Besides the cactus, another form of vegetation which began to attract more and more of Ollie’s attention was the red tumbleweed.  Indeed, Jack and I found ourselves interested in it also.  The ordinary tumbleweed, green when growing and gray when tumbling, had long been familiar to us, but the red variety was new.  The old kind which we knew seldom grew more than two feet in diameter; it was usually almost exactly round, and with its finely branched limbs was almost as solid as a big sponge, and when its short stem broke off at the top of the ground in the fall it would go bounding away across the prairie for miles.  The red sort seemed to be much the same, except for its color and size.  We saw many six or seven feet, perhaps more, in diameter, though they were rather flat, and not probably over three or four feet high.

The first one we saw was on edge, and going at a great rate across the prairie, bounding high into the air, and acting as if it had quite gone crazy, as there was a strong wind blowing.

“Look at that overgrown red tumbleweed!” exclaimed Jack.  “I never saw anything like that before.  Jump on the pony, Ollie, and catch the varmint and bring it back here!”

Ollie was willing enough to do this, and the pony was willing enough to go, so off they went.  I think if the weed had had a fair field that Ollie would never have overtaken it, but it got caught in the long grass occasionally, and he soon came up to it.  But the pony was not used to tumbleweed-coursing, and shied off with a startled snort.  Ollie brought her about and made another attempt.  But again the frightened pony ran around it.  Half a dozen times this was repeated.  At last she happened to dash around it on the wrong side just as it bounded into the air before the wind.  It struck both horse and rider like a big dry-land wave, and Ollie seized it.  If the poor pony had been frightened before, she was now terror-stricken, and gave a jump like a tiger, and shot away faster than we had ever seen her run before.  Ollie had lost control of her, and could only cling to the saddle with one hand and hold to the big blundering weed with the other.  Fortunately the pony ran toward the wagon.  As they came up we could see little but tumbleweed and pony legs, and it looked like nothing so much as a hay-stack running away on its own legs.  When the pony came up to the wagon she stopped so suddenly that Ollie went over her head.  But he still clung to the weed, and struck the ground inside of it.  He jumped up, still in the weed, so that it now looked like a hay-stack on two legs.  We pulled him out of it, and found him none the worse for his adventure.  But he was a little frightened, and said: 

[Illustration:  Studying Botany]

“I don’t think I’ll chase those things again, Uncle Jack—­not with that pony.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Ollie,” said Jack.  “I’m going to organize the Nebraska Cross-Country Tumbleweed Club, and you’ll want to come to the meets.  We’ll give the weed one minute start, and the first man that catches it will get a prize of—­of a watermelon, for instance.”