Horse Named Dragon by Gertrude Chandler Warner Page A

Benny.
    Henry picked up the phone and called the number for Edie’s Bead Shop. A woman answered.
    “I’m calling from the Dare to Dream Rescue Ranch,” Henry told her. “Polky-Dots is safe and happy.” The children heard the woman laughing and crying. “Polky-Dots must have wandered away from your place,” Henry explained. “Then someone rescued him and sent him here.” Henry listened for a few minutes. His smile disappeared.
    “What’s wrong?” asked Jessie, as he hung up the phone.
    Henry looked troubled. “The woman said Lots-o’-Dots didn’t walk away. She said someone broke into her barn and stole him last month.”
    Jessie pointed to the address on the screen. “Edie’s Bead Shop is in Wyoming,” she said.

    “And Benny said the truck that brought Honey and Bunny back had Wyoming license plates.”
    “Was that truck pulling a small silver trailer with dinosaur stickers on it?” Henry asked.
    Benny’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know?”
    Henry explained, “Because the thieves also stole the bead store owner’s trailer. She said her little boy liked to decorate the trailer with dinosaur stickers.”
    Benny gulped. He’d been face to face with a horse thief and didn’t even know it! He thought about the red-haired man with the backward baseball cap. “But the man wasn’t stealing Honey and Bunny,” said Benny. “He was bringing them back.”
    Henry paced the small office. Walking back and forth helped him think better. “Maybe,” he said, “he wanted to throw us off the trail. Maybe he really wanted to steal Dragon. If we thought Honey and Bunny just walked away, we would think Dragon walked away, too.”
    Jessie looked at the computer picture of Lots-o’-Dots. “Why would someone bring a stolen horse here to the ranch?”
    Henry paced faster and faster. “What if the thief didn’t bring Lots-o’-Dots here to stay? What if he’s hiding him here until he can sell him?”
    “Sell!” cried Violet. “Oh, Jessie, remember when we were taking pictures of horses in the west pasture and the man in the striped shirt tried to stop us? And an envelope full of money fell out of his pocket.”
    Henry stopped pacing. “What if the thief brought Lots-o’-Dots and other horses here to hide them until he can sell them? What better place to hide a horse than on a horse ranch?”
    “Cookie said the west pasture hadn’t been used in years, “Jessie said. “Until Slim decided to use it for his rescue horses.”
    “Maybe the rescue horses need to be rescued,” said Benny.
    “Let’s ride out there and take a look,” said Henry. “Let’s see what horses are out in the old barn.”
    Violet looked unsure. “Shouldn’t we wait for Cookie?”
    “She might not be back for hours,” said Jessie. “What if stolen horses are in the old barn? What if Dragon is out there? The thieves could take him away by the time Cookie comes home. We have to go right now!”
    They went to saddle their horses but Lots-o’-Dots was not in the corral. “Maybe he’s in the pasture,” Henry said. “We don’t have time to look for him now.” Henry quickly saddled another little horse for Benny.
    The four children rode out across the ranch. They saw many horses grazing in the pastures. But Lots-o’-Dots wasn’t among them.
    Far off, in the west pasture, a long silver truck stood near the old barn. “I saw that truck before,” Benny said. “It has holes in the side so the cows can breathe.”
    “It’s a horse trailer, too,” said Henry.
    “It could be bringing in new rescue horses,” said Violet.
    “Or stolen ones,” said Henry.
    The children rode their horses through a field of tall hay toward the trailer. The truck’s back gate was down. But, instead of taking horses off, the man in the striped shirt was loading a white horse onto the truck.
    “I saw Slim riding that horse,” said Benny. “Slim says he’s a good rider. But he holds onto the saddle horn with both hands.”
    The man in