"Where is Black Bear, Mary?" asked Cowboy Jack of an old woman who was cooking something in a pot over one of the fires in the open.
"Out on the job, Mr. Jack," was the reply. "They ought to be in soon, for the sun is too low for good light. You can go into Bear's wikiup if you want to."
"Oh! A bear!" whispered Vi, clinging to daddy's hand. "Is it loose?"
"I expect it is loose, all right," chuckled daddy. "But you will probably not find it a very savage bear."
"Has it teeth—and claws?" pursued the little girl. "Bears bite, don't they?"
"I promise you that this one won't bite you," boomed Cowboy Jack's great voice. "He's just as tame a bear as ever you saw. Isn't he, Mary?"
The old woman smiled kindly at the children and nodded. She was old and wrinkled, and her face looked as though it had been cured in the smoke of many campfires. Nevertheless, she was a pleasant woman and even Vi felt some confidence in her statement. At least, all four little Bunkers went with Cowboy Jack and daddy to the big skin and canvas tent that stood in the middle of the camp. It was the biggest tent of all.
It was rather dark inside the tent; but Cowboy Jack had a hand-torch in his pocket, and he took this out and flashed the light all about the interior of the tent by pressing his thumb on the switch of the torch.
"Never know what you'll find in these Injun shanties," muttered Cowboy Jack. "Black Bear is college bred, but he's Injun just the same——"
"Goodness me! what does he say?" gasped Rose.
"Why, this Black Bear is a man!" exclaimed Russ. "He's an Indian. And I guess he must be a chief of the tribe. Is he, Daddy?"
"You've guessed it," laughed Daddy.
"Was he one of those awful painted Indianswe saw riding down on the cabin?" queried Rose. "Are they safe?"
Daddy laughed and assured her that "out of business hours" the painted Indians were quite as gentle as the women and children about the camp. But Rose and Russ could not just understand what the Indians' "business" could be. It was a very great mystery, and no mistake!
Vi and Laddie were so curious that they wished to examine everything in the wikiup. And there were many, many things strange to the children's eyes. Brilliant colored blankets hung from the walls, feather headdresses with what Vi called "trails," so that when a man wore one the tail of it dragged to his heels. There were beaded shirts and pretty moccasins and long-stemmed pipes decorated with beads and feathers in bunches. There were, too, little skins and big skins hanging from the framework of the Indian tent, and most of the floor was soft with cured wolf hides, the hair side uppermost.
"Black Bear is 'heap big chief,'" chuckled Cowboy Jack. "When he travels he takes a lot of stuff with him. Hello! Here they come, I reckon."
The four small Bunkers heard the pounding of the ponies' hoofs on the plain. They peered out of the "door" of the wikiup as daddy held back the blanket that served as a curtain over the entrance.
"Oh, theyarethe painted Indians!" wailed Vi, and immediately hid her face against Rose's dress.
"They won't hurt you," scoffed Laddie. "You know they won't with daddy and Mr. Cowboy Jack here."
"But—but what did they do to that woman at the cabin—and her baby?" wondered Vi with continued anxiety.
"I don't see any scalps," said Laddie confidently. "Maybe it isn't the fashion to scalp folks any more out here."
"You can ask Black Bear about that," chuckled Cowboy Jack. "I'm not up in the fashions, as you might say."
The big ranchman was evidently vastly amused by the little Bunkers' comments. The four children peered out of the wikiup and saw the party of horsemen dismount. A tall figure, with a waving headdress, came striding toward the children. Vi and Laddie, it must be confessed, shrank back behind the ranchman and daddy.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Cowboy Jack. "Here's Black Bear now."
"But he doesn't look like a bear," Laddie whispered. "Bears don't walk on their hind feet."
"Sometimes they do," said Daddy Bunker. "And this Bear does all the time. He is 'Mr. Bear' just the same as my name is 'Mr. Bunker.'"
The tall man lifted off his headdress and handed it to one of the women who came running to help him. Underneath, his hair was not like an Indian's at all—at least, not like the Indians whose pictures the Bunker children had seen. Black Bear's hair was cut pompadour, and if it had not been for the awful stripes across his face he would not have looked bad. Even Rose admitted this, in a whisper, to her brother Russ.
It was interesting for the four little Bunkers to watch Black Bear get rid of the paint with which his face was smeared. He stripped off the deerskin shirt he wore and squatted down on his heels before a box in the middleof the tent—a box like a little trunk. When he opened the cover and braced it up at a slant, the children saw that there was a mirror fastened in the box lid.
The Indian woman held a lantern, and Black Bear dipped his fingers in a jar of cold-cream and began to smear his whole face and neck. He looked all white and lathery in a moment, and he grinned in a funny way up at Cowboy Jack and Mr. Bunker.
"Makes me think of the time they cast me for the part of the famousPocahontasin the college play of 'John Smith,'" said Black Bear. "That was some time—believe me! We made a barrel of money for the Athletic Association."
"Oh!" murmured Rose, "he talks—he talks just like Captain Ben—or anybody!"
"He doesn't talk like an Indian, that'sso," whispered back Russ, quite as much amazed.
But Violet could not contain her curiosity politely. She came right out in the lantern-light and asked:
"Say, Mister Black Bear, are you a real Indian, or just a make-believe?"
"I am just as real an Indian, little girl, as you ever will see," replied the young chief,still rubbing the cream into his face and neck. "I'm a full-blood, sure-enough, honest-Injun Indian! You ask Mr. Scarbontiskil."
"But you're not savage!" said the amazed Vi. "Not as savage as you all looked when you were riding down on that cabin to-day. We saw you and we ran home again. We were scared."
"No. I'm pretty tame. I own an automobile and a talking-machine, and I sleep in a brass bed when I'm at home. But, you see, Iworkat being an Indian, because it pays me better than farming."
"Oh! Oh!" gasped Laddie. "Scalping people, and all that?"
