"There she goes talking about lions again," murmured Bess. "I feel as though I were on the African veldt."
"Let's all learn how to use firearms," said Nan eagerly. "Why shouldn't we?"
"Why, Nan Sherwood! you have the instincts of a desperado," declared her chum. "I can see that."
"I want to do just as the Western girls do while I am here," said
Nan.
"So I, I presume," Rhoda queried, "should wish to do just as the
Eastern girls do when I am at Lakeview?"
"Well, you'd get along better," Nan argued, quite seriously.
Out of sight of the ranch house they very quickly found themselves in what seemed to the visitors a pathless plain. Off to the left a huge herd of red and white cattle was feeding. It was broken up into little groups and the creatures looked no more harmful than cows back home. There was not a herdsman in sight.
"Why," said Bess, "I expected to see cowboys riding around and around the cattle all the time, and hear them singing songs."
"They do do that at night. The riding, anyway. And most of the boys try to sing. It takes up time and keeps 'em from being lonely," replied Rhoda. "But I am not sure that the cows are fond of the singing. They are patient creatures, however, and endure a good deal."
"Now, Rhoda!" exclaimed Nan, "don't squash all our beliefs about the cowpunching industry which we have learned from nursery books and movies."