141

IX. HOW PONY DID NOT QUITE GET OFF WITH
THE CIRCUS 152

X. THE ADVENTURES THAT PONY'S COUSIN,
FRANK BAKER, HAD WITH A POCKETFUL
OF MONEY 165

XI. HOW JIM LEONARD PLANNED FOR PONY BAKER
TO RUN OFF ON A RAFT 192

XII. HOW JIM LEONARD BACKED OUT, AND PONY
HAD TO GIVE IT UP 208

_Illustrations_

"ALL THE FELLOWS CAME ROUND
AND ASKED HIM WHAT HE WAS
GOING TO DO NOW" _Frontispiece_

"BEING DRESSED SO WELL WAS ONE
OF THE WORST THINGS THAT
WAS DONE TO HIM BY HIS
MOTHER" 4

"'I'LL LEARN THAT LIMB TO SLEEP
IN A COW-BARN!' 50

"REAL INDIANS, IN BLANKETS, WITH
BOWS AND ARROWS" 90

"VERY SMILING-LOOKING" 124

"HE BEGAN BEING COLD AND STIFF
WITH HER THE VERY NEXT MORNING" 144

"FRANK BAKER WAS ONE OF THOSE
FELLOWS THAT EVERY MOTHER
WOULD FEEL HER BOY WAS SAFE
WITH" 166

"'WHY, YOU AIN'T AFRAID, ARE
YOU, PONY?'" 204

_The Flight of Pony Baker_

_The Flight of Pony Baker_

I

PONY'S MOTHER, AND WHY HE HAD
A RIGHT TO RUN OFF

If there was any fellow in the Boy's Town fifty years ago who had a good
reason to run off it was Pony Baker. Pony was not his real name; it was
what the boys called him, because there were so many fellows who had to be
told apart, as Big Joe and Little Joe, and Big John and Little John, and
Big Bill and Little Bill, that they got tired of telling boys apart that
way; and after one of the boys called him Pony Baker, so that you could
know him from his cousin Frank Baker, nobody ever called him anything
else.

You would have known Pony from the other Frank Baker, anyway, if you had
seen them together, for the other Frank Baker was a tall, lank, tow-headed
boy, with a face so full of freckles that you could not have put a
pin-point between them, and large, bony hands that came a long way out of
his coat-sleeves; and the Frank Baker that I mean here was little and dark
and round, with a thick crop of black hair on his nice head; and he had
black eyes, and a smooth, swarthy face, without a freckle on it. He was
pretty well dressed in clothes that fitted