losed the gate, and this time he locked it
so that no one could open it without the key. But no one would try, not
even Trouble, for, crying and sobbing to be allowed to go out and play,
he had been given a lesson that he would not soon forget.

"I'm sorry I had to punish him," said Mother Martin to the Curlytops,
when they came in after the ponies were once more in the corral, "but I
just had to. Work on a ranch is hard enough without little boys letting
the horses run wild after they have once been caught."

"Oh, well, no great harm was done," said Uncle Frank with a good-natured
laugh, "though it did make us ride pretty hard for a while. Come on,
Trouble, I'll take you ponyback!"

This was what Trouble liked, and he soon dried his tears and sat on the
saddle in front of Uncle Frank as happy as could be. Janet and Ted got
out their ponies, and rode with Uncle Frank and Trouble around the
outside of the corral, looking at the little horses inside the fence.
They were quieter now, and were eating some oats the cowboys had put out
for them.

Two or three days after this, when the ponies had been driven away to
the railroad station to be shipped to a far-off state, a cowboy came
riding in with news that he had seen a band of two or three Indians
pass along the prairie near the rocks where Teddy and Janet had found
Clipclap.

"If we ride after them," said the cowboy, "maybe we can find where the
other Indians are, and where they have hidden your horses and cattle,
Mr. Barton."

"That's it!" exclaimed Uncle Frank. "We'll get on the trail after these
Indians. I'm sure they must have some of my animals hidden away in the
hills, for I would have heard of it if they had sold them around here.
We'll get on the trail!"

"What's the trail, Daddy?" asked Teddy of his father.

"Oh, it means the marks the Indians' ponies may have left in the soft
ground," said Mr. Martin. "Uncle Frank and his cowboys will try to
trail, or follow, the marks of the horses' feet, and see where the
Indians have gone."

"Can't I come?" asked Teddy. "I can ride good now!"

"Oh, no indeed you can't go!" cried Mother Martin. "Are you going?" she
asked her husband.

"Yes," he answered. "I think I'll go on the trail with Uncle Frank."

CHAPTER XVII

THE CURLYTOPS ALONE

Teddy and Janet sat on a bench outside the cowboys' bunkhouse, as their
father, Uncle Frank and a number of the ranchmen rode away over the
prairies on the trail of t