"No. There is a law now against scalping folks," said Mr. Black Bear, smiling again. And now that he had got the yellow and red paint off his face his smile was very pleasant. "We all have to obey the law, you know."
"Oh! Do Indians, too?" gasped Rose.
"Indians are the most law-abiding folks there are," declared the chief earnestly.
"Then I guess I won't feel afraid of Indians again," confessed Rose Bunker. "Will you, Russ?"
But Russ did not answer. He felt that there was a trick about all this. He could not see through it yet; but he meant to. It was worse than one of Laddie's riddles.
By and by Chief Black Bear got all the paint off his face. Then he washed the cold-cream off. He pulled on a pleated, white-bosomed shirt, and buttoned on a collar and tied a butterfly tie in place. Then he went behind a blanket that was hung up at one side of the wikiup, all the time talking gaily to Cowboy Jack and Mr. Bunker, and when he reappeared he was dressed just as Daddy Bunker dressed back home when he went to the lodge or to a banquet!
The four little Bunkers stared. They could not find voice for any comment upon this strange transformation in Black Bear's appearance. But Cowboy Jack was critical.
"Some dog that boy puts on, doesn't he, Charlie?" he said to Mr. Bunker. "He thinks he's down in New Haven, or somewhere, where he went to college. Beats me what a little smatter of book-learning will do for these redskins."
This did not seem to annoy Chief BlackBear at all. He laughed and slapped the big ranchman on the shoulder.
"Of course I'm a redskin—just as you are a whiteskin. Only I have improved my opportunities, Jack, while you have allowed yourself to deteriorate." That last was a pretty hard word, but Russ and Rose understood that it meant "fall behind." "Probably your grandfather had a college education, Jack," went on the Indian chief. "But your father and you did not appreciate education.Myfather and grandfathers, away back to the days of LaSalle and even to Cortez's followers who marched up through Texas, had no educational advantages. I appreciate my chance the more."
"But a boiled shirt and a Tuxedo coat!" snorted Cowboy Jack.
"Keeps me a 'good Indian,'" laughed Black Bear. "No knowing how savage I might be if I didn't dress for dinner 'most every night."
Russ knew all this was joking between the chief and the ranchman, and he saw that Daddy Bunker was very much amused. But the boy did not understand what the Indians were doing here in Cowboy Jack's ranch, and why they should dress up like wild savages in thedaytime, and then dress in civilized clothes when evening came.
Russ Bunker had never been more puzzled by anything in his life before. He felt, of course, that Daddy Bunker would explain if he asked him; but Russ liked to find out things for himself.
Out of a box Chief Black Bear took certain treasures that he gave to the four little Bunkers who visited his wikiup. He even sent some fresh-water mussel shells, polished like mother-of-pearl, to the absent Margy and Mun Bun, of whom Cowboy Jack told him.
"They are some nice kids," declared the ranchman, who sometimes used expressions and words that were not altogether polite; but he meant no harm. "Especially that Mun Bun.Hewent to sleep in a fence-corner to-day and got covered up with tumble-weed. But he's an all right boy."
Cowboy Jack seemed to think a great deal of the smallest of the Bunkers. He was frequently seen admiring Mun Bun. Even the other children noticed it, and Rose had once asked her mother:
"Why doesn't Mr. Scar—Scar—well, what-ever-it-iskil! Why doesn't he have children of his own?"
"But, my dear, everybody cannot have children just for the wishing," Mother Bunker replied.
"I should think he could," murmured Rose. "See how many children these Indians and Mexicans have; and they are none of them half as nice as Mr.—Mr.—well, Mr. Cowboy Jack."
To Russ and Rose and Laddie and Violet, Black Bear gave stone arrow-heads which may have been used by his forefathers when they roamed the plains, wild and free, as the young Indian said. But better than those, he gave Rose and Violet little beaded moccasins that fitted just as though they were made for the little white girls!
The children went away after that, for it was time for their own supper at the ranch house and Cowboy Jack always seemed afraid of making Maria Castrada cross if they were late for meals. But perhaps it was his own hearty appetite that spurred him to be on time.
At any rate, the Bunkers left Chief Black Bear sitting cross-legged before a low table onwhich the Indian women were serving his dinner, beginning with soup and from that going on through all the courses of a properly served meal.
"Funny fellow, that Black Bear," said Cowboy Jack to Mr. Bunker. "But maybe he's got it right. I was brought up pretty nice—silverware and finger-bowls, and all that sort of do-dads; but part of my life I've lived pretty rough. Black Bear has set himself a certain standard of living, and he's not going to slip back. Afraid of being a 'blanket Indian,' I suppose."
The children—even Russ and Rose—did not understand all this; but they had been much interested in Chief Black Bear.
"Only, I don't see why he paints up in the daytime and rides such wild ponies, and all that," grumbled Rose, who, like Russ, did not like to be mystified.
Whenever they tried to ask the older folks to explain the mystery they were laughed at. It was Cowboy Jack's mystery, anyway, and Mr. and Mrs. Bunker did not feel that they had a right to explain to the children all that they wished to know.
"Figure it out for yourselves," said Daddy Bunker.
"Is it a riddle, then?" demanded Laddie. "It must be a riddle. Why does Chief Black Bear paint his face, and—and——"
"And take it off with cold cream?" put in Vi. "Whydoeshe?"
"I guess that's the riddle," said her twin. "You answer it, Vi."
But although Vi could ask innumerable questions on all sorts of subjects she seldom was able to answer one—and certainly not this one Laddie propounded.
Next morning while the six little Bunkers were at the big breakfast table in Cowboy Jack's ranch house there again arose a considerable disturbance outside in front of the house. This time the children were pretty well over their meal, and they grew so excited that Mother Bunker allowed them to be excused.
