But Vi was leaning against her mother's knee and her eyes were fast closed. She had gone to sleep in the middle of the talk about the riddle.
"It's time for all little folks to go to bed," said Mother Bunker.
So none of the six little Bunkers saw the surprise that night. But they had not forgotten it when morning came again. The six little Bunkers never forgot anything that was promised them!
While they were all at breakfast there was a great deal of noise outside—whooping and shouting and the like—that startled the children. But their mother would not let them leave the table to find out about it until breakfast was over. They heard, too, the pounding of ponies' hoofs, and then caught sight through the windows of a company of pony riders galloping by and off across the plain.
"Cowboys!" cried Russ. "I guess we'd better go back and put on our cowboy suits, Laddie."
The smaller boy was just as eager as Russ to get out and see the pony riders. As soon as they could honestly say they had eaten enough, Mother Bunker excused them all. But when they got outside upon the broad veranda at the front of the great house, the cowboys had disappeared.
There was something else in sight, however, that astonished the children more than the cowboys could, for they had expected to see them. Traveling across the plain some distance from the house was a procession that made all the little Bunkers shout aloud.
"What's those?" Rose asked at first sight. Rose almost always saw things first.
Russ gave one glance and fairly whooped: "Indians!"