bunny did not have a very tight hold of the reins when he was driving toby, for generally the pony was so gentle that he needed but little guiding. and when the little horse gave a jump and started to run, after being frightened by the auto truck, the reins, or the “lines” as sue sometimes called them, slipped over the dashboard and dangled around toby’s heels.
“stop him, bunny! stop toby from running away!” begged sue.
for a moment her brother did not answer. he was as surprised as sue at toby’s strange action. then, as bunny saw that the reins had slipped away, he cried:
“i can’t stop him, sue!”
“why not?” she asked, still holding to the side of the pony cart as it lurched from side to side of the street.
[57]“i can’t stop him ’cause i can’t pull on the reins,” bunny answered. “i can’t reach ’em!”
“you—you’ve got to!” insisted sue. “we don’t want to be runned away with and thrown out! stop him, bunny!”
bunny knew that he would have to do something, and the best thing he could think of was to reach forward and grasp the reins. he started to do this, leaning over the dashboard.
but just then a strange dog ran out of a yard and began barking at toby. patter, who was running alongside the cart, not riding in it this time, barked and growled at the strange dog. this sound seemed to make the little horse go faster, and he dashed off so suddenly that, as bunny leaned toward the dashboard, the little fellow almost went “overboard,” as he said later.
“oh!” cried sue, as she saw what had happened. “look out!”
“oh!” cried bunny brown. he, too, was frightened. he managed to get back again to the seat from which he had risen, and there he sat, safe for a little while, at least. and so[58] was sue. she was on the seat across from bunny.
“i—i’m not going to do that again!” gasped the boy. “i can’t reach those reins and i’m not going to try. they’re too far away.”
“but what—what are we going to do?” faltered sue, almost ready to cry. “he’s runnin’ away, isn’t he, bunny?”
she seemed not quite sure about it.
“oh, yes, he’s running away all right,” admitted bunny. “he hasn’t done that for a long time, though. but he’s running away now.”
“maybe he feels so good now, ’cause his hair doesn’t fall out any more, that he wants to run,” went on sue.
“maybe,” agreed bunny.
“but we have to stop him!”
“yes, we have to stop him.”
bunny agreed on this point, but how it was going to be done was another matter. toby seemed to be going faster now. he was running away in earnest, and the reins, dangling around his hind feet, did not make him feel any better. in fact they scared him.
[59]the street was a quiet one, and up to now bunny and sue had met no other wagons, carriages or automobiles. and there were no persons in the street to run out and stop toby, which might easily have been done, for the shetland pony was not much bigger than a large newfoundland dog.
as for patter, he trotted alongside the runaway and seemed to think it was all in fun. now and then he looked up at bunny and sue and barked, as much as to say:
“why don’t you take me up there in the cart with you and give me a nice ride?”
but bunny and sue thought of nothing like this. finally, as the small pony seemed to be running away faster, sue exclaimed:
“i don’t care, bunny brown! i’m going to jump out! i’m not going to be runned away with and all mashed up against a tree! i’m going to jump out!”
“no, don’t do that!” begged her brother.
“i’ll have to if you don’t stop toby.”
“i can’t stop toby! i can’t reach the reins!” replied bunny. “but maybe patter can stop him.”
[60]“how?”
“patter can grab hold of the reins and pull back. and when toby feels the reins being pulled back he’ll stop,” said bunny.
“oh, try it! try it!” entreated sue.
now this was a trick that patter had never been asked to do. it was not really a trick at all. in fact it was more useful than doing some of the tricks patter could perform. for if patter could stop toby from running away he might save bunny and sue from being hurt. at any rate bunny was going to try.
leaning over the side of the cart, bunny called to the trick dog:
“stop him, patter! take hold of the reins and stop toby from running away!”
bunny snapped his fingers and pointed to toby’s back. perhaps he should have pointed to the trailing reins, but he did not. and patter, pricking up his ears and looking at bunny’s outstretched hand pointing to the pony, had but one thought in mind. this was to do the trick he had done before—that of jumping on toby’s back.
and, in another instant, patter leaped up,[61] landed on the pony’s back and sat there. he did not try the trick of standing on his front legs as he had done before.
“oh, look what he did!” cried sue.
“yes,” said bunny. “i didn’t mean for him to do that. i wanted him to grab the lines from the ground.”
“well, he can do it just as well from toby’s back,” said sue.
“oh, so he can!” exclaimed bunny. “grab the lines, patter! grab the lines!” cried the little boy.
whether patter, crouched on the pony’s broad, fat back, understood these words or not, he saw the gesture and he reached forward and caught hold of the reins in his teeth, near the place where they ran through two shiny rings on the middle part of the harness.
patter leaned back and pulled as hard as he could. and as soon as toby felt himself being pulled in, he did just what he always did when that happened. he slowed down. i think he had had enough of running away and thought it time to stop. and probably he thought it was bunny pulling on the reins.[62] but it wasn’t. it was patter, the trick dog.
anyhow, toby slowed down to a walk, and then, as patter kept on pulling the reins, the pony stopped.
“oh, the runaway is over!” sighed sue. “i’m so glad!”
“and we didn’t get hurt,” added bunny brown.
just then around the corner of a street near which toby had stopped, came bunker blue. the boy from mr. brown’s boat and fish dock had been on an errand. seeing the two children, with patter up on toby’s back, bunker blue said:
“you two oughtn’t to be playing tricks like that out in the street here. it’s all right to make patter do tricks, but not in the street.”
“we weren’t making him play tricks,” answered bunny. “toby ran away and patter stopped him.”
and when he and sue had told how it happened, bunker said:
“oh, that’s all right! that was fine. but i’ll drive toby back home for you, as he might get frisky again.”
[63]but the little horse did not, trotting along very quietly. and when bunny and sue reached home, and mrs. brown heard what had happened, she remarked:
“i’m afraid it won’t be safe for you children to go out with toby alone any more. he is too frisky.”
“oh, i guess it will wear off,” said bunker blue. “you see, he hasn’t had much exercise since he came back from the farm. he’ll be all right.”
and toby was, for he did not again run away—at least not for a long time. daddy brown said patter was a very smart dog to stop a runaway as he did. they were talking about it after supper, and then mrs. brown asked:
“did you hear anything more about the poor man in the hospital?”
“no, except that he says his name is jason stern, and he says he has no friends left to help him unless he can find jim denton, the circus owner,” replied mr. brown. “but no one seems to know where jim denton is, and mr. stern is too ill to tell the hospital folks very[64] much. i think the old man came to the wrong town. he must mean some other bellemere; there are a lot of them in this country. well, i’ll go to see him again soon when he gets a little better.”
bunny brown and his sister sue continued to have a lot of fun with the trick dog and their pony. one day some of his boy chums came over to see bunny.
“say,” asked charlie star, “when are we going to have that show you were talking of, bunny?”
“that’s right,” added harry bentley. “we want to get up a show with your trick dog and your pony. we can get some other animals, too.”
“all right,” agreed bunny. “let’s go out to our barn now and talk about it. if we have the show it will be in our barn.”
to this the other boys agreed, and they strolled out to the barn where in times past they had had many good times.
near the barn was a little brook of water, and bunny and the boys began throwing stones in this to hear the splashes. as bunny threw[65] his second stone his cap dropped off and the wind carried it into the brook. it fell in the middle of the stream.
“oh, look, bunny threw his cap in!” cried charlie.
“no, i didn’t throw it!” said bunny.
but no sooner had patter seen the cap in the water than in he plunged and began swimming toward it.