Russ and Rose led the way out upon the veranda. There stood two of the smiling Mexican houseboys—"cholos," Cowboy Jack called them—and they bade the Bunker children a very pleasant good morning. Russ and Rosedid not forget their manners, and they replied in kind. But the four smaller children just whooped when they saw what had brought the Mexicans to the front of the big house.
One of the men led two saddled ponies while the other held another fat pony that drew a brightly painted cart with seats in it and a step behind—just the dearest cart! Rose Bunker said.
"Oh, I know I can learn to drive that dear, dear pony!" Rose added. "And there is room for every one of you children with me in the cart."
"Huh!" exclaimed Laddie. "I am going to ride pony-back like Russ does. Which is my pony, Mr. Cowboy Jack?" he asked of the ranchman who had followed them out of the house to enjoy their amazement and delight.
"The one with the shortest stirrups, I guess," Russ said. "This one looks as if I could ride him," and he took the bridle handed him by the Mexican.
"Oh, lift me up! Lift me up!" cried Laddie, running to the other saddle pony.
Cowboy Jack strode down and did so. Meanwhile Rose and the other children werescrambling into the pony-cart, while the pony which drew it tossed its head and looked around as though counting the number of passengers that were getting aboard.
"Isn't he just cute?" cried Rose again. "Oh, Mr. Cowboy Jack! you are so good to us."
"Got to be," said the ranchman, laughing. "I haven't any little folks of my own, so I have to treat those I find around here pretty well, I do say."
Laddie clung to both the pommel and the bridle-reins at first, for he did seem so high from the ground at first. But Russ trotted away on his pony very securely. Russ had ridden quite a little at Uncle Fred's ranch and had not forgotten how.
Rose decided that she liked better to drive. But Vi must learn to drive, too, she said. And even Margy and Mun Bun clamored to hold the reins over the back of the sleepy brown pony. Russ's mount was what Cowboy Jack called a pinto, but Russ said it was a calico pony. He had seen them marked that way before—in the circus. Laddie's pony was all white, with pinkish nose and ears. Right at the start Laddie called him "Pinky." But thelittle girls could not agree on a name for the pony that drew their cart.
There seemed to be so many nice names that just fitted him! Margy wanted to call him Dinah after her lost doll.
"But that Dinah-doll was black," said Rose, in objection. "And this pony is brown. Maybe we ought to call him Brownie."
"Oh! I know!" cried Vi. "Let's call him Cute. He's just as cunning as he can be."
But this name did not appeal to the others, and they were no nearer finding a name for the brown pony when the ride was over and they all came back to the ranch house than at first. They had had so much fun, however, that they had forgotten for the time being the mystery of the Indians and soldiers whom they had seen the day before.
Laddie had thought up a new riddle—and it was a good one. He knew it was good and he told everybody about it, he was so excited.
"Listen!" he cried, when he half tumbled out of his saddle by the steps of the veranda. "This is a good riddle. Listen!"
"We're listening, Son," said Cowboy Jack. "Shoot!"
"What is it," asked Laddie earnestly, "that looks like a horse, has four legs like a horse, runs like a horse, eats like a horse, but it isn't a horse?"
"A cow," said his twin promptly.
"No, no! A cow has horns. A horse doesn't," Laddie declared scornfully.
"A colt," guessed Russ.
"No, no!" rejoined the eager Laddie. "A colt is a little horse, so that could not be the answer, Russ Bunker."
"A giraffe," suggested Vi again.
"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained the riddle-maker. "Does a giraffe look like any horse you ever saw?"
"A carpenter's horse," said Rose.
"Pooh! That's made of wood. Can a wooden horserun?" cried Laddie.
"I guess thatisa pretty good riddle," said Russ soberly. "What is the answer, Laddie?"
"Do you all give it up?" asked the smaller boy, his eyes shining.
"You got us thrown and tied," declared Cowboy Jack solemnly. "I couldn't guess that riddle in a thousand years."
"But you wouldn't want to wait that long toknow what it is," Laddie said delightedly. "Now, would you?"
"You'd better tell us now, Laddie," said Daddy Bunker smilingly. "You know a thousand yearsisa long time to wait."
"Well," said the little fellow proudly, "what looks like a horse, and has four legs like a horse, and runs like a horse, and eats like a horse, is——"
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed the impatient Violet.
"What is it, Laddie?"
"Why," said Laddie, with vast satisfaction, "it is amule."
They all cried out in surprise at this answer. But it was a good riddle.
"Only," said Russ thoughtfully, "it's lucky you didn't say anything about its tail and ears. Then we would have caught you."
The Bunker children had so much fun with the ponies Cowboy Jack had selected for their use during the next two or three days that they thought of very little else. The mystery of the Indians and soldiers did not often trouble their minds. But something else did. Mail came from the East, and with it was a letter from Captain Ben, and another from Norah.
"And," said Mother Bunker soberly, reading the letters to the children, "both say that they have found neither Rose's wrist-watch nor Laddie's stick-pin. I am afraid, Rose and Laddie, that your carelessness has cost you both your jewelry. It is too bad. But perhaps it will teach you the lesson of carefulness with your possessions."
This, however, did not make either Rose or Laddie feel any better in their minds. They had been very proud of both the lost articles and it looked now as though they would never see the watch and the pin again.
One morning, while Mother Bunker was amusing the four younger children in the house (for the twins and Margy and Mun Bun could not always go where Rose and Russ went) the two older Bunker children rode away from the big ranch house on that very wagon-trail that had led them into such a strange adventure the first day of their stay on Cowboy Jack's ranch. Rose rode on Laddie's pony, Pinky.
Russ and Rose had thought of something the night before, and they had planned this ride in order to do it. They had remembered Black Bear's wild Indians and the strange soldiers in blue. The two older Bunker children decided to try to find those strange people again, and the man and woman and baby at the brookside.
Just who those "white settlers" could be, and why they were living in that part of the ranch away from Mr. Cowboy Jack's nice house, neither Russ nor Rose had been able to make up their minds. Of course, there was a mystery about it, and a mystery was bound to worry the little Bunkers a good deal. They were persistent, and Russ, at least, seldom gave up any problem until he had solved it.
