Teddy and Janet sat on a bench outside the cowboys' bunkhouse, as their father, Uncle Frank and a number of the ranchmen rode away over the prairies on the trail of the Indians. The Curlytops did not seem very happy.
"Don't you wish we could go, Jan?" asked Teddy, after he and his sister had sat in silence for some time.
"I just guess I do!" she exclaimed. "I can ride good, too. Almost as good as you, Ted, and I don't see why we couldn't go!"
"Yes, you ride nice, Jan," said her brother. "But I thought you were afraid of Indians."
"I used to be, but I'm not any more. Anyway, if you'd stay with me I wouldn't be. And, anyhow, Uncle Frank says the Indians won't hurt us."
"Course they won't! I'm not afraid! I'd go on the trail after 'em if they'd let us."
"So would I. We could throw stones at 'em if they tried to hurt us, Teddy."
"Yes. Or we could ride our ponies fast and get away. Uncle Frank told me the Indians didn't have any good ponies, and that's why they took his."
"But we can't go," said Janet with a sigh.
"No; we've got to stay at home."
A little later a cowboy came limping out of the bunkhouse. His name was Sim Body, but all his friends called him "Baldy" because he had so little hair on his head.
"Hello, Curlytops!" cried Baldy in a jolly voice, for he was always good-natured. Even now he was jolly, though he had a lame foot where a horse had stepped on it. That is why he was not on the trail after the Indians with the other cowboys.
"Hello," answered Teddy, but he did not speak in a jolly voice.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Baldy with a laugh, as he limped to the bench and sat down near the two children. "You act as sad and gloomy as if there wasn't a Christmas or a New Year's any more, to say nothing of Fourth of July and birthdays! What's the matter? Seems to me, if I had all the nice, curly hair you two have, I'd be as happy as a horned toad and I'd go around singing all day long," and Baldy rubbed his hand over his own smooth head and laughed.
"I don't like my hair," grumbled Teddy. "It's always getting snarled and the comb gets stuck in it."
"And it does in mine, too," added Janet. "And mother pulls when she tries to untangle it. Mine's longer than Ted's."
"Yes, and nicer, for that reason," went on Baldy. "Though I'd be glad if I had even half of yours, Teddy. But never mind about that. I won't take your hair, though I'd like to know what makes you both so gloomy-like. Can't you smile?"
Ted and Janet could not help laughing at Baldy, he seemed so funny. He was a good friend of theirs.
"We can't go on the trail after Indians," said Janet. "We want to go, but we've got to stay here."
"And we can ride our ponies good, too," went on Teddy. "Uncle Frank said we could."
"Yes, you're getting to be pretty good riders," admitted Baldy. "But that isn't saying you're big enough to go on a trail after Indians. Of course these Indians may not be very bad, and maybe they aren't the ones that took our horses. But riding on a trail takes a long while, and maybe the boys will be out all night in the open. You wouldn't like that."
"We went camping with our grandpa once," declared Teddy.
"And we slept in a tent," added his sister.
"And we saw a funny blue light and we thought it was a ghost but it wasn't," continued Teddy.
"Hum! A ghost, eh?" laughed Baldy. "Well, I've never been on a trail after one of them, but I've trailed Indians—and helped catch 'em, too."
"How do you do it?" asked Teddy eagerly.
"Well, you just keep on riding—following the trail you know—until you catch up to those you're after. Sometimes you can't see any marks on the ground and you have to guess at it."
"And do the Indians ride on ahead and try to get away?" asked Janet.
"Indeed they do. When they know we're after 'em they ride as fast as they can. That is, if they've done wrong, like taking horses or cattle that aren't theirs. We just keep chasing 'em until we get close enough to arrest 'em."
"It's like a game of tag, isn't it?" asked Janet.
"Well, yes, you could call it sort of like that," admitted Baldy, with another laugh. "But it's a kind of game of tag that little boys and girls can't very well play."
"Not even when they have ponies?" asked Teddy.
"Well, of course, having a pony makes it easier to keep on the trail. You couldn't go very far walking over the prairies—at least none of us do. We all ride. But I'll tell you some stories about cowboys and Indians and that will amuse you for a while. Like to hear 'em?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Teddy.
"Very much, thank you," added Janet, a little more politely but still just as eagerly as her brother.
So Baldy, sitting on the bench in front of the bunkhouse and resting his lame foot on a saddle on the ground, told the Curlytops stories of his cowboy life—of sleeping out on the prairies keeping watch over the cattle, of Indians or other bad men who would come and try to steal them, and how he and his friends had to give chase to get the steers or ponies back.
"Did you ever get captured by the Indians?" asked Teddy.
"Well, yes, once I was," answered the cowboy.
"Oh, tell us about it!" begged the little Curlytop chap. "I love to hear stories about Indians! Don't you, Jan?"
"I like stories—yes," said the little girl. "But if you're going to tell a story about Indians, Mr. Baldy, maybe it'll be a scary one, and I don't like scary stories."
"I do!" exclaimed Ted. "The scarier they are the better I like 'em!"
Baldy laughed as he said:
"Well, I guess, seeing as how the little lady doesn't like scary stories, I'd better tell one that isn't. We must please the ladies, you know, Teddy."
"Oh, yes, I know that," the little boy said. "But after you tell the not-scary story, Mr. Baldy, couldn't you tell me one that is scary—a real, terrible scary one. You can take me out behind the barn where Jan can't hear it."
"Well, maybe I could do that," agreed the good-natured cowboy, laughing at the Curlytops. "Now then for the not-scary story."
"And you don't have to take Teddy out behind the barn to tell him the scary one," put in Janet. "You could stay here, and I could cover up my ears with my hands when you came to the terrible parts, couldn't I? Is there any parts in it that isn't scary? I'd like to hear them, Mr. Baldy."
"Well, I guess we can fix it that way," said the cowboy. "Now the first story I'm going to tell you, is how I was captured by the Indians," and the children sat closer to him and waited eagerly.
"Once upon a time," said Baldy, "a lot of Indians lived not far from the house where I lived."
"Weren't you afraid?" asked Janet.
"Please don't ask questions till he tells the story," begged Teddy.
"All right," agreed his sister, and Baldy went on:
"No, I wasn't much afraid, or if I was I've forgotten it now, as it was quite a while ago. Anyhow, one day I was out on the prairie, picking flowers, I think, for I know I used to like flowers, and, all of a sudden, along came a lot of Indians on horses, and one of them picked me up and took me right away with him, on the horse in front of him.
"The horse was a strong one, and could easily carry both of us, and though I wiggled around a good bit and yelled, the Indian didn't let go of me. On and on he rode, carrying me off, and the other Indians rode ahead of us, and on either side. I couldn't get away, no matter how I tried.
"After a while the Indians, who had been out hunting, came to where their tents were. This was their camp, and then I was lifted down off the horse and given to a squaw."
Teddy simply had to ask some questions now.
"A squaw is a Indian lady, isn't she?"
"Yes," answered Baldy, "that's what she is."
"Well, I shouldn't think she'd want to take you," went on the little boy. "I thought the Indian men always kept the prisoners, and you were a prisoner, weren't you?"
"Yes," answered Baldy, and there was a queer smile on his face, "but I guess I forgot to tell you that the time I was captured by the Indians I was a little boy, not as big as you, Curlytop. And the reason they picked me up off the prairie was that I had wandered away from my home and was lost. So the nice squaw kept me until one of the Indian men had time to take me home."
"Then didn't the Indians hurt you?" asked Janet.
"Not a bit. They were very good to me," the cowboy said. "Some of them knew my father and mother. That's the only time I was ever captured by the Indians, and I'm afraid it wasn't very much of a story."
"Oh, it was very nice," said Teddy politely.
"And not a bit scary, except a little teeny bit at first," added Janet. "Can you tell us another, Mr. Baldy?"
