In various ways during the next day or two Sammy and his chums tried to live up to their rather misty ideas of cowboys and ranch life.
Frank had heard that the legs of most cowboys were slightly bowed because they were so much in the saddle, and he began to turn his toes in until his family remonstrated.
"What's the matter with you, Frank?" asked his brother George. "You're waddling like a duck."
His mother's comment was less brusque but went right to the point.
"Now look here, Frank," she said. "I've taught you to walk straight and turn out your toes. But I declare to goodness, this last day or two you're actually walking bandy-legged. Now stop that or I'll get you a pair of braces."
And Frank, with an inward sigh at the extremely practical and unromantic views of his family, was forced to yield.
Sammy's folks, too, were not without troubles of their own. Somebody had told Sammy that trappers and hunters had wrinkles under their eyes from constantly straining their sight and looking off into distant spaces, and Sammy right away began to develop quite a squint.
"Stop drawing your eyes together that way, Sammy," commanded his observant mother, "or I'll have Dr. Wilson up here to take a look at you. It looks to me for all the world as though you were getting a case of St. Vitus' dance."
As for Bob he had gone no further than to get hold of the kitchen carving knife as often as he could without detection, and practise hurling it at the back yard fence. About one time out of ten he was able to make it stick, and he was in high feather over his progress until the knife went over the fence, nearly slicing the ear off the neighbor's cat.