Teddy thought for a few moments. Playing out at Uncle Frank's ranch was different from playing at home. In some ways it was not so easy, for at home if the Curly-tops could not think up any way to have fun by themselves, they could run down the street and find some other boys and girls. But here there were no streets, and no other boys or girls unless Teddy and Janet went a long way to look for them, and they could not do that.
"I know what we can do," said Teddy, after a while. "We can get some blankets and cookies and play cowboy."
"How can you play cowboy with cookies and blankets?"
"I'll show you," Teddy answered, as he went into the house to get the things he wanted. He soon came out with some old quilts and the cookies, which were in a paper bag.
"Now," went on Janet's brother, "We'll go off on the prairie and make believe it's night and we have to stay out like the cowboys when they went after Uncle Frank's horses."
"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Janet, and then she and Ted rolled themselves up in the old quilts and pretended to go to sleep on the soft grass of the prairie, making believe it was night, though of course it was not, for the sun was shining. 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.