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_The_ CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH

HOWARD R. GARIS




    [Illustration: "YOU'VE GOT TO GROAN AND PRETEND YOU'VE BEEN SHOT."
    _The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch_      _Page 7_]




    THE CURLYTOPS
    AT
    UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH

    OR

    _Little Folks on Ponyback_

    BY

    HOWARD R. GARIS

    AUTHOR OF "THE CURLYTOPS SERIES," "BEDTIME
    STORIES," "UNCLE WIGGILY SERIES," ETC.

    _Illustrations by
    JULIA GREENE_

    NEW YORK
    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY




    THE CURLYTOPS SERIES

    By HOWARD R. GARIS

    12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

        _THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM
        Or, Vacation Days in the Country_

        _THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND
        Or, Camping Out With Grandpa_

        _THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN
        Or, Grand Fun With Skates and Sleds_

        _THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH
        Or, Little Folks on Ponyback_

    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York




    COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
    CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

    THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH

    Printed in U. S. A.




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER PAGE

        I TROUBLE'S TUMBLE             1

       II NICKNACK AND TROUBLE        13

      III OFF FOR THE WEST            28

       IV THE COLLISION               40

        V AT RING ROSY RANCH          55

       VI COWBOY FUN                  63

      VII BAD NEWS                    72

     VIII A QUEER NOISE               87

       IX THE SICK PONY              101

        X A SURPRISED DOCTOR         114

       XI TROUBLE MAKES A LASSO      122

      XII THE BUCKING BRONCO         140

     XIII MISSING CATTLE             153

      XIV LOOKING FOR INDIANS        167

       XV TROUBLE "HELPS"            175

      XVI ON THE TRAIL               189

     XVII THE CURLYTOPS ALONE        196

    XVIII LOST                       209

      XIX THE HIDDEN VALLEY          222

       XX BACK TO RING ROSY          237




THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH




CHAPTER I

TROUBLE'S TUMBLE


"Say, Jan, this isn't any fun!"

"What do you want to play then, Ted?"

Janet Martin looked at her brother, who was dressed in one of his
father's coats and hats while across his nose was a pair of spectacles
much too large for him. Janet, wearing one of her mother's skirts, was
sitting in a chair holding a doll.

"Well, I'm tired of playing doctor, Jan, and giving your make-believe
sick doll bread pills. I want to do something else," and Teddy began
taking off the coat, which was so long for him that it dragged on the
ground.

"Oh, I know what we can do that'll be lots of fun!" cried Janet, getting
up from the chair so quickly that she forgot about her doll, which fell
to the floor with a crash that might have broken her head.

"Oh, my _dear_!" cried Janet, as she had often heard her mother call
when Baby William tumbled and hurt himself. "Oh, are you hurt?" and
Janet clasped the doll in her arms, and hugged it as though it were a
real child.

"Is she busted?" Ted demanded, but he did not ask as a real doctor might
inquire. In fact, he had stopped playing doctor.

"No, she isn't hurt, I guess," Jan answered, feeling of her doll's head.
"I forgot all about her being in my lap. Oh, aren't you going to play
any more, Ted?" she asked as she saw her brother toss the big coat on a
chair and take off the spectacles.

"No. I want to do something else. This is no fun!"

"Well, let's make-believe you're sick and I can be a Red Cross nurse,
like some of those we saw in the drugstore window down the street,
making bandages for the soldiers. You could be a soldier, Ted, and I
could be the nurse, and I'd make some sugar pills for you, if you don't
like the rolled-up bread ones you gave my doll."

Teddy Martin thought this over for a few seconds. He seemed to like it.
And then he shook his head.

"No," he answered his sister, "I couldn't be a soldier."

"Why not?"

"'Cause I haven't got a gun and there isn't any tent."

"We could make a tent with a sheet off the bed like we do lots of times.
Put it over a chair, you know."

"But I haven't a gun," Teddy went on. He knew that he and Janet could
make a tent, for they had often done it before.

"Couldn't you take a broom for a gun?" Janet asked. "I'll get it from
the kitchen."

"Pooh! What good is a broom for a gun? I want one that shoots! Anyhow I
haven't a uniform, and a soldier can't go to war without a uniform or a
sword or a gun. I'm not going to play that!"

Janet did not know what to say for a few seconds. Truly a soldier would
not be much of one without a gun or a uniform, even if he was in a tent.
But the little girl had not given up yet.

The day was a rainy one. There was no school, for it was Saturday, and
staying in the house was no great fun. Janet wanted her brother to stay
and play with her and she knew she must do something to make him. For a
while he had been content to play that he was Dr. Thompson, come to give
medicine to Jan's sick doll. But Teddy had become tired of this after
paying half a dozen visits and leaving pills made by rolling bread
crumbs together.

Teddy laid aside his father's old hat and scratched his head. That is he
tried to, but his head was so covered with tightly twisted curls that
the little boy's fingers were fairly entangled in them.

"Say!" he exclaimed, "I wish my hair didn't curl so much! It's too long.
I'm going to ask mother if I can't have it cut."

"I wish I could have mine cut," sighed Janet. "Mine's worse to comb than
yours is, Ted."

"Yes, I know. And it always curls more on a rainy day."

Both children had the same curly hair. It was really beautiful, but they
did not quite appreciate it, even though many of their friends, and some
persons who saw them for the first time, called them "Curlytops." Indeed
the tops of their heads were very curly.

