The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch Part 11

"Real bullets? Bless your heart, no!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "Of course the cowboys sometimes have real bullets in their 'guns,' as they call their revolvers, but they don't shoot 'em for fun."

"What makes them shoot?" asked Janet.

"Well, sometimes it's to scare away bad men who might try to steal my cattle or horses, and again it's to scare the cattle themselves. You see," explained Uncle Frank, while the cowboys jumped from their horses and went to the bunk house to wash and get ready for supper, "a ranch is just like a big pasture that your Grandfather Martin has at Cherry Farm.

Only my ranch is ever so much bigger than his pastures, even all of them put together. And there are very few fences around any of my fields, so the cattle or horses might easily stray off, or be taken.

"Because of that I have to hire men--cowboys they are called--to watch my cattle and horses, to see that they do not run away and that no white men or Indians come and run away with them.

"But sometimes the cattle take it into their heads to run away themselves. They get frightened--'stampeded' we call it--and they don't care which way they run. Sometimes a prairie fire will make them run and again it may be bad men--thieves. The cowboys have to stop the cattle from running away, and they do it by firing revolvers in front of them.

So it wouldn't do to have real bullets in their guns when the cowboys are firing that way. They use blank cartridges, just as they did now to salute you when they came in."

"Is that what they did?" asked Teddy. "Saluted us?"

"That's it. They just thought they'd have a little fun with you--see if they could scare you, maybe, because you're what they call a 'tenderfoot,' Teddy."

"Pooh, I wasn't afraid!" declared Teddy, perhaps forgetting a little. "I liked it. It was like the Fourth of July!"

"I didn't like it," said Janet, with a shake of her curly head. "And what's a soft-foot, Uncle Frank?"

"A soft-foot? Oh, ho! I see!" he laughed. "You mean a tenderfoot! Well, that's what the Western cowboys call anybody from the East--where you came from. It means, I guess, that their feet are tender because they walk so much and don't ride a horse the way cowboys do. You see out here we folks hardly ever walk. If we've only got what you might call a block to go we hop on a horse and ride. So we get out of the way of walking.

"Now you Eastern folk walk a good bit--that is when you aren't riding in street cars and in your automobiles, and I suppose that's why the cowboys call you tenderfeet. You don't mind, though, do you, Teddy?"

"Nope," he said. "I like it. But I'm going to learn to ride a pony."

"So'm I!" exclaimed Janet.

"I wants a wide, too!" cried Trouble. "Can't I wide, Uncle Frank? We hasn't got Nicknack, but maybe you got a goat," and he looked up at his father's uncle.

"No, I haven't a goat," laughed Uncle Frank, "though there might be some sheep on some of the ranches here. But I guess ponies will suit you children better. When you Curlytops learn to ride you can take Trouble up on the saddle with you and give him a ride. He's too small to ride by himself yet."

"I should say he was, Uncle Frank!" cried Mrs. Martin. "Don't let _him_ get on a horse!"

"I won't," promised Mr. Barton with a laugh. But Trouble said:

"I likes a pony! I wants a wide, Muzzer!"

"You may ride with me when I learn," promised Janet.

"Dat nice," responded William.

Uncle Frank's wife, whom everyone called Aunt Millie, came out of the ranch house and welcomed the Curlytops and the others. She had not seen them for a number of years.

"My, how big the children are!" she cried as she looked at Janet and Teddy. "And here's one I've never seen," she went on, as she caught Trouble up in her arms and kissed him.

"Now come right in. Hop Sing has supper ready for you."

"Hop Sing!" laughed Mother Martin. "That sounds like a new record on the phonograph."

"It's the name of our Chinese cook," explained Aunt Millie, "and a very good one he is, too!"

"Are the cowboys coming in to eat with us?" asked Teddy, as they all went into the house, where the baggage had been carried by Uncle Frank and Daddy Martin.

"Oh, no. They eat by themselves in their own building. Not that we wouldn't have them, for they're nice boys, all of them, but they'd rather be by themselves."

"Do any Indians come in?" asked Janet, looking toward the door.

"Bless your heart, no!" exclaimed Aunt Millie. "We wouldn't want them, for they're dirty and not at all nice, though some of them do look like pictures when they wrap themselves around in a red blanket and stick feathers in their hair. We don't want any Indians. Now tell me about your trip."

"We were in a collision!" cried Janet.

"In the middle of the night," added Teddy.

"An' I mos' fell out of my bed!" put in Trouble.

Then, amid laughter, the story of the trip from the East was told.

Meanwhile Hop Sing, the Chinese cook, cried out in his funny, squeaky voice that supper was getting cold.

"Well, we'll eat first and talk afterward," said Uncle Frank, as he led the way to the table. "Come on, folks. I expect you all have good appet.i.tes. That's what we're noted for at Ring Rosy Ranch."

"What's that?" asked Aunt Millie. "Have you given Circle O a new name?"

"One of the Curlytops did," chuckled Uncle Frank. "They said my branding sign looked just like a ring-round-the-rosy, so I'm going to call the ranch that after this."

"It's a nice name," said Aunt Millie. "And now let me see you Curlytops--and Trouble, too--though his hair isn't frizzy like Ted's and Janet's--let me see you eat until you get as fat as a Ring Rosy yourselves. If you don't eat as much as you can of everything, Hop Sing will feel as though he was not a good cook."

The Curlytops were hungry enough to eat without having to be told to, and Hop Sing, looking into the dining-room now and then from where he was busy in the kitchen, smiled and nodded his head as he said to the maid:

"Lil' chillens eat velly good!"

"Indeed they do eat very good," said the maid, as she carried in more of the food which Hop Sing knew so well how to cook.

After supper the Curlytops and the others sat out on the broad porch of the ranch house. Off to one side were the other buildings, some where the farming tools were kept, for Uncle Frank raised some grain as well as cattle, and some where the cowboys lived, as well as others where they stabled their horses.

"I know what let's do," said Jan, when she and her brother had sat on the porch for some time, listening to the talk of the older folks, and feeling very happy that they were at Uncle Frank's ranch, where, they felt sure, they could have such good times.

"What can we do?" asked Teddy. Very often he let Jan plan some fun, and I might say that she got into trouble doing this as many times as her brother did. Jan was a regular boy, in some things. But then I suppose any girl is who has two nice brothers, even if one is little enough to be called "Baby."

"Let's go and take a walk," suggested Jan. "My legs feel funny yet from ridin' in the cars so much."

"Ri-_ding!_" yelled Teddy gleefully. "That's the time you forgot your g, Janet."

"Yes, I did," admitted the little girl. "But there's so much to look at here that it's easy to forget. My forgetter works easier than yours does, Ted."

"It does not!"

"It does, too!"

"It does not!"