Rhoda leaped down and let her pony stand, with the
reins trailing before him on the ground.
"Isn't he cunning!" observed Bess. "He thinks he's hitched."
"They are trained that way. You see, on the plains there are so few
hitching posts," said Rhoda dryly.
The others dismounted, too. Rhoda was hunting among the great
boulders that littered the grassy bottom. When they asked her what
she was looking for, she called back that she would show them a
boiling spring if she could find it.
Suddenly Nan lifted her head to listen. Then she started up the
canon, which, in that direction, grew narrower between the walls.
"Don't you hear that calf bawling?" she demanded, when Bess asked
her where she was going.
"Oh, I hear it," said Bess, keeping in the rear. "But how do you
know it is a calf?"
"Then it is something imitating one very closely," sniffed Nan, and
kept on. The next minute she shouted back: "It is! A little,
cunning, red calf. And, oh, Bess! it has hurt its leg."
She ran forward. Bess followed with more caution. Suddenly there
was a crash in the bushes, and out into the open, right beside the
injured calf, came a red and white cow. This animal bawled loudly
and charged for a few yards directly toward Nan Sherwood.
"Oh, goodness, Nan! Come away!" begged Bess, turning to run. "That
old cow will bite you."
But it was not the anxious mother of the calf that had startled
Nan.
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