control of her, and could only cling to
the saddle with one hand and hold to the big blundering weed with
the other. Fortunately the pony ran toward the wagon. As they
came up we could see little but tumbleweed and pony legs, and it
looked like nothing so much as a hay-stack running away on its
own legs. When the pony came up to the wagon she stopped so
suddenly that Ollie went over her head. But he still clung to the
weed, and struck the ground inside of it. He jumped up, still in
the weed, so that it now looked like a hay-stack on two legs. We
pulled him out of it, and found him none the worse for his
adventure. But he was a little frightened, and said:

[Illustration: Studying Botany]

"I don't think I'll chase those things again, Uncle Jack--not
with that pony."

"Oh, that's all right, Ollie," said Jack. "I'm going to
organize the Nebraska Cross-Country Tumbleweed Club, and you'll
want to come to the meets. We'll give the weed one minute start,
and the first man that catches it will get a prize of--of a
watermelon, for instance."

"Well, I think I'll take another horse before I try it,"
returned Ollie.

"Might try Old Browny," I said. "If he ever came up to a
tumbleweed he would lie right down on it and go to sleep."

"Yes, and Blacky would hold it with one foot and eat it up,"
said Jack. "Unless he took a notion to turn around and kick it
out of existence."

We looked the queer plant over carefully, and found it so
closely branched that it was impossible to see into it more than
a few inches. The branched were tough and elastic, and when it
struck the ground after being tossed up it would rebound several
inches. But it was almost as light asa thistle-ball, and when we
turned it loose it rolled away across the prairie again as if
nothing had happened.

"They're bad things sometimes when there is a prairie tire,"
said Jack. "No matter how wide the fire-break may be, a blazing
tumbleweed will often roll across it and set tire to the grass
beyond. They've been known to leap over streams of considerable
width, too, or fall in the water and float across, still
blazing. Two years ago the town of Frontenac was burned up by a
tumbleweed, though the citizens had made ah approved fire-break
by ploughing two circles of furrows around their village and
burning off the grass between them. These big red ones must be
worse than the others. I believe," he went on, "that tumbleweeds
might be used to