is so clear that people and things look much nearer
than they really are. So, though the man seemed to be only a little
distance away, he was more than a mile off, and you know it is quite
hard to call so as to be heard a mile away; especially if you are a
little boy.

Still Teddy called again, and when he had done this two or three times,
and Jan had helped him, the two calling in a sort of duet, Teddy said:

"He can't hear us."

"Maybe he's deaf, like Aunt Judy," said Janet, speaking of an elderly
woman in the town in which they lived.

"Well, if he is, he can't hear us," said Teddy; "so he won't come to us.
I'm going in anyhow."

"No, don't," begged Janet, who did not want her brother to go into
danger. "If he can't hear us, Teddy, we must go nearer. We can walk to
meet him."

Teddy thought this over a minute.

"Yes," he agreed, "we can do that. But he's a good way off."

"He's coming this way," Janet said, and it did look as though the man
had turned his horse toward the children, who stood near the pile of
rocks from which the queer noises came.

"Come on!" decided Ted, and, taking Janet's hand, he and she walked
toward the man on the horse.

For some little time the two Curlytops tramped over the green, grassy
prairies. They kept their eyes on the man, now and then looking back
toward the rocks, for they did not want to lose sight either of them or
of the horseman.

"I'm going to holler again," said Teddy. "Maybe he can hear me now.
We're nearer."

So he stopped, and putting his hands to his mouth, as he had seen Uncle
Frank do when he wanted to call to a cowboy who was down at a distant
corral, the little boy called:

"Hi there, Mr. Man! Come here, please!"

But the man on the horse gave no sign that he had heard. As a matter of
fact, he had not, being too far away, and the wind was blowing from him
toward Teddy and Jan. If the wind had been blowing the other way it
might have carried the voices of the children toward the man. But it did
not.

Then Teddy made a discovery. He stopped, and, shading his eyes with his
hands, said:

"Jan, that man's going away from us 'stid of coming toward us. He's
getting littler all the while. And if he was coming to us he'd get
bigger."

"Yes, I guess he would," admitted the little girl. "He is going away,
Teddy. Oh, dear! Now he can't help us!"

Without a word Teddy started back toward the rocks, and his sister
followed. He was close to them when Janet