OLLIE AND THE TUMBLEWEED.
Ollie was willing enough to do this, and the pony was willing enough to go, so off they went. I think if the weed had had a fair field that Ollie would never have overtaken it, but it got caught in the long grass occasionally, and he soon came up to it. But the pony was not used to tumbleweed-coursing, and shied off with a startled snort. Ollie brought her about and made another attempt. But again the frightened pony ran around it. Half a dozen times this was repeated. At last she happened to dash around it on the wrong side just as it bounded into the air before the wind. It struck both horse and rider like a big dry-land wave, and Ollie seized it. If the poor pony had been frightened before, she was now terror-stricken, and gave a jump like a tiger, and shot away faster than we had ever seen her run before. Ollie had lost control of her, and could only cling to the saddle with one hand and hold to the big blundering weed with the other. Fortunately the pony ran toward the wagon. As they came up we could see little but tumbleweed and pony legs, and it looked like nothing so much as a hay-stack running away on its own legs. When the pony came up to the wagon, she stopped so suddenly that Ollie went over her head. But he still clung to the weed, and struck the ground inside of it. He jumped up, still in the weed, so that it now looked like a hay-stack on two legs. We pulled him out of it, and found him none the worse for his adventure. But he was a little frightened, and said:
"I don't think I'll chase those things again, Uncle Jack—not with that pony."
"Oh, that's all right, Ollie," said Jack. "I'm going to organize the Nebraska Cross-Country Tumbleweed Club, and you'll want to come to the meets. We'll give the weed one minute start, and the first man that catches it will get a prize of—of a watermelon, for instance."
"Well, I think I'll take another horse before I try it," returned Ollie.
"Might try Old Browny," I said. "If he ever came up to a tumbleweed he would lie right down on it and go to sleep."
"Yes, and Blacky would hold it with one foot and eat it up," said Jack. "Unless he took a notion to turn around and kick it out of existence."
We looked the queer plant over carefully, and found it so closely branched that it was impossible to see into it more than a few inches. The branches were tough and elastic, and when it was tossed up it would rebound from the ground several inches. But it was as light as a thistle ball, and when we turned it loose it rolled away across the prairie again as if nothing had happened.
"They're bad things sometimes when there is a prairie fire," said Jack. "No matter how wide the fire-break may be, a blazing tumbleweed will often roll across it, and set fire to the grass beyond. They've been known to leap over streams of considerable width, too, or fall in the water and float across, still blazing. Two years ago the town of Frontenac was burned up by a tumbleweed, though the citizens had made an approved fire-break by ploughing two circles of furrows around their village and burning off the grass between them. These big red ones must be worse than the others. I believe," he went on, "that tumbleweeds might be used to carry messages, like carrier-pigeons. The next one we come across we'll try it."
That afternoon we caught a fine specimen, and Jack securely fastened this message to it and turned it adrift: