won't have to talk to him much."

"You needn't mind that," said Russ kindly. "Daddy says everybody calls
him Cowboy Jack. Daddy has met him and likes him, and he told me that
Cowboy Jack likes children, although he has none of his own."

"Why hasn't he?" demanded Vi. "Don't they have little boys and girls
down there on the ranch where he lives?"

"He hasn't got any," said Russ. "So he likes other people's children."

[Illustration: RUSS AND LADDIE GOT OUT THEIR COWBOY AND INDIAN SUITS.

_Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's._ (_Page 54_)]

Russ and Laddie were very busy getting out their cowboy and Indian suits
and having Norah mend them. Of course they would want to dress like
other people did in the Southwest.

The coal strike in western Pennsylvania really did send the six little
Bunkers off to the Southwest almost as soon as they had returned from
the seashore and their visit to Captain Ben.

Daddy came home the next noon and said that coal enough to supply the
Pineville school might not arrive before November. At least, there would
be four full weeks before school could safely open.

"We might as well make a long holiday of it, Charles," said Mother
Bunker, quite complacently.

For she, too, liked to travel, and had, by now, got used to journeying
about with the children. Russ and Rose were so helpful, too, that a trip
to Cavallo did not seem such a huge undertaking after all.

"Shall we take our bathing suits, Mother?" asked Rose.

"No bathing suits this time, for we are not going to the seashore,"
declared Mother Bunker.

But in repacking what few things had been unpacked there were two things
forgotten. The children really did not have time to "count up" and see
if they had all their most precious possessions with them.

It was after they were on the train the following morning, and Pineville
station, with Norah and Jerry waving good-bye on the platform, was out
of sight, that Rose suddenly discovered a lack that made her cry out in
earnest.

"Oh! Oh! I've lost it!" she said.

"What you lost?" asked Vi.

"My watch!" gasped Rose.

"Oh, dear me! Your nice new wrist watch?" asked Mother Bunker
admonishingly.

"Yes, ma'am," sighed Rose. "I--I haven't got it."

"Oh, my!" cried Laddie suddenly.

He was fumbling at his scarf and trying to look at it by pulling it out
to its full length and squinting down his nose at its pretty pattern.

"And what's the matter with you, Laddie?" asked Daddy Bu