title="[48]"/>The children always eagerly waited for the colored waiter to come through the coaches rumbling out in his bass voice:

"First call fo' supper in de dinin'-car!"

Or he might say "dinner" or "breakfast," or make it the "last call," just as it happened. Now it was time for the first supper call, and in a little while the waiter came in.

"Eh? What's that? Time for supper again?" cried Daddy Martin, awakening from a nap.

Trouble stretched and yawned in his mother's arms.

"I's hungry!" he said.

"So'm I!" cried Ted and Jan together.

"Shall we have good things to eat on Uncle Frank's ranch?" asked Teddy, as they made ready to walk ahead to the dining-car.

"Of course!" his mother laughed. "Why are you worrying about that?"

"Oh, I just wanted to know," Teddy answered. "We had so many good things at Cherry Farm and when we were camping with grandpa that I want some out on the ranch."

"Well, I think we can trust to Uncle Frank," said Mr. Martin. "But if you get too hungry, Teddy, you can go out and lasso a beefsteak or catch a bear or deer and have him for breakfast."

"Is there bears out there, too?" asked Janet in a good deal of excitement. "Bears and Indians?"

"Well, there may be a few bears here and there," her father said with a smile, "but they won't hurt you if you don't hurt them. Now we'll go and see what they have for supper here."

To the dining-car they went, and as they passed through one of the coaches on their way Teddy and Janet heard a woman say to her little girl:

"Look at those Curlytops, Ethel. Don't you wish you could have some of their curl put into your hair?"

It was evening and the sun was setting. As the train sped along the Curlytops could look through the windows off across the fields and woods through which they passed.

"Isn't it just wonderful," said Mother Martin, "to think of sitting down to a nice meal which is being cooked for us while the train goes so fast? Imagine, children, how, years ago, the cowboys and hunters had to go on horses all the distance out West, and carry their food on their pony's back or in a wagon called a prairie schooner. How much easier and quicker and more comfortable it is to travel this way."

"I'd like to ride on a pony," said Teddy. "I wouldn't care how slow he went."

"I imagine you wouldn't like it when night came," said his mother, as she moved a plate so the waiter could set glasses of milk in front of the children. "You wouldn't like to sleep on the ground with only a blanket for a bed, would you?"

"'Deed I would!" declared Teddy. "I wish I had——"

Just then the train went around a curve, and, as it was traveling very fast, the milk which Teddy was raising to his mouth slopped and spilled down in his lap.

"Oh, Teddy!" cried his mother.

"I—I couldn't help it!" he exclaimed, as he wiped up as much of the milk as he could on a napkin with which the waiter hastened to him.

"No, we know it was the train," said Daddy Martin. "It wouldn't have happened if you had been traveling on ponyback, and had stopped to camp out for the night before you got your supper; would it, Ted?" he asked with a smile.

"No," said the little boy. "I wish we could camp out and hunt Indians!"

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed his mother. "Don't get such foolish notions in your head. Anyway there aren't any Indians to hunt on Uncle Frank's ranch, are there, Dick?" she asked her husband.

"Well, no, I guess not," he answered slowly. "There are some Indians on their own ranch, or government reservation, not far from where Uncle Frank has his horses and cattle, but I guess the Redmen never bother anyone."

"Can we go to see 'em?" asked Teddy.

"I guess so," said Mr. Martin.

"Me go, too! Me like engines," murmured Trouble, who had also spilled a little milk on himself.

"He thinks we're talking about engines—the kind that pull this train!" laughed Ted. "I don't believe he ever saw a real Indian."

"No, Indians do not walk the streets of Cresco," said Mrs. Martin. "But finish your suppers, children. Others are waiting to use the table and we must not keep them too long."

There were many travelers going West—not all as far as the Curlytops though—and as there was not room in the dining-car for all of them to sit down at once they had to take turns. That is why the waiter made one, two, and sometimes three calls for each meal, as he went through the different coaches.

Supper over, the Martins went back to their place in the coach in which they had ridden all day. They would soon go into the beds, or berths, as they are called, to sleep all night. In the morning they would be several hundred miles nearer Uncle Frank's ranch.

The electric lights were turned on, and then, for a while, Jan, Ted and the others sat and talked.

They talked about the fun they had had when at Cherry Farm, of the good times camping with grandpa and how they were snowed in, when they wondered what had become of the strange lame boy who had called at Mr. Martin's store one day.

"I wish Hal Chester could come out West with us," said Teddy, as the porter came to tell them he would soon make up their beds. "He'd like to hunt Indians with me."

Hal was a boy who had been cured of lameness at a Home for Crippled Children, not far from Cherry Farm.

"I suppose you'll dream of Indians," said Teddy's mother to him. "You've talked about them all day. But get ready for bed, now. Traveling is tiresome for little folks."

Indeed after the first day Ted and Janet found it so. They wished, more than once, that they could get out and run about, but they could not except when the train stopped longer than usual in some big city. Then their father would take them to the platform for a little run up and down.

True they could walk up and down the aisle of the car, but this was not much fun, as the coach swayed so they were tossed against the sides of the seats and bruised.

"I'll be glad when we get to Uncle Frank's ranch," said Janet as she crawled into the berth above her mother, who slept with Trouble.

"So'll I," agreed Teddy, who climbed up the funny little ladder to go to bed in the berth above his father. "I want a pony ride!"

On through the night rumbled and roared the train, the whistle sounding mournfully in the darkness as the engineer blew it at the crossings.

Ted and Janet were sleeping soundly, Janet dreaming she had a new doll, dressed like an Indian papoose, or baby, while Ted dreamed he was on a wild pony that wanted to roll over and over instead of galloping straight on.

Suddenly there was a loud crash that sounded through the whole train. The engine whistled shrilly and then came a jar that shook up everyone. Teddy found himself rolling out of his berth and he grabbed the curtains just in time to save himself.

"Oh, Daddy!" he cried, "what's the matter?"

"What is it?" called Jan from her berth, while women in the coach were screaming and men were calling to one another.