"Oh, lift me up! Lift me up!" cried Laddie, running to the other saddle pony.
Cowboy Jack strode down and did so. Meanwhile Rose and the other children were scrambling into the pony-cart, while the pony which drew it tossed its head and looked around as though counting the number of passengers that were getting aboard.
"Isn't he just cute?" cried Rose again. "Oh, Mr. Cowboy Jack! you are so good to us."
"Got to be," said the ranchman, laughing. "I haven't any little folks of my own, so I have to treat those I find around here pretty well, I do say."
Laddie clung to both the pommel and the bridle-reins at first, for he did seem so high from the ground at first. But Russ trotted away on his pony very securely. Russ had ridden quite a little at Uncle Fred's ranch and had not forgotten how.
Rose decided that she liked better to drive. But Vi must learn to drive, too, she said. And even Margy and Mun Bun clamored to hold the reins over the back of the sleepy brown pony. Russ's mount was what Cowboy Jack called a pinto, but Russ said it was a calico pony. He had seen them marked that way before—in the circus. Laddie's pony was all white, with pinkish nose and ears. Right at the start Laddie called him "Pinky." But the little girls could not agree on a name for the pony that drew their cart.
There seemed to be so many nice names that just fitted him! Margy wanted to call him Dinah after her lost doll.
"But that Dinah-doll was black," said Rose, in objection. "And this pony is brown. Maybe we ought to call him Brownie."
"Oh! I know!" cried Vi. "Let's call him Cute. He's just as cunning as he can be."
But this name did not appeal to the others, and they were no nearer finding a name for the brown pony when the ride was over and they all came back to the ranch house than at first. They had had so much fun, however, that they had forgotten for the time being the mystery of the Indians and soldiers whom they had seen the day before.