Caddie Woodlawn's Family by Carol Ryrie Brink Read Free Book Online Page A

water, drove him even more frantic. In the excitement Caddie lost the strap from his neck, and could keep hold of him only by sinking her fingers deep in his wool. She did not let him get away, but, although the two of them were firmly attached, it became more and more apparent that Bouncer and not Caddie was in control.
    Seeing that all other avenues of escape were closed,Bouncer finally took to the river with Caddie still hanging on for dear life. But he did not come docilely to land, on the sand bar, and into the pen as the other sheep were doing. He suddenly struck out into midstream, swimming strongly, and Caddie—alas!—went with him.
    Above the sound of rushing water she heard Father’s voice crying out, “Hold on to him! Hold on to him! I’m coming.”
    My goodness! She couldn’t have let go of him now if she had tried. Away they went, headed directly for the opposite bank of the river.
    The canoe was drawn up near the sand bar in case of emergency, and in a moment Father and the boys were in it and paddling up into the current as fast as they could after Caddie and Bouncer. But Bouncer reached shore before they did and, when they came up, they saw that Caddie had flung herself on top of her sheep and was desperately preventing him from running off into the woods.
    Dripping with water and red in the face from her exertions, she nevertheless shouted triumphantly at Father, “I handled him, Father! I handled him. I guess I can handle anything!”
    When Father had secured Bouncer firmly with his own strap, he began to laugh.
    “Yes, you handled him,” he said. “But if you don’t get to the house now, and into some dry clothes, I can tell you that your mother will handle
me
and not too gently either.”
    “Oh, Father, Father!” wailed Caddie. “You aren’t going to make me stop washing sheep?”
    “Well, child, you come back in half an hour in dryclothes, and maybe I’ll give you some gentle old ewes to wash,” Father said, still laughing mightily.
    He put Caddie into the canoe to paddle, and got in after her with a subdued sheep held firmly in his arms. The boys shoved them off.
    “I’ll send Robert back after you in a few minutes, lads,” Father called to them as the canoe took off for the scene of the sheep washing.
    “Don’t hurry,” Tom replied. “We’ll go see who was shooting.”
    “The shooting’s stopped now, Tom,” said Warren. “1 haven’t heard one for a long time.”
    Nevertheless they struck into the woods beyond the river-bank, with their eyes and ears alert for signs of the hunters.
    “I think, like Robert,” said Tom, “this is a bad time of year to hunt. It’s the time of year for mothers and young things that didn’t ought to be killed.”
    “One of those back-East fellows, maybe,” said Warren, “who don’t know how to carry on with a gun in the West.”
    They went on for a short distance in silence until they came to a small mossy opening under the trees. There were Mayflowers and blood root in blossom among the mosses and last year’s leaves; and fronds of fern, like little rearing heads, were beginning to uncurl. In the midst of all this gentleness and beauty lay the carcass of a newly killed deer.
    “He’s stripped off the haunches for meat and left the rest of the carcass to waste,” said Tom angrily.
    “I guess he took the antlers, too,” said Warren. “I don’t see ’em.”
    Tom went around to the animal’s head.
    “No,” he said. “It never had any antlers; it’s a doe. Warren, I bet she had a fawn! At this time of year every doe has got a little one. Oh, golly, what a rotten thing to do!”
    Softly they went through the underbrush looking for the fawn. Its white spots on brown were like the small white flowers on the brown leaves. Tom looked at it for almost a minute before he really saw it. It was lying very quiet there where its mother had left it, and keeping very still as she had taught it to keep.
    Tom knelt beside it and his hands