ed out, it was just the right thing to do--all
that was necessary." After a moment's silence he felt he had not said
quite enough. "You did first-class," he added. "The fact is, nobody
could have done better."

Janet recovered her cheerfulness at once. She resumed her story of the
day, and then, as she got around to the subject of the lamb again, she
went into the shack and brought him out. Having been assured that he
was looking well and was likely to recover, she sat down at her place
again with the lamb in her lap. He lay there contentedly while she
finished her supper.

"Yes," said Steve in answer to another of her questions, "lambs are
kind of cute. Sometimes I feel bad for a lamb myself when his mother
won't have anything to do with him. You ought to be out here later on,
Miss Janet, when the lambs have all been born and are starting to get
frisky. That's when the fun begins."

"I have heard that lambs play together like children," she said.

"Oh, they do. You see they've got to learn jumping, too. And
climbing--like a goat. That first lamb will soon be so lively that
plain running won't be good enough for him. He 'll want to do fancy
tricks."

"Nature teaches them to play," observed Janet. "That's to give them
practice and make them strong."

"I should say she did," said Steve, referring thus familiarly to
Nature. "She puts all sorts of notions into their heads."

"What do they do, for instance, Mr. Brown?"

"Well, for one thing, a lamb likes to practice jumping. You see, sheep
don't belong on prairies, like cattle. Cattle belong on prairies the
same as buffalo, but sheep don't; they belong on mountains; that's the
reason the young ones are so handy with their hoofs. They like to
climb and jump, but on a prairie there is n't any place to jump off of.
Well, maybe some day a lamb will be galloping and cavorting around, and
he 'll come across a hunk of rock salt that has been all licked off
smooth on top and hollowed out. He 'll take a running jump at that and
land on it with all four hoofs in one spot and then he'll take a leap
off the top. Then, when he sees what a good circus actor he is, he
will gallop right around and do it over again; and the rest of his gang
will start in and follow him, because what one sheep does the rest have
got to do. That way they get to running in a circle round and round
and taking turns at jumping."

"How perfectly funny!" exclaimed Janet.

"That's t