"I saw a picture in a big book at the ranch," said Rose to her brother, "and in it a frontiersman—that's what the book called him—was dressed like that man we saw chopping wood—the man with the squirrel-tail on his cap and his long hair tied in a queue."
"Did you? But that must have been the way they wore their hair a long, long time ago."
"It said in the book under the picture that trappers and hunters out West here wore their hair long and tied in queues long after they stopped doing so anywhere else. Some of the white hunters wore a scalp-lock like the Indians. I guess maybe that was a scalp-lock," said Rose.
"Well, those soldiers——"
"They are not dressed like soldiers are now," Rose interrupted. "But in the book there were pictures of soldiers in the Mexican War—When was that, Russ?"
Russ had read a little American history in his class the term before and thought he knew something about the Mexican War. He told Rose it had been fought long after the Revolution.
"Well, the pictures showed soldiers in the Mexican War dressed like those we saw the other day. Or, anyway, very much like them."
"Goodness me!" exclaimed Russ, "don't you suppose these soldiers knowthatwar is over?"
So they had started out without saying anything to the older folks about their real object. In the first place, Russ and Rose did not like to be laughed at. And they knew that Cowboy Jack, at least, was very much amused by the fact that the little Bunkers had not guessed the mystery of the Indians and soldiers now on his ranch.
The brother and sister rode on through the valley they had traveled before and up to the top of the ridge from which they had seenthe cabin by the side of the stream. The cabin was now in truth deserted. There was no fire before it and not a person in sight.
"Maybe those Indians took them captive. The poor little baby!" murmured Rose.
"Don't be a little dunce, Rose!" exclaimed Russ, with exasperation. "You know that nice Black Bear would not hurt them. And, anyway, I guess that baby was only a doll. That is what that soldier said when you told him about it. He said it was Mr. Props' rag baby."
"Who do you suppose Mr. Props is?" asked Rose. "And Mrs. Props? It must have been Mrs. Props we saw holding the—er—baby. For maybe it was a real baby."
Russ saw there was no use in arguing on this point. He urged his calico pony forward and Pinky followed promptly. The two Bunkers went along the trail past the cabin and up the next slope. They struck into a woodsy sort of road then, and by and by the children saw that the trail was leading them to a ravine between two steep hills. There was much shrubbery, so they could not see very clearly what was before them, but as they continued to ride onthere came suddenly a lot of noise from the ravine. Horses whinnied, men shouted, and two or three guns were discharged.
"Oh! It's a fight, Russ!" shrieked Rose. "Do come away!"
But Russ had seen something that interested him very much. Among the bushes on one side of the ravine he saw several Indians creeping. They wore feathers in their scalp-locks, and had bows and arrows and guns. He did not see Black Bear with this company of Indians, but they were acting just as though they were fighting somebody down in the bottom of the ravine.
"It's an—an ambush, Rose!" cried Russ excitedly. "Oh! There's a man with a machine——"
In fact he saw two men with boxes on tripods, standing side-by-side and not many yards away in the trail. The men were turning cranks on the sides of the boxes.
Another man turned and saw the Bunker children apparently riding nearer. He started back toward them, shouted and waved his arms.
"Oh, dear me!" shrieked Rose. "It's—it'sdynamite! They are going to blow up something! Come, Russ!"
She twitched at Pinky's bridle, and the pony swerved about and plunged away at such a fast pace that poor Rose could only cling to the bridle and saddle and cry. But Russ remained where he was. He was greatly amazed, but slowly a comprehension of the whole thing was forming in the boy's mind.
"It's—it's only make-believe," Russ Bunker told himself. "They are not doing anything dangerous. It's a—a play, that's what it is. Why, those men have got moving picture cameras!
"Oh, I know what the surprise is now—Mr. Cowboy Jack's surprise! It's a moving picture company!" said Russ Bunker aloud. "They are make-believe soldiers, even if Black Bear and his people are real Indians. They are making moving pictures—that is what they are doing, Rose."
But when he turned in his saddle to look for Rose, the girl and Pinky had completely disappeared.
"My goodness!" said Russ, somewhat alarmed, "she's so frightened that she has runback home. Maybe she will fall off the pony."
Much as he would have liked to remain to watch the actors and the Indians make the picture on which they were at work, Russ felt it his duty to see that Rose was all right. If anything happened to Rose daddy and mother might blame Russ, because he was the oldest.
The pinto pony cantered away with Russ at quite a fast pace. He kept to the wagon-trail that led back to Cowboy Jack's ranch house. And at every turn Russ expected to see Pinky and Rose ahead.
But he did not see his sister on Laddie's pony. He came in sight of the big house, and even then he did not see her. So, when the pinto stopped before the big veranda and Mother Bunker and the other children appeared, Russ could scarcely find voice enough to ask:
"Oh, Mother! have you seen Rose? Did she come back alone?"
"Rose? I have not seen her since you both rode away together. Do you mean to say——" Then Mother Bunker saw that Russ was having hard work to keep back the tears and she—wise woman that she was—knew that this was no time to scold the boy.
"Where did she go? When did you lose her?" his mother cried, running down the steps.
"Back—back where they are making the moving picture," gasped Russ. "She was scared by the Indians shooting at the whites. But, of course, they were only making believe. And—and Rose rode away somewhere and—and—oh, Mother! I can't find her."
Rose had seen men digging and blasting at home in Pineville for the new sewer system; so when the moving picture man had run back toward her and Russ to warn them not to get into the field of the camera, Rose had thought a charge of dynamite was about to be exploded.
Although the man who warned them did not wave a red flag, dynamite was all Rose could think of. The appearance of the Indians on the hillside, in any case, frightened her, and she was quite ready to yield to panic. As we have seen, she twitched Pinky, the pony, around by his bridle-rein, and the spirited pony proceeded to gallop away.
Rose did not pay any attention to where Pinky was going. And Pinky did not remain on the trail by which the brother and sister had traveled from Cowboy Jack's ranch.
Pinky was very anxious to go, but where hewent he did not care. He left the trail almost at once and cantered through a pasture where the scattered clumps of brush and greasewood soon hid him and his rider from the sight of anybody on the wagon-trail. At least, they were quite hidden from Russ Bunker when he rode back to look for his sister.
Rose did not at first worry at all about where she was or where Pinky was taking her. She listened for the expected "boom!" of the dynamite explosion. But as minute after minute passed and the explosion did not come, Rose began to wonder if she had made a mistake.
Pinky kept right on moving, just as though he knew where he was going and wished to get there shortly. But when Rose looked around she knew she had never been in this place before. And, too, she discovered that Russ had not followed her.
This last discovery made Rose pull up the pony and think. It alarmed her. She was not often frightened when Russ was by, although she had given way to fright on this particular occasion. But she knew she would not have been afraid had her brother been right here with her.
As it was, Rose was very much frightened indeed. She did not know where Russ was, nor did she know where she was. Therefore it was positive that she was lost!
Now, Pinky was a very intelligent pony, as was afterward proved. You will read all about it later. But he could not know that Rose wished him to find his way home unless she told him as much. And that Rose did not do.
She just burst out crying, and the pony had no idea what that meant. He turned to look at her, tossed his head and pawed with one dainty hoof. But he did not understand of course that the girl on his back was crying because she was lost and was afraid.
Perhaps, too, if Rose had let the bridle-reins alone Pinky would have remembered the corral and his oats and have started back without being told that the ranch house was the thing Rose Bunker most wanted to see. But the little girl thought she had to guide the pony; so she grabbed up the reins at last and said:
"Come up, Pinky! We have just got to go somewhere. Go on!"
Pinky naturally went on the way he was headed, and that chanced to be in a directionaway from Cowboy Jack's home, where the Bunkers were then visiting. Nor did the pony bear her toward the place where the moving picture company was at work.
They went on, and noon came, and both Pinky and the little girl were hungry and thirsty.
Pinky smelled water—or saw it. He insisted on starting off to one side of the narrow trail they had been following.
Rose was afraid to leave that trail, for it seemed to her that a path along which people had ridden enough to make a deep rut in the sward must be a path that was more or less used all the time. She expected to meet somebody by sticking to this path, or else come to a house.
But here was a shallow stream, and Pinky insisted on trotting down to it and wading right in.
The water was cool, and the pony cooled his feet in it as well as his nose. He had jerked the reins out of Rose's hands when he had sunk his nose in the water, and she had no way of controlling him.
"You bad, bad Pinky!" cried Rose, leaningdown, clinging with one hand to his mane and reached with the other hand to seize the reins. But she could not reach them. She lost her stirrups. She slipped forward off the saddle and upon the pony's neck.
At this Pinky was startled. He tried to scramble out of the brook. He stepped on a stone that rolled. And then he staggered and half fell and over his head and right into the middle of the brook flew Rose Bunker! It was a most astonishing overturn, to say nothing of the danger of it.
Splash went Rose into a pool of water! But worse than getting wet was the fact that one of her ankles came in contact with a stone, and the pain of the hurt made Rose scream aloud. Oh, that knock did so hurt the little girl!
"Now! Now see what—what you've done!" cried Rose, when she could speak. "You naughty, naughty Pinky!"
Pinky had snorted and run a few steps up the bank. Now he was grazing contentedly—not trying to run away from the little girl at all, but quite inconsiderate of her, just the same. He let Rose sit on the edge of the brook, with her hurt foot in the water, crying as hardas she could cry, and he acted as though he had no interest in Rose at all!
At least, he acted this way until he had got his fill of grass. Then he trotted back to the brook for another drink. He did not come very near Rose, who had crawled up out of the water and sat rocking herself too and fro and nursing her hurt ankle. It was so badly wrenched that the little girl could not bear her weight upon that foot. She had tried it and found out "for sure."
Otherwise she might easily have caught Pinky, for the pony was tame enough in spite of his being spirited. But she could not walk far enough to catch the pony; and then she could not have jumped up into the saddle.
Pinky got tired of looking at her, perhaps. Anyway, after drinking again he wandered up from the brook and once more fell to grazing. But he was not hungry now, and he remembered the corral at the ranch house. Besides, something moved behind a clump of brush and startled him.
The pony threw up his head and snorted. His ears pointed forward and he looked questioningly at the clump of brush. The creaturebehind the bushes moved again, and at that Pinky dashed away, whistling his alarm. Rose saw him go, but she could not stop him. And fortunately, for the time being, she did not know what had frightened the pony and sent him off at so quick a pace. He disappeared, and with his going it seemed to Rose that her last thread of attachment to the big ranch house and Daddy and Mother Bunker was broken.
When Pinky was out of sight and sound Rose stopped crying. In fact, she stood up and did try to hobble a few steps after him. For Rose was wise enough to see that the pony had probably started for home, and in that same direction lay her best path too.
But she really could not limp far nor fast. The clumps of brush soon hid the pony, as we have said. And then poor Rose heard the same sound in the scrub that Pinky had heard!
"Oh! what is that?" breathed the little girl.
She had not thought of any danger from wild animals before this time, for it was broad daylight. And what this thing could be——
Then she caught a glimpse of it! It was of a sunburned yellow color, and it slunk behind a bush and seemed to be crouching there, hiding, quite as much afraid of Rose as Rose was of it. She saw its dusty tail flattened out on the ground. But whether it was frightened or was preparing to charge out upon her, the little Bunker girl could not tell and was greatly terrified.
