"Did the horses smell a bear, do you think?" went on Dick. "You know a bear, even a tame circus one, will set a cow pony off quicker than anything else."
"Yes," agreed Bud. "But I hardly think this was a bear. There are probably some back in the woods and hills, but they don't very often venture into the open, especially at this time of year. And if it had been a bear I think I would have winded him."
"I don't know about that," came from Nort. "You know a horse, and almost any other animal, has a keener sense of smell than most humans. The horses might have smelled something we didn't."
"That's true enough," assented Bud. "But the fact of the matter is I noticed a queer sort of smell just before the horses bolted. It wasn't very strong, and was more like perfume than anything else. In fact I thought it might be some sort of flower or perhaps an herb the ponies stepped on and crushed. I was just going to mention it to you fellows when the rush began and I had my hands full, same as you did. Either of you notice any smell?"
Nort and Dick had to confess that they had not, but Dick added:
"You've lived out of doors more than we have, Bud, and you got a better nose—I mean for smelling, not for shape!" he added as Bud's hand went to his olfactory organ. "So you might have caught a whiff of something we didn't."
"There's something in that, though I don't like to boast," said Bud. "I'm pretty sure that's what it was—a queer smell the ponies didn't like, and feared, and so they ran away from it."
"But what kind of a smell could it be?" asked Dick.
"Maybe we'll find out when we get back to where the thing happened—that is if the ponies will go back," spoke Bud.
However there seemed to be no trouble on this score, for, as the boys came nearer and nearer to the place whence the animals had started on their dash, there was no sign of fear or nervousness. The steeds trotted on as they had done over any other stretch of the range, and the deepest breathing of which the boys were capable betrayed to their alert noses not the slightest taint in the air.