"Well, I guess I can," said the good-natured cowboy. So he told other tales of what had happened to him on the prairies, for he had lived in the West all his life, and knew much about it.
Teddy and Janet were very glad to hear these stories, but listening to them made Ted, at least, wish all the more that he could have gone with his father and his Uncle Frank on the trail after the Indians.
Then Baldy was called away by another cowboy, who wanted to ask him something about a sick horse, and Teddy and Janet were called by their mother to take care of Trouble for a while.
It was still morning, the cowboys having ridden away before dinner. They had taken with them enough to eat, even if they had to stay out all night.
"I wants a wide!" announced Trouble, when his brother and sister came in to get him.
"Could we give him a little ride on our ponies?" asked Teddy of his mother.
"Yes, I think so. But don't go far away from the stable. Are any of the cowboys out there to help you saddle?"
Saddling, which meant buckling the leather seat tightly around the pony, was something Teddy and Janet could not yet do very well for themselves. It takes strong fingers to tighten the straps.
"Yes, Baldy is out there," Janet said.
"How often have I told you not to call the men by their nicknames?" asked Mother Martin with a smile. "It isn't nice for children to do that."
"But, please, Mother, we don't know his other name very well," said Teddy. "Everybody calls him Baldy."
"Yes, that's right," agreed Aunt Millie. "I do myself. I guess he doesn't mind."
"Very well, if he'll saddle your ponies for you, take Trouble for a little ride," agreed Mrs. Martin. "But be careful."
The Curlytops said they would, and they were soon taking turns riding Trouble on the saddles in front of them. Clipclap and Star Face liked the children and were well-behaved ponies, so there was no danger in putting Trouble on the back of either as long as Ted or Janet held him.
"But don't go riding off with him on the trail after the Indians," said Baldy, playfully shaking his finger at the Curlytops.
"We won't!" they promised.
Up and down on the paths among the ranch buildings rode the children. Trouble was allowed to hold the ends of the reins, and he thought he was guiding the ponies, but really Teddy and Janet did that.
But finally even such fun as riding ponyback tired Trouble. He wanted something else to do, and said:
"Le's go an' s'ide downhill on hay in de barn."
Teddy and Janet knew what that meant. They had learned this kind of fun at Grandpa Martin's Cherry Farm. Here, on Ring Rosy Ranch, there was a large barn filled with hay, and there was plenty of room to slide down in the mow, or place where the hay was put away.
"Come on!" cried Janet. "Well give him a good slide, Teddy."
A little later the Curlytops and Baby William were laughing and shouting in the barn, rolling down and tumbling over one another, but not getting hurt, for the hay was too soft.
Pretty soon the dinner horn blew and, with good appetites from their morning's fun, the children hurried in to get something to eat.
"This is a good dinner!" announced Teddy as he passed his plate a second time.
"Yes," agreed Mother Martin. "I hope your father and the cowboys have as good."
"Oh, they'll have plenty—never fear!" laughed Uncle Frank's wife. "They never go hungry when they're on the trail."
After dinner Trouble went to sleep, as he generally did, and Teddy and Janet were left to themselves to find amusement.
"Let's go for another ride," suggested Teddy.
"All right," agreed Janet.
The saddles had not been taken off their ponies. Their mother and Aunt Millie saw them go out and, supposing they were only going to ride around the barn and ranch buildings, as they had done before, said nothing to them.
But Ted was no sooner in the saddle than he turned to his sister and said:
"Jan, why can't we go riding the trail after the Indians?"
"What! We two alone?"
"Yes. We know the way over to the rocks where we found Clipclap in the cave, and from there we can ride farther on, just like daddy and Uncle Frank. Come on!"
Janet thought for a minute. She wanted to go as much as did Teddy. It did not seem very wrong.
"Well, we'll ride a little way," she said. "But we've got to come back before dark."
"All right," agreed Teddy. "We will!"
And the Curlytops rode away over the prairie.
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