Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Freds | Page 9

Rose. "I love ponies!"
"Yes, I'll tell about them, too," said her uncle. "And if you come out West with me you shall have some rides on ponies."
"Really, truly?" gasped Rose.
"Oh, won't that be fun!" cried Vi. "What color are ponies? And what makes them be called ponies? I should think they would be called pawnies, 'cause they paw the ground. And how many have you, Uncle Fred?"
"Oh, Vi! Not so many questions, my dear! Please!" exclaimed her mother, laughing. "Uncle Fred won't get a chance to tell any story if you talk so much. You are a regular chatterbox to-night."
"Wait until you get out West. It's so big there you can talk all day and night and bother no one," said Uncle Fred. "But now I'll tell you about my ranch.
"As I mentioned, it is near Moon City, in Montana. That is a good many miles from here, and around my house are big fields, where the cattle roam about and eat the grass.
"A ranch, you must know, little Bunkers, is just a big farm. But instead of raising apples and peaches and pears, hay, grain or chickens on my ranch, I raise cattle. Cows you might call them, though we speak of them as cattle. Some men raise horses on their ranches, but though I have some horses and ponies, I have more cattle than anything else.
"I have to keep a number of men to look after the cattle. These men are called cowboys, and they ride about the ranch on horses, or cow ponies, and see that the cattle are all right, that they get enough to eat and drink, and that no one takes them away."
"What do the Indians do?" asked Russ. "Tell us about them."
"Well, some of the Indians farm," said Uncle Fred. "Some of them make baskets and other things to sell to travelers who come through on the trains, but many of them just live a lazy life. They are on what is called a Reservation--that is land which the government has set aside for them."
"Do Indians come to your ranch?" asked Laddie. "And could I lasso any of 'em with a rope lasso like I saw in some pictures?"
"Well, sometimes Indians do come to Three Star," answered Uncle Fred. "But I don't believe any of them would like to be lassoed."
"What's this I hear about your having trouble?" asked Daddy Bunker.
"Well, yes, I have been having trouble," answered Uncle Fred. "And, as usual, my trouble is like that a lot of ranchers have. Some one has been taking my cattle."
"Didn't you want them to?" asked Russ.
"No, indeed," answered his uncle. "I raise my cattle to sell, so I can make money to pay my cowboys and live on some of it myself. If bad men take my cattle away in the night, as they do, without paying me, I lose money. And that's why I came on East here."
"Surely you didn't come all the way from Moon City to find out who was taking your cattle at Three Star Ranch!" exclaimed Mother Bunker.
"Oh, no. The men who are doing that are right out there. I've left some of my cowboys to attend to them," answered Uncle Fred. "What I came on for, besides getting you to go back with me, is to get some books about springs and streams of water, and also to talk with some engineers about a queer spring on my ranch."
"What sort of queer spring?" asked Daddy Bunker. "I thought all springs were alike."
"Well, I s'pose they are, in that they have water in 'em," said Uncle Fred. "But mine isn't that kind. Sometimes it has water in it, and again it hasn't."
"What do you mean?" asked his sister. "Does the spring go dry? That used to happen to the spring where we lived when we were children. Don't you remember, Fred?"
"Yes, but that spring only went dry when there was no rain--say in a dry, hot summer. The spring on Three Star Ranch goes dry sometimes in the middle of a rainy season."
"What makes it?" asked Daddy Bunker.
"That's what I came on to find out about," replied Uncle Fred. "None of my cowboys can tell what makes it, and the Indians are puzzled, too. It's like one of Laddie's riddles, I guess."
"That's what we thought about the ghost at Great Hedge," said Mrs. Bunker. "But we finally found out what it was, and very simple it was, too. Perhaps this spring of yours will turn out the same way."
"Well, I hope it does," said her brother. "All I know is that sometimes the spring will be full of fine water. We use it for drinking at the ranch house and for watering some of the horses. The cattle drink at a creek that runs through my place. That