"Oh, I know how we can do it!" suddenly cried Janet, just happening to
think of something.

"Do what?" asked her brother.

"Play the soldier game. You can pretend you were caught by the enemy and
your gun and uniform were taken away. Then you can be hurt and I'll be
the Red Cross nurse and take care of you in the tent. I'll get some real
sugar for pills, too! Nora'll give me some. She's in the kitchen now
making a cake."

"Maybe she'd give you a piece of cake, too," suggested Teddy.

"Maybe," agreed Janet. "I'll go and ask her."

"Ask her for some chocolate," added Ted. "I guess, if I've got to be
sick, I'd like chocolate pills'stead of sugar."

"All right," said Janet, as she hurried downstairs from the playroom to
the kitchen. In a little while she came back with a plate on which were
two slices of chocolate cake, while on one edge of it were some crumbs
of chocolate icing.

"I'll make pills of that after we eat the cake," Janet said. "You can
pretend the cake made you sick if you want to, Ted."

"Pooh! who ever heard of a soldier getting sick on cake? Anyhow they
don't have cake in the army--lessen they capture it from the enemy."

"Well, you can pretend you did that," said Janet. "Now I'll put my doll
away," she went on, as she finished her piece of cake, "and we'll play
the soldier game. I'll get some red cloth to make the cross."

Janet looked "sweet," as her mother said afterward, when she had wound a
white cloth around her head, a red cross, rather ragged and crooked,
being pinned on in front.

The tent was made by draping a sheet from the bed across two chairs, and
under this shelter Teddy crawled. He stretched out on a blanket which
Janet had spread on the floor to be the hospital cot.

"Now you must groan, Ted," she said, as she looked in a glass to see if
her headpiece and cross were on straight.

"Groan? What for?"

"'Cause you've been hurt in the war, or else you're sick from the cake."

"Pooh! a little bit of cake like _that_ wouldn't make _me_ sick. You've
got to give me a _lot_ more if you want me to be real sick."

"Oh, Teddy Martin! I'm not going to play if you make fun like that all
the while. You've got to groan and pretend you've been shot. Never mind
about the cake."

"All right. I'll be shot then. But you've got to give me a lot of
chocolate pills to make me get better."

"I'm not going to give 'em to you all at once, Ted Martin!"

"Well, maybe in two doses then. How many are there?"

"Oh, there's a lot. I'm going to take some myself."

"You are not!" and Teddy sat up so quickly that he hit the top of the
sheet-tent with his head and made it slide from the chair.

"There! Look what you did!" cried Janet. "Now you've gone and spoiled
everything!"

"Oh, well, I'll fix it," said Ted, rather sorry for what he had done.
"But you can't eat my chocolate pills."

"I can so!"

"You cannot! Who ever heard of a nurse taking the medicine from a sick
soldier?"

"Well, anyhow--well, wouldn't you give me some chocolate candy if you
had some, and I hadn't?" asked Janet.

"Course I would, Jan. I'm not stingy!"

"Well, these pills are just like chocolate candy, and if I give 'em all
to you----"

"Oh, well, then I'll let you eat _some_," agreed Ted. "But you wanted me
to play this game of bein' a sick soldier, and if I'm sick I've got to
have the medicine."

"Yes, I'll give you the most," Janet agreed. "Now you lie down and groan
and I'll hear you out on the battlefield and come and save your life."

So, after Janet had fixed the sheet over him again, Teddy lay back on
the blanket and groaned his very best.

"Oh, it sounds as real as anything!" exclaimed the little girl in
delight. "Do it some more, Ted!"

Thereupon her brother groaned more loudly until Janet stopped him by
dropping two or three chocolate pills into his opened mouth.

"Oh! Gurr-r-r-r! Ugh! Say, you'most choked me!" spluttered Ted, as he
sat up and chewed the chocolate.

"Oh, I didn't mean to," said Janet as she ate a pill or two herself.
"Now you lie down and go to sleep, 'cause I've got a lot more sick
soldiers to go to see."

"Don't give 'em any of my chocolate pills," cautioned Ted. "I need 'em
all to make me get better."

"I'll only make-believe give them some," promised Janet.

She and her brother played this game for a while, and Teddy liked it--as
long as the chocolate pills were given him. But when Janet had only a
few left and Teddy was about to say he was tired of lying down, someone
came into the playroom and a voice asked:

"What you doin'?"

"Playing soldier," answered Janet. "You mustn't drop your 'g' letters,
Trouble. Mother doesn't like it."

"I want some chocolate," announced the little boy, whose real name was
William Martin, but who was more often called Trouble--because he got in
so much of it, you know.

"There's only one pill left. Can I give it to him, Ted?" asked Janet.

"Yes, Janet. I've had enough. Anyhow, I know something else to play now.
It's lots of fun!"

"What?" asked Janet eagerly. It was still raining hard and she wanted
her brother to stay in the house with her.

"We'll play horse," went on Ted. "I'll be a bucking bronco like those
Uncle Frank told us about on his ranch. We'll make a place with chairs
where they keep the cow ponies and the broncos. I forget what Uncle
Frank called it."

"I know," said Janet. "It's cor--corral."

"Corral!" exclaimed Ted. "That's it! We'll make a corral of some chairs
and I'll be a bucking bronco. That's a horse that won't let anybody ride
on its back," the little boy explained