"All aboard!" called the conductor of the train the Curlytops and the
others took. "All aboard!"

"All aboard for the West!" echoed Daddy Martin, and they were off.

CHAPTER IV

THE COLLISION

"Won't we have fun, Jan, when we get to the ranch?"

"I guess so, Teddy. But I don't like it about those Indians."

"Oh, didn't you hear Daddy say they were tame ones--like the kind in the
circus and Wild West show? They won't hurt you, Jan."

"Well, I don't like 'em. They've got such funny painted faces."

"Not the tame ones, Jan. Anyhow I'll stay with you."

The Curlytops were talking as they sat together in the railroad car
which was being pulled rapidly by the engine out toward the big West,
where Uncle Frank's ranch was. In the seat behind them was Mother
Martin, holding Trouble, who was asleep, while Daddy Martin was also
slumbering.

It was quite a long ride from Cresco to Rockville, which was in Montana.
It would take the Curlytops about four days to make the trip, perhaps
longer if the trains were late. But they did not mind, for they had
comfortable coaches in which to travel. When they were hungry there was
the dining-car where they could get something to eat, and when they were
sleepy there was the sleeping-car, in which the colored porter made such
funny little beds out of the seats.

Jan and Ted thought it quite wonderful. For, though they had traveled in
a sleeping-car before, and had seen the porter pull out the seats, let
down the shelf overhead and take out the blankets and pillows to make
the bed, still they never tired of watching.

There were many other things to interest the Curlytops and Trouble on
this journey to Uncle Frank's ranch. Of course there was always
something to see when they looked out of the windows of the cars. At
times the train would pass through cities, stopping at the stations to
let passengers get off and on. But it was not the cities that interested
the children most. They liked best to see the fields and woods through
which they passed.

In some of the fields were horses, cows or sheep, and while the children
did not see any such animals in the woods, except perhaps where the wood
was a clump of trees near a farm, they always hoped they might.

Very often, when the train would rattle along through big fields, and
then suddenly plunge into a forest, Jan would call:

"Maybe we'll see one now, Ted!"

"Oh, maybe so!" he would exclaim.

Then the two Curlytops w