Wagon Trail by Bonnie Bryant

can believe it,” Stevie replied. “You know what else I can believe? I can believe that awful yowling is what started the stampede in the first place. That little girl and her stupid teddy bear almost got everyone killed!”
    Suddenly Eileen’s parents appeared. “Eileen!” her father’s voice rang out sternly. “Where have you been? Everyone’s been searching for you!”
    “I’ve been down here looking for Teddy,” Eileen sobbed.
    “Well, you climb back up here right now! We thought you’d been killed in the stampede!”
    The girls watched as Eileen climbed up the riverbank to rejoin her parents. “Thank goodness they found her,” said Lisa. “Otherwise she might have stayedout here yowling and started the stampede all over again.”
    “Oh, I’m going to take a good swim,” said Stevie, “and just wash that little creep out of my system.”
    With long, smooth strokes, Stevie swam upstream, then flipped over and began floating back to Carole and Lisa. She was lazily dangling her hands and arms in the water when she felt something squishy brush against her fingertips.
    “Hey!” she called to her friends. “I just felt something weird. I’m going down to investigate.” She dived and ran her hands along the river bottom. Tangled in some underwater branches was the distinct form of a small stuffed animal. Stevie gave the thing a yank and surfaced with it in her hand. She opened her eyes. Sure enough, it was a dripping, dirty teddy bear.
    “Hey!” she cried again. “Look what I found!”
    “Eileen’s teddy bear!” Carole and Lisa said together.
    Stevie looked at the mangy thing in disgust. “You know, it would serve her right if I just dropped this back in the river and let it float all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”
    “It would,” Carole agreed.
    Stevie dangled the bear over the water, considering her options. She looked at it for a long moment. Then she threw it back onshore.
    “I thought you were going to send Teddy down the river,” Lisa said, surprised.
    “Oh, I probably should,” grumbled Stevie. “But after everything else we’ve done tonight, it just doesn’t seem right.”
    They climbed out of the river and let themselves air-dry in the grass. When they were only slightly damp, they got up, took the now cool ponies back to their corral, then walked back to camp. “Let’s go make our special delivery,” said Stevie, turning toward Eileen’s wagon. “Then let’s go to bed.”
    The girls knocked on the back of the wagon. Eileen’s father stuck his head out around the canvas flap. “Well, hello, girls,” he said, sounding surprised to see them. “Can I help you?”
    “Well, we were swimming in the river and found this.” Stevie held up the bedraggled bear. “I think it must belong to Eileen.”
    “Oh, my goodness!” cried Eileen’s father. “Helen! Come here! Look what these girls have found!”
    Eileen’s mother stuck her head out of the wagon. “Oh,” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. “Eileen’s Teddy! She’ll be so thrilled. Let me wake her up right now so she can thank you herself!”
    “Oh, no, that’s okay,” Stevie said, quickly backing away from the wagon. “Eileen doesn’t need to thank us.Let her keep on sleeping. Seeing her sweet smile again tomorrow will be thanks enough!”
    “Thank you so much, girls,” Eileen’s father said as they all backed away. “You don’t know what this means to us!”
    The girls turned toward their wagon. Most of the campers had gone back to bed, but a few were still up and talking about the events of the night.
    “Here come the heroes!” Mr. Cate called as the girls passed by his wagon. “How does it feel to have saved the camp from certain death?”
    “Actually, it feels pretty tired, Mr. Cate,” Carole yawned.
    Karen Nicely laughed. “Haven’t you heard? We all get a holiday tomorrow! Jeremy said we can all sleep in as late as we want. And anybody who wakes you three up will have to eat dust at