r big
revolvers which made noises like giant firecrackers. The men, some of
whom wore big leather "pants," as Teddy said afterward, and some of whom
had on trousers that seemed to be made from the fleece of sheep, swung
their hats in the air. Some of them even stood up in their saddles,
"just like circus riders!" as Janet sent word to Aunt Jo, who was
spending the summer at Mt. Hope.

"Are they shooting real bullets, Uncle Frank?" asked Teddy, as soon as
the noise died down a little and the cowboys were waving their hats to
the Curlytops and the other visitors to Ring Rosy Ranch.

"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