Cordelia showed a distinctly shocked face.
"Oh, no, sir!" she cried.
"Don't think you could learn to swing the rope—eh?" he teased.
"Mercy, no!"
A half-proud, wholly-gratified smile crossed the man's face.
"It isn't as easy as it looks to be," he said. "Once in a while we get a tenderfoot out here, though, who thinks he's going to learn it all in a minute—or, rather, do it without any learning. But to be a good roper, one has to give it long, hard practice. The best of 'em begin young. Reddy, the crack roper in my outfit, tells me he began with his mother's clothes-line at the age of four years, with his rocking-horse for a victim. It seems there was a picture in one of his books of a cowboy roping a pony, and—"
Mr. Hartley stopped, as if listening. From the rear of the house had sounded the creak of the windmill crank. The man turned, entered the hall, and crossed to the window. Then he shook his head with a smile.
"I'm afraid Genevieve is up to her old tricks," he said. "She's stopping the windmill so she can climb to the top of the tower, I reckon."
"Genevieve!—at the top of that tower!" exclaimed Cordelia.
Mr. Hartley's lips twitched.