"Now's our chance!" whispered Mr. Bobbsey, as if the ram could understand what was said. "Get a rope and we can tie him up."
"I'll get one," offered the hired man, and when he came back with the clothes line Uncle Daniel made a loop in one end, such as the cowboys on the Western plains make when they lasso cattle.
And while the ram was busy licking up the salt, Uncle Daniel tossed the noose of the rope around the sheep's head, and, in another second, he and Mr. Bobbsey pulled it tight.
"Oh, they've caught him! They've caught him!" cried Nan, who stood near Flossie at the window.
"Come on out and look at him!" said Bert.
"No, no!" objected his mother, as the two boy cousins started from the room.
"Oh, I guess there's no danger now, if they have a rope on him," said
Aunt Sarah.
"I'll go 'long with you," offered Freddie, "and I'd squirt water on that ram from my fire engine—if I had it unpacked."
"You stay right here with me," advised his mother, putting her arms around him.
Bert and Harry went out to look at the captured ram. The animal was not ugly now. Perhaps the salt made him good-natured. And he was soon led away, and tied up in a stable until his pasture fence could be mended.