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, with a shake of her curly head. "And
what's a soft-foot, Uncle Frank?"

"A soft-foot? Oh, ho! I see!" he laughed. "You mean a tenderfoot!
Well, that's what the Western cowboys call anybody from the East--
where you came from. It means, I guess, that their feet are tender
because they walk so much and don't ride a horse the way cowboys do.
You see out here we folks hardly ever walk. If we've only got what
you might call a block to go we hop on a horse and ride. So we get
out of the way of walking.

"Now you Eastern folk walk a good bit--that is when you aren't
riding in street cars and in your automobiles, and I suppose that's
why the cowboys call you tender-feet. You don't mind, though, do you,
Teddy?"

"Nope," he said. "I like it. But I'm going to learn to ride a pony."