"My goodness!" she whispered to Russ, "Mun Bun must hear that—or else he has gone a very long way off."
But Mun Bun was not a long way off. He was quite near. And after Cowboy Jack had shouted a second time all the other Bunkers, and the ranchman himself, heard a small voice respond—Mun Bun's voice.
"Here I is!" said the small voice. "I'm here—here!"
"I'd like to know where 'here' is," cried Cowboy Jack in his great voice. "If Mun Bun's up in the air I don't see his aeroplane; and if he's dug himself in like a prairie dog I don't see the mouth of his hole. And to be sure he isn't in this field——"
"Oh, yes, he is!" exclaimed Russ Bunker, suddenly diving for a great heap of tumble-weed against the wire fence. "Anyway, here is his voice, Mr. Cowboy Jack."
"Bring out his voice and let's see it," commanded the big ranchman.
The others began to laugh at that, but Mun Bun did not laugh. He had not had his sleep out and did not like being waked up. The ranchman's loud shout had aroused the little fellow, and when he found himself under the heap of scratchy, sticky weeds he did not like that either.
But Russ pulled the weeds away in a hurry. The wind had rolled a great bunch of the dead weeds upon Mun Bun and had quite hidden him from sight.
"Like the Babes in the Wood," said Rose thoughtfully. "Only the robins covered them up with leaves."
"I'm not a baby," complained Mun Bun. "And robins didn't cover me. It was nasty old dry grass things, and they've got prickers on them."