Six little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's

by Laura Lee Hope

"Is it my pin?" he wanted to know. "My stick-pin that I left at Grand View, Mother? Is it?"

There certainly was great excitement in the room until Mother Bunker opened the box. And there lay in cotton-wool the missing watch and stick-pin. Captain Ben had hunted a second time for the lost treasures the little Bunkers had so carelessly left behind, and had found the watch and pin.

Rose and Laddie were so delighted that they could only laugh and dance about for a few minutes. But Vi was rather disappointed that it was not, after all, a present for Mother Bunker.

It was quite late before the little Bunkers could get settled in their beds that night. That is, all but Mun Bun. He fell asleep in Mother Bunker's lap and did not know much about what went on.

Rose and Laddie promised not to lose their treasures again. And, of course, they had not meant to leave the watch and pin behind at Grand View. But daddy told them that thoughtlessness always bred trouble and disappointment.

"Like Mun Bun getting into the Indian's trunk," said Vi seriously. "He made us a lot of trouble to-day."

Mun Bun made them no more trouble while they remained on the ranch, for Mother Bunker and Rose were especially careful in watching him. The little boy did not mean to get lost; but Cowboy Jack laughingly said that Mun Bun seemed to have that habit.

"Some day you folks are going to mislay that boy and won't find him so easily. I tell you, he is a regular drop of quicksilver."

But after that, although the six little Bunkers had plenty of fun at Cowboy Jack's, they had no dangerous adventure. They rode and drove the ponies, and played with the dogs, and watched the cowboys herd the cattle and some of the men train horses to saddle-work that had never been ridden before and did not seem to like the idea at all of carrying people on their backs.

"It is lucky Pinky and your calico pony don't mind carrying us," Laddie remarked on one occasion to Russ. "I guess if they pitched like those big horses do, they would throw us right over their heads on to the ground."