble liked, and he soon dried his tears and sat on the saddle in front of Uncle Frank as happy as could be. Janet and Ted got out their ponies, and rode with Uncle Frank and Trouble around the outside of the corral, looking at the little horses inside the fence. They were quieter now, and were eating some oats the cowboys had put out for them.
Two or three days after this, when the ponies had been driven away to the railroad station to be shipped to a far-off state, a cowboy came riding in with news that he had seen a band of two or three Indians pass along the prairie near the rocks where Teddy and Janet had found Clipclap.
"If we ride after them," said the cowboy, "maybe we can find where the other Indians are, and where they have hidden your horses and cattle, Mr. Barton."
"That's it!" exclaimed Uncle Frank. "We'll get on the trail after these Indians. I'm sure they must have some of my animals hidden away in the hills, for I would have heard of it if they had sold them around here. We'll get on the trail!"
"What's the trail, Daddy?" asked Teddy of his father.
"Oh, it means the marks the Indians' ponies may have left in the soft ground," said Mr. Martin. "Uncle Frank and his cowboys will try to trail, or follow, the marks of the horses' feet, and see where the Indians have gone."
"Can't I come?" asked Teddy. "I can ride good now!"
"Oh, no indeed you can't go!" cried Mother Martin. "Are you going?" she asked her husband.
"Yes," he answered. "I think I'll go on the trail with Uncle Frank."
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