This is a story about a cowboy called Luke.
He had horse called Ben, and a friend called Wilder.
Luke lived on a farm in Texas U.S.A.
He really loved his horse because Ben was helpful, grateful, happy and playful.
They were a good team.

One day after a long day’s work, Luke put Ben in the stable. He fed him some fresh hay.
Luke forgot to lock the stable because he was tired from doing his chores.
During the night Luke heard an engine, but he was too sleepy to get up.

In the morning he woke up to go and get Ben.
He didn’t find Ben in his stable.
Luke was a little bit worried.
He went out onto the ranch to see if Ben had escaped and gone to eat some grass.
But Ben was not anywhere to be found.

Thèn Luke thought that the engine he had heard in the night might have been someone taking Ben away.
He told Wilder the bad news.
“Are you sure?” asked Wilder.
“Yes, I checked everywhere,” said Luke.
They decided to call the police.

“We are so busy, we can’t help you, sorry,” said the police.
“We’ll do it ourselves then,” said Luke and Wilder.
They started looking for clues.
They found hoof prints that led to the road.
They also saw some faint tyre tracks in the sand.

They followed the tracks but they faded away too quickly.
So they went home and made delicious cookies.
They took these cookies to the people in every ranch house to see if they could find any more horse hoof prints that might be Ben's.

At the second last ranch, they saw many faint hoof prints. Luke and Wilder were not sure whose they were.
They knew there was a little mark on Ben’s front left shoe.
They saw this mark there in the hoof prints in the sand.
Ben was there!

There was a lot of protection on this ranch, so they went home to think of a plan to get Ben back.
They decided to drop apples at midnight by the stable on the ranch where Ben was. This was to lure Ben home when he went out to graze.

Two days later, when everything was ready, they went at midnight to the ranch.
They started their plan.
At grazing time the next day, Ben followed the apples without the thieves noticing.
He followed them all the way back to Luke’s ranch.

Luke and Wilder saw Ben coming towards them.
They were so happy to see him back home, and Ben was happy to be back home too.
The mystery of the stolen horse was solved!