them would kick or bite him. The bucking bronco was most dangerous of
all.

"Oh, Trouble!" exclaimed Janet softly.

"I--I'll get him!" whispered Teddy. "I can crawl in there and run and
get him before that bronco----"

"You stay right where you are, Curlytop!" exclaimed Jim Mason. "We don't
want you both hurt, and if you go in there now you might start that
crazy horse to kicking. Stay where you are. I'll get Trouble for you."

"Maybe if I called to him he'd come," said Janet. She, too, spoke in a
whisper. In fact no one had made a noise since Trouble had been seen
crawling under the corral fence, close to the bucking bronco.

"No, don't call, Janet," said the foreman. "You might make the bronco
give a jump, and then he'd step on your little brother. That horse is a
savage one, and he's so excited now, from so many of the cowboys having
tried to ride him, that he might break loose and kick Trouble. We've got
to keep quiet."

The cowboys seemed to know this, for none of them said a word. They kept
very still and watched Trouble.

Baby William thought he was going to have a good time. He had wandered
out of the house when his mother was not looking. Seeing Ted, Janet and
the cowboys down by the corral, he made up his mind that was the place
for him.

"Maybe I get a horse wide," he said to himself, for he was about as
eager over horses as his sister or brother, and, so far, the only rides
he had had were when he sat in the saddle in front with them or with his
father, and went along very slowly indeed. For they dared not let the
horse go fast when Trouble was with them, and Trouble wanted to go fast.

"Me go get wide myse'f," he murmured, and then, when no one was looking,
he slipped under the corral fence.

He was now toddling close to the heels of the bronco.

"Nice horsie," said Trouble in his sweetest voice. "I get on your back
an' have nice wide!"

Trouble always had hard work to sound the r in ride. "Wide" he always
called it.

Nearer and nearer he came to the bronco. The animal, without turning its
head, knew that someone was coming up behind. Many a time a cowboy had
tried to fool the savage horse that way, and leap into the saddle
without being seen. But Imp, as the bronco was named, knew all those
tricks.

He turned back his ears, and when a horse does that it is not a good
sign. Almost always it means he is going to bite or kick.

In this case Imp would have to kick, as Trouble was too far beh