there_?" gasped Sue, as
one or two of her friends tucked up their skirts and started to mount
the fence.

"Sure. Reserved seats at the top," laughed Mrs. Edwards, likewise
mounting the barrier.

"Why! I am afraid I could never do it," murmured the Boston girl.

"You'll miss a lot of fun, then," declared one of the Amarillo girls,
callously. They were all getting a little tired of Sue Latrop and her
pose.

Finding herself the only one on the ground, Sue scrambled up very
clumsily and just in time to see Fatty rope the first pony out of the
bunch that was now racing around and around the corral.

This was a black and white rascal with a high head and rolling eye, that
looked as though he had never been bridled in his life. But it was only
that he had been some months on the range, and freedom had gone to his
head.

Fatty lay back on the lariat and dug his high heels into the sod. When
the pony felt the noose he leaped into it, it tightened around his neck,
and the creature came to the ground, kicking and squealing.

"By hicketty!" yelled Purchase. "Ain't lil' old Fatty good for suthin'?
Yuh could suah use him tuh tie a steamboat tuh--what!"

For all the fun the other punchers made of Fatty Obendorf, he had his
selection out of the herd blindfolded, bridled, and saddled, before any
other pony was noosed.

"Good for you, Fatty!" cried Frances, who was perched on the corral
fence with the other girls. "And that's a good horse, too; only you want
to 'ware heels. I remember that he's a kicker."

"Oh! Fatty don't keer if his fust name's Kickapoo," jeered Fred.

The black and white pony gave Obendorf all the work he wanted for some
minutes, however, and afforded the spectators much excitement. He wasn't
a bucking bronco, but he showed plainly his dislike for human
management. Spur and bit and quirt, however, was a combination that the
pony was quickly forced to give in to.

Fred himself straddled a speckled, ugly-looking animal, and put it
through its paces in short order. It was a spectacular exhibition; but
some of the other punchers laughed uproariously.

"What's the matter with you fellers, anyway?" demanded Fred,
complainingly. "Ain't you a-gwine to accord me no praise? Don't I look
as purty on hawseback as that fat chunk does?" he added, referring to
Obendorf.

"You know very well," called Frances, from the seat of judgment, "that I
drove that speckled pony to my little jumpcart two years ago. That's
Chi