"It sure is," agreed Cowboy Jack, still striding up the hill. "What is the difference between a flea and a leopard? It beats me!"
"Why," said the little boy, panting, "it's because--because a leopard can't change its spots, but a flea can. You see, the flea is very lively and jumps around a whole lot----"
"We--ell, that's the answer. Somebody told it to me. A leopard just _can't_ change its spots--so there."
"I think that's silly," declared Vi impatiently. "And I want to know what has become of Mun Bun."
They all wanted to know that. They were too much worried about the littlest Bunker to laugh at Laddie's riddle. They went up to the fence and crept through an opening where the tumble-weeds had not piled up in great heaps as they had in many places along its length. The wind was still blowing in fitful gusts, and Laddie and Margy and Vi took hold of hands when they stood up in the field.
"Now, where can that boy be?" demanded Cowboy Jack in his big voice, staring all about again. "If he followed you children down this way----"
Russ joined his voice to hers, and they continued to call as they wandered about the brush clumps and the piles of dry weeds.
But no Mun Bun appeared! The ranchman looked very grave. Russ and Rose really became frightened. How could they go back to Mother Bunker and tell her that her little boy was lost on this great ranch?
Then Cowboy Jack began to shout Mun Bun's name. And how he could shout!
"Ye--ye--yip!" he shouted. "You--ee! Ye--ye--yip! Mun Bun! Mun Bun!"
Rose shut her ears tight with her fingers.
"My goodness!" she whispered to Russ, "Mun Bun _must_ hear that--or else he has gone a very long way off."
But Mun Bun was not a long way off. He was quite near. And after Cowboy Jack had shouted a second time all the other Bunkers, and the ranchman himself, heard a small voice respond--Mun Bun's voice.
"Here I is!" said the small voice. "I'm here--_here_!"
"I'd like to know where 'here' is," cried Cowboy Jack in his great voice. "If Mun Bun's up in the air I don't see his aeroplane; and if he's dug himself in like a prairie dog I don't see the mouth of his hole. And to be sure he isn't in this field----"
"Oh, yes, he is!" exclaimed Russ Bunker, suddenly diving for a great heap of tumble-weed against the wire fence. "Anyway, here is his voice, Mr. Cowboy Jack."