She was just as frightened, indeed, as all the people at Cowboy Jack's ranch house were when Pinky, the runaway pony, cantered into view with nobody on his back. Cowboy Jack and daddy were already mounted on ponies, and Russ had refused to remain at home. He wanted to aid in the search for Rose.
"I can show them just where we were when Rose turned back," he said to Mother Bunker. "And then Cowboy Jack ought to be able to follow Rose."
"I hope so," agreed his mother.
Then she, as well as the little folks, shouted aloud at the appearance of the cantering Pinky.
"He's thrown the girl off!" exclaimed the ranchman. "Or else she has tumbled off. And it was some time ago, too. Come on, Charlie Bunker! I'm going to get Black Bear and his Injuns to help us look for her."
"Oh, Mr. Scarbontiskil!" murmured Mrs.Bunker, "is there anything out there in the wilderness to hurt her—by day?"
"Not a thing, Ma'am—not a thing bigger or savager than a jackrabbit," declared Cowboy Jack.
"But I wonder where the pony left her?" queried Mr. Bunker.
"Ask him, Daddy—ask him," urged Laddie eagerly. "He's an awful intelligent pony."
Pinky had been halted before the group at the ranch house. Daddy Bunker said again:
"I wonder if he could show us where he left Rose?"
And when he spoke Pinky began to nod his head up and down and paw with one hoof. The children were delighted—even Russ.
"Oh! I believe he is trying to explain," Russ cried. "Ask him another question, Daddy."
Mr. Bunker laughed rather grimly. "Let Vi ask the pony questions; she can think of them faster than I can. Or let Laddie ask him a riddle. There is no time to experiment with ponies now."
He and Cowboy Jack started away from the ranch house, and Russ, for fear of being left behind, urged his pinto after them.
He felt very much frightened because of Rose's absence. And he felt, too, as though it might be his fault, although none of the older people had suggested such a thing. Still, Russ knew that he ought to be beside his sister right now!
Rose had, of course, heard of coyotes. She had heard them talked about here at Cowboy Jack's ranch. But she had not caught a glimpse of one before. Nor did she know this slinking creature behind the bushes was that animal which ranchmen consider such a pest.
Although coyotes are very cowardly by nature and will seldom attack human beings, even if starving or enraged, the beasts do kill young calves and lambs and raid the ranch hen-houses just as foxes do in the East.
Besides, on the open range, the coyotes howl and whine all night, keeping everybody in camp awake; so the cowboys have a strong dislike for Mr. Coyote and have not a single good word to say for him. Indeed, the coyote seems to possess few good traits.
But Rose Bunker called the creature that had startled her a dog.
"If I could run I know that dog would chase me!" she sobbed. "I wonder who it belongs to? It must be a runaway dog, to be away out here where there are no houses. I'm afraid of that dog."
For this Rose was not to be much blamed. This was a strange country to her, and almost everything she saw was different from what she was used to back in Pennsylvania. Even the trees and bushes were different. And she never had seen a dog just like that tawny one that dragged itself behind the hedge of bushes.
The strange part of it was—the thing that frightened Rose most—was that the animal seemed trying to hide from her. And yet she felt that it must be dangerous, for it was big and had long legs. She was quite right in supposing that if she had undertaken to run, under ordinary circumstances, the animal could have overtaken her.
But Rose's ankle throbbed and ached, and she cried out whenever she rested that foot upon the ground. She just couldn't run! So she began cajoling the supposed dog, hoping thatit was not as savage as she really feared it was. One thing, it did not growl as bad dogs often did, as Rose Bunker very well knew.
"Come, doggy! Nice doggy!" she cooed. And then she was suddenly afraid that it really would come! If it had leaped up and started toward Rose the little girl would have fallen right down—she knew she would!
But the yellow-looking creature only tried to creep farther under the scrubby bushes. Rose began to think that maybe it was more afraid of her than she was of it.
"Poor doggy!" she said, hobbling around the end of the hedge of scrubby bushes.
There she saw its head and forepaws. And it was not until then that she discovered what was the matter with the coyote. Its right fore paw was fast in a steel trap. A chain hung from the trap. It had broken the chain and hobbled away with the trap—no knowing how far it had come.
"The poor thing!" Rose said again, at once pitying the coyote more than she was afraid of it.
Yet when it saw the little girl looking at him it clashed its great jaws and grinned at hermost wickedly. It was not a pleasant thing to look at.
"But he is hurt, and 'fraid, I suppose," Rose murmured. "Why! he's just as lame as I am. I guess his foot hurts him in that awful trap a good deal more than my ankle hurts me. The poor thing!"
The coyote was evidently quite exhausted. It probably had come a good way with that trap fastened to its paw. But it showed Rose all its teeth, and they did look very sharp to the little girl.
"I would not want him to snap at me," thought Rose. "And if I went near enough I guess he would snap. I'll keep away from the poor dog, for I would not dare try to get the trap off his foot."
She moved away; but she kept the crouching coyote in sight. She did not like to feel that it was following her without her seeing it do so. And the coyote seemed to feel that it wanted to keep her in sight. For it raised its head and watched her with unwinking eyes.
This incident had given Rose something to think about besides her own lost state and her lame ankle. The latter was not paining asbadly as at first. Still, she did not feel that she could hobble far. And she was not quite sure now in which direction Pinky, the pony, had run. She really did not know which way to go.
"It is funny Russ didn't come after me," thought the little girl. "Maybe those Indians got him. But, then, there was the white man. I thought he was setting off dynamite. But there wasn't any explosion. I guess I ran away too quick. But Russ might have followed me, I should think."
She could not quite bring herself to blame her difficulties on Russ, however, for she very well knew that her own panic had brought her here. Russ had been brave enough to stay. Russ was always brave. And then, she had blindly ridden off the trail and come to this place.
"I guess I won't say Russ did it," she decided. "It wouldn't be so. And I expect right now he is hunting for me, and is worried 'most to death about where I am. And daddy—and Mother Bunker! I guess they will want to know where I've got to. This—this is just dreadful. Maybe I shall have to stay here days and days! And what shall I ever eat, ifI do? And I haven't even any bed out here!"
