down again but rest on the handle. We tore off
the boards, took the baby out, and drew him and his father to the
surface. There were two doctors waiting for them, and the next
day neither was much the worse for it."

The man got on his horse and rode away. We agreed that he had
told us a good story, but the next day others assured us that it
had all happened a year before.

VI: BY CAYNONS TO VALENTINE

Besides the cactus, another form of vegetation which began
to attract more and more of Ollie's attention was the red
tumbleweed. Indeed, Jack and I found ourselves interested in it
also. The ordinary tumbleweed, green when growing and gray when
tumbling, had long been familiar to us, but the red variety was
new. The old kind which we knew seldom grew more than two feet in
diameter; it was usually almost exactly round, and with its
finely branched limbs was almost as solid as a big sponge, and
when its short stem broke off at the top of the ground in the
fall it would go bounding away across the prairie for miles. The
red sort seemed to be much the same, except for its color and
size. We saw many six or seven feet, perhaps more, in diameter,
though they were rather flat, and not probably over three or four
feet high.

The first one we saw was on edge, and going at a great rate
across the prairie, bounding high into the air, and acting as if
it had quite gone crazy, as there was a strong wind blowing.

"Look at that overgrown red tumbleweed!" exclaimed Jack. "I
never saw anything like that before. Jump on the pony, Ollie, and
catch the varmint and bring it back here!"

Ollie was willing enough to do this, and the pony was willing
enough to go, so off they went. I think if the weed had had a
fair field that Ollie would never have overtaken it, but it got
caught in the long grass occasionally, and he soon came up to it.
But the pony was not used to tumbleweed-coursing, and shied off
with a startled snort. Ollie brought her about and made another
attempt. But again the frightened pony ran around it. Half a
dozen times this was repeated. At last she happened to dash
around it on the wrong side just as it bounded into the air
before the wind. It struck both horse and rider like a big
dry-land wave, and Ollie seized it. If the poor pony had been
frightened before, she was now terror-stricken, and gave a jump
like a tiger, and shot away faster than we had ever seen her run
before. Ollie had lost