n't guess it is," Teddy hastened to say. "I guess Indians don't
whistle, anyhow."

This made Janet feel better and once more she and her brother looked
around to see what made the queer whistling sound, that still kept up.
It was just like a boy calling to another, and Teddy was quite puzzled
over it until he suddenly saw what was doing it.

Perched on a small mound of earth near a hole in the ground, was a
little animal, about as big as a large rat, though, as Janet said, he
was "nicer looking." And as Ted and his sister looked, they saw this
little animal move, and then they knew he it was that was whistling.

"Oh, what is it?" cried Janet.

"I know," Teddy answered. "That's a prairie dog. Baldy told me about
them, and how they whistled when they saw any danger."

"Is there any danger here?" asked Janet, looking around.

"I guess the prairie dog thinks we're the danger," said Teddy. "But we
wouldn't hurt him."

"Does he live down in that hole?" asked Janet.

"Yes, just like a gopher," answered her brother, who had listened to the
cowboys telling about the little prairie dogs. "And sometimes there are
snakes or an owl in the same hole with the prairie dog."

"Then I'm not going any nearer," decided Janet. "I don't mind an owl,
but I don't like snakes! Come on, Ted, let's hurry."

As they started off, the prairie dog, which really did make a whistling
sound, suddenly darted down inside his burrow or hole. Perhaps he
thought Teddy and Janet were coming to carry him off, but they were not.
The children saw many more of the little animals as they rode over the
prairies.

"But we must look for marks--tracks, Baldy calls them," said Teddy.
"Tracks will tell us which way the Indians went," and so the children
kept their eyes turned toward the sod as they rode along.

For a while they could see many marks in the soft ground--the marks of
horses' feet, some shod with iron shoes and others bare, for on the
prairie grass there is not the same need of iron shoes on the hoofs of
horses as in the city, with its hard, paved streets. Then the marks were
not so plain; and pretty soon, about a mile from the spring amid the
rocks where the ground was quite hard, Teddy and Janet could see no
marks at all.

"Which way do we go?" asked Ted's sister, as he called to his pony to
stop. "Do you know the way?"

"No, I don't guess I do," he answered. "But anyhow we can ride along and
maybe we'll see 'em."

"Yes, we can do that,