the cowboys, when they learned, had to do that the foreman said.

"Well, what are you going to do now?" Teddy's father asked the
little boy one day, as he started out from the house with a small
coil of rope on one arm, as he had seen the cowboys carry their
lariats. "What are you going to do, Ted?"

"Oh, I'm going to lasso some more," was the answer.

"Why don't you try something else besides a post?" asked one of
Uncle Frank's men, as he, too, noticed Teddy. "Throwing a rope over a
post is all right to start, but if you want to be a real cowboy
you'll have to learn to lasso something that's running on its four
legs. That's what most of our lassoing is--roping ponies or steers,
and they don't very often stand still for you, the way the post does."

"Yes," agreed Ted, "I guess so. I'll learn to lasso something that
runs."

His father paid little more attention to the boy, except to notice
that he went out into the yard, where he was seen, for a time,
tossing the coils of rope over the post. Then Jan came along, and, as
soon as he saw her, Teddy asked:

"Jan, will you do something for me?"

"What?" she inquired, not being too ready to make any promises.
Sometimes Teddy got her to say she would do things, and then, when he
had her promise, he would tell her something she did not at all want
to do. So Jan had learned to be careful.