horseback. "Gid-dap! I lasso a rooster, I did!"

"Yes, and you'll kill the poor thing if you're not careful," panted
Aunt Millie, as she raced after the little fellow and caught him.
Then she gently pulled the rooster to her by means of the rope, and
took it off the fowl's neck.

The rooster was bedraggled from having been dragged through the dust
and the dirt, and it was so dizzy from having been whirled around by
Trouble that it could hardly stand up.

Aunt Millie smoothed out its feathers and got it some water. The
rooster drank a little and seemed to feel better. Then it ran off to
join the other roosters and the cackling hens that had been watching
what Trouble did, doubtless wondering what had gotten into the
lassoed rooster to make it run around the way it did on the end of a
rope. But it was Baby William who made all the trouble.

"You must never do that again," said Mrs. Martin when she came out
of the ranch house and heard what her little boy had done. "That was
very wrong, William, to lasso the poor rooster and drag it about with
a rope around its neck."

"I not do it any more," promised Trouble. "But I want a lasso like
Teddy."

"No, you're not big enough for that," his mother said. "You must
wait until you are a little older. Don't bother the chickens any
more."