ut
the Oxbow Bend. In the brush and along the river's edge where the
cottonwoods stood, and in every little coulee, or hollow, back of the
camps.

"I don't see," complained Rose, "why we Bunkers have to be losing things
all the time. There was my wrist-watch and Laddie's pin. Next came Vi
and Laddie. Then Mun Bun was lost in the tumble-weed. Then I got lost
myself. Now it's Mun Bun again. Somehow, Russ, it does seem as though we
must be awful careless."

"You speak for yourself, Rose Bunker!" returned her brother quite
sharply. "I know _I_ wasn't careless about Mun Bun. I didn't even know
he needed watching--not when daddy and mother were around."

Nobody seemed more disturbed over Mun Bun's disappearance than Cowboy
Jack. The ranchman had set everybody about the place to work hunting for
the little boy, and privately he had begun to offer a reward for the
discovery of the lost one.

To Cowboy Jack came one of the older Indian men. He was not a modern,
up-to-date Indian, like Chief Black Bear. He still tied his hair in a
scalp-lock, and if he was not actually a "blanket Indian" (that is, one
of the old kind that wore blankets instead of regular shirts and
jackets), this Indian was one that had not been to school. Russ and Rose
were standing with Cowboy Jack when the old Indian came to the ranchman.

"Wuh! Heap trouble in camp," said the old Indian in his deep voice.

"And there's going to be more trouble if we don't find that little
fellow pretty soon," declared the ranchman vigorously.

"Bad spirits here. Bad medicine," grunted the old Indian.

"What's that? You mean to say one of those bootleggers that sell you
reds bad whisky is around?"

"No. No firewater. Heap worse," said the Indian.

"Can't be anything worse than whisky," declared Cowboy Jack
emphatically.

"Bad spirits," said the Indian stubbornly. "In box. Make knocking. White
chief come see--come hear."

He called Cowboy Jack a "chief" because the white man owned the big
ranch. Rose and Russ listened very earnestly to what the Indian said,
and they urged Cowboy Jack to go to the Indian encampment and see what
it meant.

"What's a spirit, Russ?" asked his sister.

"Alcohol," declared Russ, proud of his knowledge. "But I don't see how
alcohol could knock on a box. It's a liquid--like water, you know."

They trotted after Cowboy Jack and the old Indian and came to the big
box that had been locked in preparation for shipping back to the
reserva