The lost girl felt pretty bad. It seemed to her, now that she thought more about it, that she was very ill used. Russ did not usually desert her when she was in trouble. And Rose Bunker felt that she was in very serious trouble now.
She sat down again in plain view of the lame coyote and cried a few more tears. But what was the use of crying when there was nobody here to care? The lame coyote had its own troubles, and although it watched her, it did not care a thing about her.
"He is only afraid I might do something to hurt him," thought Rose. "And I wouldn't do a thing to hurt the poor doggy. I wonder if he is thirsty?"
The stream of water into which Rose had tumbled from Pinky's back was only a few yards away, and perhaps the wounded coyote had been trying to get to it before the little girl and the pony came to this place. But the animal was too wary to go down to drink while Rose was in sight. And fortunately there was nothing Rose could take water to the coyote in. For she certainly would have tried to dothat, if she could. She was just that tender-hearted.
But it would have been unwise, for the coyote's teeth were as sharp as they looked to be, and it would not have understood that the little girl merely wished to help.
Rose sat and watched the beast, and the lame coyote crouched under the bushes and watched her, and it grew into mid-afternoon. Rose felt very sad indeed. She did not see how she could walk back to the ranch house, even if she knew the way. And she could not understand why Russ did not come for her.
Meanwhile Russ was urging his pinto pony as fast as he could after Cowboy Jack and Daddy Bunker. They followed the regular wagon-track through the valley and over the ridge which had now become quite familiar to the little boy. They passed the cabin by the stream and then came to the knoll from which that morning Russ and Rose had seen the moving picture cameras.
But neither those machines nor the men who worked them nor the Indians on the hillside were now in sight. Cowboy Jack, however, seemed to know just where to find the movingpicture company, for he kept right on into the ravine.
"I reckon this is about where you saw the Indians and the camera men, Son?" the ranchman said to Russ.
"Yes, sir," said Russ. "But Rose left me right on this hill. I thought she went back——"
"I didn't notice any place where she left the trail," interposed Cowboy Jack. "But I reckon Black Bear can find where she went. You have to hand it to those Injuns. They can see trailmarks that a white man wouldn't notice. And going to college didn't spoil Black Bear for a trail-hunter."
"He is quite a wonderful young man," Daddy Bunker said.
But Russ was only thinking about his sister. He wondered where she could have gone and what had happened to her. Pinky's coming back to the ranch alone made Russ believe that something very terrible had happened to his sister.
He urged his pinto pony on after the ranchman and daddy, however, and they all entered the ravine. It was a very wild place—just thesort of place, Russ thought, where savage Indians might have lain in wait for unfortunate white people. He was very glad that Black Bear's people were quite tame. At least, they could not be accused of having run away with Rose.
In a few minutes Cowboy Jack had led them up through the ravine and out upon what he called a mesa. There were patches of woods, plenty of grass that was not much frost-bitten, and a big spring near which a number of ponies were picketed. There was a traveling kitchen, such as the Army used in the World War. Men in white caps and jackets were very busy about the kitchen helping the moving picture company to hot food.
And the actors and Indians were all squatting very pleasantly side by side eating and talking. The Indians wore their war-paint, but they had drawn on their shirts or else had blankets around their shoulders. Russ saw Black Bear almost at once. He stood talking with some of the white men—notably with the one who was the commander of the soldiers, the man with the plume in his hat.
But it seemed that a little man sitting on acampchair off to one side and talking to a man who had a lot of papers in his hands was the most important person in view. It was to this man that Cowboy Jack led the way.
"That is Mr. Habback, the director," Russ heard the ranchman tell daddy. "We must get him to let us have Black Bear, or somebody."
The next moment he hailed the moving picture director.
"Can you spare some of your Injuns for an hour?" asked Cowboy Jack. "There's a little girl lost, and I reckon an Injun can find her trail better than any of my cholos or punchers. How about Black Bear?"
The young Indian whose name he had mentioned came towards the group at once. Mr. Habback looked up at Chief Black Bear.
"Hear what this Texas longhorn says, Chief?" he said to the Indian. "A little girl lost somewhere."
"I can show you about where she left the trail," explained the ranchman earnestly.
"Was she over at my wikiup the other evening?" asked Black Bear, with interest.
"She—she's my sister," broke in Russ anxiously. "And she was scared by your Indianplay, and the pony must have run away with her."
"Hullo!" said Chief Black Bear. "I remember you, too, youngster. So your sister is lost?"
"Well, we can't find her," said Russ Bunker.
"I will go along with them, Mr. Habback," said the Indian chief, glancing down at the director. "I'll take Little Elk with me. You won't need us for a couple of hours, will you?"
"It's all right," said the director. "Go ahead. We can't afford to lose a little girl around here, that is sure."
"You bet we can't," put in Cowboy Jack. "Little girls are scarce in this part of the country."
Black Bear spoke to one of his men, who hurried to get two ponies. The Indians leaped upon the bare backs of the ponies and rode them just as safely as the white people rode in their saddles. This interested Russ a great deal, and he wondered if Black Bear would teach him how to ride Indian style.
But this was not the time to speak of such a thing. Rose must be found. For all theyknew the little girl might be in serious trouble—she might be needing them right then!
The two Indians and the ranchman and Daddy Bunker started back through the ravine. None of them was more worried over Rose's disappearance than was Russ. He urged his pinto pony after the older people at the very fastest pace he could ride.
Rose had now been so long alone that she was beginning to fear she never would see Mother Bunker and daddy and her brothers and sisters again. And this was an awful thought.
But she had already cried so much that it was an effort for her to squeeze out another tear. So she just sat on a stump and sniffed, watching the lame coyote.
