Then they ate the
cookies, pretending they were bacon, sandwiches, cake and other
things that cowboys like.
Two or three days later Uncle Frank and the cowboys went out again
to look for the Indians, but they did not find them. From other
ranches word came of cattle and horses that had been stolen; and more
cowboys were hired to keep watch over the animals that had to be left
out in the big fields to eat their fill of grass. No barn was large
enough to hold them.
Meanwhile Teddy and Janet were learning how to ride better each day.
They could go quite fast now, though they were not allowed to make
their ponies gallop except on ground where Uncle Frank knew there
were no holes in which the animals might stumble.
Sometimes Daddy and Mother Martin went to ride with the children,
and then they had good times together, taking their lunch and staying
all day out on the prairie or in a shady grove of trees.
One day Ted and Janet saw some cowboys driving a number of ponies to
the corral near the ranch buildings. Some of the animals were quite
wild and went racing about as though they would like to run far off
and not come back.
But the cowboys knew how to take care of the ponies. They rode
around them, keeping them together in a bunch, and if one started to
get away the cowboys would fire their revolvers and yell, so the pony
would become frightened and turn back.
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