to let you be tooken away again!" added Sue.

As for Toby--and it really was the children's pet--he seemed as glad to
see them as they were to see him. He rubbed his velvety nose first on
Bunny and then against Sue's dress, and whinnied in delight.

"Now, we'll take you right home!" declared Bunny.

"But we'll find Splash first," added his sister.

"Oh, yes, we want our dog, too," said Bunny.

He was trying to loosen the knot in the rope by which Toby was tied to a
stake in the ground, and Sue was helping, when a shadow on the grass
told the children that some one was walking toward them. They looked up
quickly, to see a ragged gypsy man, with a straggly black moustache,
scowling at them. In his hand he held a knotted stick.

[Illustration: A RAGGED GYPSY MAN WAS SCOWLING AT THEM.

_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony._ _Page 218._]

"Here! What you young'uns doin' with that pony?" he fairly growled.

"If you please," answered Bunny politely, "he's our pony, and we're
taking him home. His name is Toby and he was in our stable, but some one
took him away. Now we've found him, and we're going to take him home
again."

"Oh, you are, are you?" asked the man, and his voice was not very
pleasant. "Well, you just let that pony alone; do you hear?"

"But he's _ours_!" said Sue, not understanding why they could not take
their own pet.

"He's my pony--that's whose he is!" growled the gypsy man, who was not
at all nice like Jaki Kezar. "Let him alone, I tell you!" and he spoke
in such a fierce voice that Bunny and Sue shrank back in fright.

Just then the barking of some dogs was heard, and Bunny took heart.
Perhaps Splash was coming, and might drive away the bad gypsy man as
he once had driven off a tramp.

"This is our pony," said Bunny again, "and we want to take him. He isn't
yours. Our father bought him from Mr. Tallman for us. Mr. Tallman's
red-and-yellow box was stolen and he got poor so he had to sell the
pony."

"What was stolen?" asked the gypsy quickly.

"Mr. Tallman's red-and-yellow box," repeated Bunny. "It didn't have
money in it, but it had papers, like money. And it made Mr. Tallman
poor. But this is our pony. His name is Toby and he can do tricks."

"And we're a dog named Splash," added Sue. "Is he here?"

"I don't know anything about your dog," growled the man. "And I don't
know anything about a red-and-yellow box, either," and as he said this
he looked around, as though in