And, with that, over the hill came racing about ten laughing, shouting and cheering men, each one waving his hat in one hand while the other held aloft something black, and from this black thing came spurts of smoke and banging noises.
"There are the cowboys! There are the cowboys! I'm going to be one of them!" cried Bert.
"Yes, there are the cowboys sure enough!" said Mr. Bobbsey.
"Will they shoot us?" asked Flossie.
"No they won't shoot anybody!" said the driver with a laugh. "They only keep their revolvers—guns they call 'em—to drive the wolves away from the cattle. This is only their way of having fun. They'll soon stop."
"Oh, what fun to be a cowboy and shoot a pistol!" cried Bert, as he saw the prancing horses. "I'm going to be one."
"You'll have to grow up a little bigger," said Dick Weston; "though you're pretty good-sized now."
The Bobbsey twins and the Bobbsey grown-ups watched the cowboys as they rode up on their "ponies", as the horses were called.
"Hi, there!" called the leading cowboy. "Are the Bobbsey twins there in that outfit, Dick?"
"That's what!" answered the driver. "The Bobbsey twins are here! I've got all four of 'em!"