"Oh, look, Ted!" she cried, pointing.
"It's water—a little river!" he exclaimed. "The ponies have led us to water!"
And so the animals had. Teddy and Janet slipped from their ponies' backs at the edge of the stream and then Star Face and Clipclap took long drinks. Ted emptied the canteen, filled it with the cooler water, and he and Janet drank again. Then they felt much better.
The ponies again began to crop the grass. The Curlytops, very tired and sleepy, felt that it would be all right to make their bed in the blanket they had found, dropped by some passing cowboy.
But first Ted looked around. Off to one side, and along the stream from which they had drunk, he saw something dark looming up.
"Look, Janet," he said. "Maybe that's a ranch house over there, and we could go in for the night."
"Maybe," she agreed. "Let's go to it."
Once more they mounted their ponies. The animals did not seem so tired now, but trotted on over the prairie. They drew nearer to the dark blotch Teddy had noticed.
Then, as the moon came out from behind some clouds, the Curlytops saw that they were at the entrance to a hidden valley—a little valley tucked away among the hills, which they would never have seen had they not come to the stream to drink.
The little river ran through the valley, and in the moonlight the children could see that a fence had been made at the end nearest them. It was a wooden fence, and not one of barbed wire, such as there were many of on Ring Rosy Ranch.