Rose pitied that coyote. If he was as thirsty as she was hungry, the little girl feared the poor animal must be suffering greatly. For it was long past noon and breakfast at the ranch house was served early.
"I guess I'll have to begin to eat leaves and grass," murmured Rose Bunker. "I suppose I can wash them down with water, and there is plenty of water in the brook. Only the poor, doggy can't get to it."
While she was thinking these things, and feeling very miserable indeed, she suddenly heard the ring of horses' hoofs on the stones in the brook. Rose sprang up in great excitement, for she did not know what this new trouble might be.
Then——
"Oh, Daddy Bunker! Russ!" she shrieked, and began to hobble toward the cavalcade that had ridden down from the other side of the stream of water.
"Rose!" cried daddy. "Are you hurt, child?"
"Well, Iwashurt. But my foot's pretty near well now. Only Pinky ran away and left me after I tumbled out of the saddle—Oh! Wait! Look out and don't scare off the poor lame doggy."
This last she cried when she looked back at the coyote trying to scramble farther into the bushes. But the chain hitched to the trap had caught over a stub, and the poor brute could not get far. Cowboy Jack drew from his saddle holster the pistol he usually carried when he was out on the range; but Rose screamed out again when she saw that.
"Don't hurt the poor doggy, Mr. Cowboy Jack! He can't get away."
"Jumping grasshoppers!" muttered the ranchman, "does she think that coyote is a dog?"
"She evidently does," Black Bear replied. "He can't get away. I'll tell Little Elk to stay back and fix him. No use scaring the child. Lucky the brute was fast in that trap. He might have done her harm."
Rose did not hear this, but Russ did. And he was quite old enough to understand his sister had been in danger while she remained here near the coyote. Besides, it would have been cruel to have left the wounded animal to die miserably alone. He could not be cured, so he would have to be shot.
This incident of the coyote made a deeper impression upon the mind of Russ than it did on his sister's. He quite understood that, had the animal been more savage or had it been free of the trap, it might have seriously injured Rose. There were perils out here on the open ranges that they must never lose sight of—possibilities of getting into trouble that at first Russ Bunker had not dreamed about.It made Russ feel as though never again would he let any of the younger children go anywhere alone while they remained at Cowboy Jack's.
Rose prattled a good deal to Daddy Bunker about the "lame dog" as they all rode back to the ranch house. But Russ was more interested in hearing about the moving picture company's camp and what they were doing. Black Bear told the little boy some things he wished to know, including the fact that the Indians and the other actors were making a picture about olden times on the plains, and that it was called "A Romance of the Santa Fé Trail."
"I should think it would be a lot of fun to make pictures," Russ said. "Do you think we Bunkers could get a chance to act in it, Chief Black Bear?"
"I don't know about that," laughed the Indian. "I shall have to ask Mr. Habback, the director. Maybe he can use you children in the scene at the old fort where the soldiers and frontiersmen are hemmed in by the Indians. Of course, there were children in the fort at the time of the attack."
"It—it isn't going to be a real fight, is it?" asked Russ, rather more doubtfully.
"It has got to look like a real fight, or Mr. Habback will not be satisfied, I can tell you."
"But suppose—suppose," stammered Russ, "your Indians should forget and really turn savage?"
"Not a chance of that," laughed Black Bear. "I have hard enough work making them take their parts seriously. They are more likely to think it is funny and spoil the shot."
"Then they don't ever feel like turning savage and fighting the white folks in earnest?" asked Russ.
"You don't feel like turning savage and fighting red men do you?" asked Black Bear, with a serious face.
"Oh, no!" cried Russ, shaking his head.
"Then, why should we red people want to fight you? You will be perfectly safe if you come down to see us make the fort scene," the Indian chief assured him.
So Russ got back to the ranch house full to the lips with the idea of acting in the moving picture. Rose's ankle had only been twisted a little, and she was perfectly able to walk the next day. But Mother Bunker would not hear to the children going far from the house afterthat without daddy or herself being with them.
"I believe our six little Bunkers can get into more adventures than any other hundred children," she said earnestly. "To think of that coyote being there with Rose for hours!"
"If he had not been in the trap he would have run away from her fast enough," returned Daddy Bunker.
Just the same he, too, felt that the children would better not get far out of their sight. They could play with the ponies about the house, for the fields were mostly unfenced. And the ponies were certainly great play-fellows. Laddie was sure that Pinky was a most intelligent horse.
"If we had known just how to talk to him," declared Laddie, "I am sure he would have told us all about Rose and where he had left her that day."
"Maybe he would," said Rose, though she spoke rather doubtfully. "But I slipped right out of that saddle, and I am not going to ride him any more. I would rather drive Brownie hitched to the cart."
"You mean Dinah, don't you?" asked Margy.
"I guess she means Cute," said Vi.
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" cried Mun Bun. "Letmename that pony. I want to call him Jerry. I want to call him after our Jerry Simms at home in Pineville."
And this was finally agreed upon. All the Bunker children liked Jerry Simms, who had been the very first person to tell them stories about the army and about this great West that they had come to.
"I guess Jerry Simms would have known all about this moving picture the soldiers and Mr. Black Bear's Indians are making," Russ remarked. "And mayn't we all go and act in it, Daddy?"
Russ talked so much about this that finally Mrs. Bunker agreed to go with the children to see the representation of the Indian attack on the fort. The six little Bunkers looked forward to this exciting proposal for several days, and when Mr. Habback sent word that the scene was ready to "shoot," as he called it, the children could scarcely contain themselves until the party started from the ranch house.
It was to be a grand picnic, for they took cooked food and a tent for Mother Bunker and the children to sleep in. Russ and Laddie rodetheir ponies, and all the rest of the party crowded into one of Cowboy Jack's big blue automobiles when they set out for a distant part of the ranch.
"I know we'll have just a bully time," declared Russ Bunker. "It will be the best adventure we've ever had."
But even Russ did not dream of all the exciting things that were to happen on that picnic.